United Airlines saw a 15% slip in summer quarter profits as it operated the largest transatlantic schedule to Europe in its history.
Record level schedules ran to popular southern Europe tourist destinations such as Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece as overall capacity increased by 4.1%.
Despite the year-on-year decline in third quarter net profit to $965 from $1.14 billion, the US carrier said it was seeing more strength in corporate, premium and basic economy travel by September – the end of the three month period.
United said: “As the company expected, revenue trends improved as the industry reached an inflection point in the quarter with unprofitable capacity exiting the market.
“Domestic unit revenue was positive year-over-year in August and September. Demand continues to be strong for the United product – corporate revenues were up 13% year-over-year in September.”
Premium revenues in the quarter “continued to remain resilient” and were up 5% over last summer while revenue from basic economy was up 20%.
Quarterly revenue rose 2.5% to almost $15 billion as passenger carryings increased by 2.7% to 45.5 million over the same period last year.
The Chicago-based airline approved up to $1.5 billion to buy back shares.
The share buyback would be United’s first since before Covid. US airlines received more than $50 billion in government aid during the pandemic travel slump that prohibited share repurchases and dividends.
Chief executive Scott Kirby said: “As predicted, unproductive capacity left the market in mid-August, and we saw a clear inflection point in our revenue trends that propelled United to exceed Q3 expectations.
“A prosperous summer 2024 is just the beginning as our improved customer experience positions the airline at the top of the industry for the foreseeable future.”
United last week announced the largest international expansion in the airline’s history, bringing service to eight new Atlantic and Pacific destinations in summer 2025 – Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Faro; Palermo; Bilbao; Madeira; Dakar, Senegal; Nuuk, Greenland and Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
The airline will serve more international destinations across the Atlantic and Pacific than all other US carriers combined with 800 daily flights to and from 147 international destinations, including nearly 40 not served by any other airline from the US.
Chief financial officer Michael Leskinen said: ”In the last four years, we’ve invested $22 billion in our product and nearly $10 billion in our people.
“Those investments have enabled higher profits and are now contributing to growing free cash flow
“We’re now in a position to add a share repurchase programme as we continue to invest in and deleverage our business.”