Friday, April 25, 2014

United Airlines reports 1st quarter loss

United Airlines A320-232 (c/n 1495) N475UA sporting the carriers special 85th anniversary retro livery "Stars & Bars" rolls into gate 12 at John Wayne Orange County Airport (SNA/KSNA) on October 16, 2011.
(Photo by Michael Carter)

United Continental Holdings, parent of United Airlines, reported a first-quarter net loss of $609 million, including $120 million of special charges, deepened from a net loss of $417 million in the 2013 first-quarter. Subtracting special charges, United’s first-quarter net loss was $489 million, compared to first-quarter 2013’s net loss, excluding special charges, of $358 million.

Total revenue was $8.7 billion, down 0.3% year-over-year. First-quarter consolidated passenger revenue decreased 2.3% year-over-year to $7.4 billion on a consolidated capacity reduction of 0.3%.

First-quarter consolidated PRASM fell 2% year-over-year to 12.91 cents. Weather-related cancellations reduced first-quarter consolidated PRASM by 1.5 percentage points.

“The winter storms severely impacted the operations in the first quarter. In total, we canceled 35,000 flights … including 30,000 flights in our regional operations,” United vice chairman and chief revenue officer Jim Compton said. “This number represents two-and-a-half times the cancellations we had in the first quarter of last year. Put another way, this is the equivalent of not flying for seven of the 90 days this past quarter.”

First-quarter operating expenses increased 0.7% year-over-year to $9 billion, resulting in an operating loss for the quarter of $349 million, surpassing by $85 million the operating loss United reported in the year-ago quarter.

United’s first-quarter consolidated traffic decreased 0.3% year-over-year to 46.4 billion RPMs on a 0.3% capacity decrease to 57.2 billion ASMs, producing a passenger load factor of 81.1%, which remained flat compared to the year-ago quarter. Adverse weather conditions during the quarter drove the decreases, United said. Passenger yield fell 2% year-over-year to 15.92 cents.

“Our financial performance in the first quarter was disappointing,” United chairman, president and CEO Jeff Smisek said. “Although the historic winter weather adversely affected our result this quarter, we know we can do better. We are committed to expanding our profits this year and to improving our profitability each year after that.”

In the second quarter, United will launch nonstop service between San Francisco and Chengdu, China, representing “the second phase of United’s Pacific strategy, which focuses on secondary Asian cities.”

(Mark Nensel - ATWOnline News)

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