Originally Posted by
FWAAA
If Munoz and Kirby are low-key, it's because UA will again show the lowest profits of the US3 and a pre-tax margin of just 2.3%. You don't brag when your results are this bad. March, 2012, was a long five years ago, and UA has yet to recover from the hole dug by Smisek.
I think this is the take away. United did 2.6% better in passenger revenue (to 7.174B), but only did this because their ASM were up 2.6%. RPMs were only up 2.2%, so load factor actually fell slightly.
But their new labor and other costs were up 6.9%, fuel was up 28.1%, and net CASM (cost seat mile) was up 6%.
As a result their GAAP operating income fell from $649M to $278M (the margin fell from 7.9% to 3.3%).
Delta in contrast took at $125M hit to profit from its ATL WX event, but still posted $1053M in operating income (down from $1540M in 1Q 2016).
Delta's ASM was down, and I don't know how much of that is due to its WX melt down, nor how the $125M figure fits in via PRASM/Yield, but the relative PRASM is interesting: United 12 c/mi, which is flat from 1Q 2012, and Delta was at 13.28 c/mi (down .5%).
I am taking United's guidance with more than a little salt. Doubtlessly there will be some pointed questions about how booking is holding up tomorrow, but I doubt that the projections include any impact from last weeks events. This said, these results were slightly better than anticipated, and the market reacts to news, not the relative strenght of United vs. AA/DL, etc which is already somewhat baked into the stock price.