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United Airlines Reports Second-Quarter 2019 Performance & Earnings Call 17 July 2019

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United Airlines Reports Second-Quarter 2019 Performance & Earnings Call 17 July 2019

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Old Jul 16, 2019, 7:28 pm
  #16  
 
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Originally Posted by seat38a
So it seems all the unhappy 1K's who always threaten to move their business to Delta and Alaska on here were just blowing smoke.
Those that moved (and many did) did so years ago. I doubt there's much movement at all now that UA has improved. If anything it's now disgruntled AA fliers switching to UA and DL, with (given the direct competition at ORD) UA getting more.
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Old Jul 16, 2019, 7:42 pm
  #17  
 
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Originally Posted by Kacee
You're just making that up.
You’ll need to be way more specific...

DEN’s UA volume is what fraction of ORD’s? So if DEN is ~10% more profitable per seat but only operates ~70% of ORD’s volume, that’s my point. I’m familiar with what UA has published.

What hole do you mean for ORD? That it is a competitive hub unlike most of the other UA hubs? I’m pretty sure UA is jumping at the bit to add dozens of gates as part of the ORD expansion over the next 7+ years to address organic/logical traffic growth.
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Old Jul 16, 2019, 11:11 pm
  #18  
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Originally Posted by Kacee
Ironically, these results will likely lead to further cuts to the quality of the product and further MP devaluations.

Nice sound bite, but no substance.

DL's results are even better. Follow the AS forum, you'll find plenty of UA refugees. I have 82k EQM on AS so far this year, 79k UA. Four CX TPAC RTs in J; 7 unused GPU.

Huh? DEN is reported to be UA's most profitable hub. ORD is a black hole.
Well duh Delta's numbers are better. They've been beating everyone for what a decade+ now. My point is United's numbers are not hurting because of the outrage from the 1K's on here who sometimes allude or threaten to take their business somewhere else. Well loosing those refugees to Alaska sure didn't hurt United's numbers this quarter. Whats your point about the 7 unused GPU's?
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Old Jul 16, 2019, 11:19 pm
  #19  
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Originally Posted by GUWonder


“Over-entitled elites” of the 1k sort don’t make or break airlines in the current environment.

You didn’t mention American Airlines, an airline worse than UA by so many measures and which has been driving customers toward UA, Delta and even little ole Alaska.
Oh I didn't mention AA because I already know its a basket case. In my view, anyone moving their business to AA because they're upset with United probably has a screw or two loose or they live in Dallas.
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Old Jul 17, 2019, 11:16 am
  #20  
 
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Originally Posted by seat38a
So it seems all the unhappy 1K's who always threaten to move their business to Delta and Alaska on here were just blowing smoke.
Is this message set to auto-repeat every year? :-)
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Old Jul 17, 2019, 11:57 am
  #21  
 
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Originally Posted by seat38a
Well duh Delta's numbers are better. They've been beating everyone for what a decade+ now. My point is United's numbers are not hurting because of the outrage from the 1K's on here who sometimes allude or threaten to take their business somewhere else. Well loosing those refugees to Alaska sure didn't hurt United's numbers this quarter. Whats your point about the 7 unused GPU's?
On what basis are DL's numbers better? Airline economics are based on much more than just PRASM. For example, assuming that everything else is equal, if you have shorter stage lengths, you need a higher PRASM than if you have longer stage length to achieve equal profitability -- because takeoffs and landings are expensive. Note that UA has a much longer average stage length than DL.

For those of you that really want to study things, look at the data assembled here: Airline Data Project
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Old Jul 17, 2019, 12:36 pm
  #22  
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  • Achieved top-tier on-time departures rate performance versus the major U.S. airlines, despite headwinds caused by unusually high weather and ATC delays.
  • For the second quarter United had the second-best completion factor and the second fewest cancellations among the major U.S. airlines.
My guess is that these are mainline only stats?
Anecdotally, my UAX performance this quarter has been crap.
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Old Jul 17, 2019, 1:14 pm
  #23  
 
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Originally Posted by CApreppie
Well US government-approved industry consolidation and a current pro-corporation administration, the massive amount of ancillary fee revenue, low oil prices, and a generally robust US and world economy certainly don't hurt. If you can't make money in this environment, you are a hopeless legacy airline basket case.
Yep. Times are as good as they can be. The real test will come when the next recession hits - so far only one airline (Southwest) has a proven record of managing economic downturns.

