FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - UA's Viability / Financial Future due to the COVID-19 Era [Consolidated]
Old Sep 9, 2021, 1:43 pm
  #1294  
EWR764
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: New York, NY
Programs: UA, AA, DL, Hertz, Avis, National, Hyatt, Hilton, SPG, Marriott
Posts: 9,472
Nocella offered some relevant analysis during today's Cowen transportation conference (emphasis mine):

Sure. Well, it's great to be here. I clearly would much rather prefer to be in Boston today and that's -- that was the plan. And I also clearly would have preferred a different type of 8-K than the one we issued this morning, because that was the outlook only a few weeks ago. Clearly a lot has changed in a very short period of time. When we had our Q2 earnings call and we talked about our outlook, we felt very certain about that outlook to be clear. And our July performance in fact as we put in the 8-K came in really on plan and we're really pleased by that. And I can assure you that the August outlook at that point in time was to in fact exceed July, and we are really on that pace. But unfortunately just right after the earnings call, the headlines for the Delta variant and what was happening here in the country and around the world really overtook the situation and quickly changed the outlooks, which now I think reflect in the 8-K that United put out this morning and quite frankly what we're seeing around the industry. So we're all disappointed by that.

But that being said, we really saw some really significant lumbers of hope in July and where we were going to be in August. We saw a great response to firm surveys to our business customers that they are ready to get back in the air. But all that's been delayed and it's been delayed by probably three to four months, more likely early next year at this point than not. The crystal balls have been a little bit foggy to say the least as we've gone through this crisis. And we at United had never really wanted to get too far ahead of the reality on the ground and in the air and we think we've done a reasonably good job at that. And the same is true as we look at Q4 now. We're really carefully evaluating our capacity outlook to make sure given where we see demand that we have it in the right spot.

That being said, I will say in terms of hope that the last few day’s bookings as we passed the holiday have been better. So I do feel like the situation is stabilizing. It is not getting any worse. So we feel good about the outlook we just put out as a result of that. And as quickly as things went south maybe is the best way to describe it, we also think things can quickly move right in back in the positive projection. And so we're anxious for that to happen, but we're going to be really careful and plot our recovery to make sure we don't get too far ahead of actual demand.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/445...-annual-global
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