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"Passenger growth isn't happening at United Airlines. The Chicago-based carrier suffered a sharp 7.1 percent drop in passengers boarded on its mainline operations in April, compared to the same month a year ago.

The carrier's domestic load factor, perhaps reflecting a drop of nearly 5 percent in seat capacity, inched down only 0.7 percent to 85.1 percent from 85.8 percent a year ago. United's (NYSE: UAL) passenger load factor drop internationally was somewhat more pronounced, with a falloff of 1.8 percent to 78.6 percent from 80.4 percent a year ago."

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http://m.bizjournals.com/chicago/news/2013/05/08/united-airlines-sees-falloff-in.html?r=full

Perhaps its my impression but they are willing to reduce the loads somewhat but keep prices high...
Plus since they cut 5% of capacity it's hard to expect total pax growth so the first quote is rather misleading... Load factor is a better indicator...

Some discussions here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/20720475-post35.html

azenapine - makes perfect sense, but it's more fun for Smisek-haters to post more "news" articles than link to the same threads re: loads/PRASM (i.e. 1Q/April 2013 results).

This isn't news to any of us here.

The mere fact that we have a published article with the title: "Are passengers abandoning United Airlines?" ought to be a clue that something is wrong.

I haven't seen an article with the title: "Are passengers abandoning Delta Airlines?"

I haven't seen an article with the title: "Are passengers abandoning Southwest Airlines?"

I haven't seen an article with the title: "Are passengers abandoning American Airlines?" - even as troubled as they've been in the last year.

Are shareholders ever going to wake up and demand change?

Five years ago, I'd agree.

Today, with "anyone' being able to publish any article, commensurate with a lack of journalistic ability to understand and comment on the content of releases, I'm not so sure.

But your point is well-taken - no other airlines are getting as much negative press.

The fact that they are not clamouring for change should ring alarm bells for many of the armchair "experts" here. Looking at it objectively it's hard to see what change they'd be demanding. There isn't much anger on the subject outside of FT :)

This is not a blog entry.

This is Chicago Business Journal.

Author was Lewis Lazare who has published *54 pages* of articles for BizJournals: http://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/b...1/Lewis+Lazare

"The Business Journals is the premier media solutions platform for companies strategically targeting business decision makers. We deliver a total business audience of over 10 million people via our 43 websites, 40 publications and 550 annual industry leading events. Our media products provide comprehensive coverage of business news from a local, regional and national perspective. We have more people, publications and websites covering our nation’s business than any other business media organization."

So, aacharya, it's your position that we should ignore the article because it was published by "anyone" and therefore it has no credibility?

Can you provide some support for your argument that this article lacks credibility?

It rings alarm bells for me, to be sure.

shareholders??? Have you checked ual share price - its up 60% since 3/3/12 and 40% ytd...

I am no expert but I consider the (insert city name here) Business Journals pretty good.

+1

Some credibility is lacking when he doesn't factor in cutting loads/flights to the less passenger approach.

Note I never said this particular article lacked credibility. You can resort to disagreeing with me without trying to put me in a position to defend something I didn't say. I said "just because it's published does not make it necessarily credible" - in general.

But it is not new news to those of us on here. That's my point - isn't this the same discussion we already had in the April 2013 thread?

I am all in favor of good news or bad, but not the same "news" recycled on four different threads because someone else read the press release and needs to spin it one way or the other.

This article was focused on the top 3 CHICAGO airlines and comparing their performances. I think it is somewhat different in that regard.

Now that is a fair point - but for us on FT, is this new news?