Originally Posted by spin88
I think at this point its DAL > UAL > AAL in both financial results and in quality of service and product. My guess is that as the airline that is most directly competing with AA, UAL is picking up some traffic as Parker pulls a Smisik at American, with UAL is running - operationally at least - a much better airline.
I wouldn't be surprised if United's improving financial performance is partly attributed to Parker's missteps at USdbaAA. BTW, let's not compare Parker to Smisek as that is an insult to Smisek.
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Old Jul 17, 2019, 1:19 pm
  #24  
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Originally Posted by pseudoswede
Is there a link on FT about UA's acquisition of these 737-700s?

(Not to turn this into another 737MAX thread, but I guess this is related to that.)

ETA: based on my quick Googling, it appears this new news.
Yes, I know about those two threads. I figured I must have missed something.
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Old Jul 17, 2019, 1:35 pm
  #25  
 
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Originally Posted by Austin787
I wouldn't be surprised if United's improving financial performance is partly attributed to Parker's missteps at USdbaAA. BTW, let's not compare Parker to Smisek as that is an insult to Smisek.
I'm sure that has something to do with it. The MAX grounding may be enough of an excuse to give AA management a stay of execution, but its performance over the last three years has been abysmal. At least the United BOD managed to cut bait (even though they had to be hit over the head with impetus for it). Jamie Baker (I believe it was JB) nailed it around a year and a half ago when he said that AA looked to be assuming the industry laggard role perpetually held by United among the legacy carriers.

As United continues to add capacity to its domestic network, and macroeconomic factors are steady, I would expect the revenue gap with DL to continue to shrink. Back out Delta's superior co-brand deal (or correct for it in terms of United's numbers, if optimistic that United can negotiate better terms with Chase) and things are even closer than the financials show on their face.
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Old Jul 17, 2019, 1:43 pm
  #26  
 
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Seller of B 737-700

Originally Posted by pseudoswede
Is there a link on FT about UA's acquisition of these 737-700s?

(Not to turn this into another 737MAX thread, but I guess this is related to that.)

ETA: based on my quick Googling, it appears this new news.
I guess that the seller of 737-700s has not been revealed during the earning call, right? Why so?
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Old Jul 17, 2019, 1:45 pm
  #27  
 
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Originally Posted by Kmxu
I guess that the seller of 737-700s has not been revealed during the earning call, right? Why so?
Reportedly, Southwest (in part, former AirTran frames) and Regent Airways of Bangladesh.
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Old Jul 17, 2019, 1:50 pm
  #28  
 
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Originally Posted by Kmxu
I guess that the seller of 737-700s has not been revealed during the earning call, right? Why so?
Correct, not yet revealed.

While ultimately, it will be easy to figure out (down the road) including several educated guesses in the fleet thread:

*pure speculation*
Could be tied to a confidentiality agreement.
Could be contingent upon another sale/purchase.
Could be the provider doesn't want it known they are selling/offering.
Could be because they are coming off lease or not getting renewed and it could present a third party disclosure.

But, yes... several reasons.
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Old Jul 17, 2019, 2:36 pm
  #29  
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Originally Posted by Mike Jacoubowsky
Is this message set to auto-repeat every year? :-)
Naw, I'll write a program to auto repeat and reply every time a 1K posts about leaving United for greener pastures. Should be auto posting by the hour then.
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Old Jul 17, 2019, 2:42 pm
  #30  
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Originally Posted by goodeats21
My guess is that these are mainline only stats?
Anecdotally, my UAX performance this quarter has been crap.
Likely yes, that was the practice in 2018.

Actually, per the BTS data, some of the regionals are fairly similar to the majors for on-time performance (OTP)
June 2019 BTS report page 7

and with FlightStats OTP Analysis Workbook you can look at a carrier as Mainline only or Full Network (including express flights) and for the US majors, looking over the past couple months the OTP is about the same or a 1% or so lower

Of course, these are the average of many routes and still possible to have a few bad apples. But on the whole, especially given the tendency to be hit harder in bad weather, the express carriers are not a disaster all the time.
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