Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, speaking on a third-quarter earnings call, said, “It’s been nice to see recent momentum in business travel.” However, he seemed to focus more on leisure travel, saying that the airline has gotten “a lot more agile at pivoting capacity in the leisure market and not surprisingly [we] have found that our core customers can now fly us in both business and leisure markets as we add seats to leisure destinations.”
The carrier’s top-line revenue grew 12.5% year over year to $14.5 billion in the quarter, making it the strongest third quarter in the company’s history, according to Kirby. He said United and one other airline are expected to account for 98% of the total industry revenue growth this quarter and over 90% of the industry’s total pre-tax profitability.
Kirby also said the carrier continued to advance and improve its segmentation efforts, saying that it can now compete profitably on price on the low end and all the way up to Polaris (business class) on long-haul international routes.
Brett Hart, president, said that next month United will be the first US airline to return to Beijing with a daily flight from San Francisco. He said this “measured approach” to bringing China capacity back online is appropriate as demand slowly recovers. These increased flights, said Hart, “are a significant step forward in rebuilding our Asia Pacific network.”
Andrew Nocella, chief commercial officer, said the carrier plans no material changes to its loyalty program for 2025. He said United has carefully managed its Premier Status population in recent years to maintain a robust and valuable set of benefits for each member. He said the carrier doesn’t want to cause a situation where everyone has Premier Status, “which obviously results in no one receiving an adequate level of Premier benefits.”
Nocella said revenue from basic economy sales in the quarter rose 50% year over year. Overall, 12% of United’s customers flew with a basic economy ticket.
Third-quarter 2023 capacity was up 15.7% year over year. Net income was more than $1.1 billion, up 20.7% from a year prior. The carrier also set a company record for the highest daily average of revenue passengers ever carried in a quarter at more than 482,000.
