United Airline’s first quarter of the year 2024 has not been profitable. The airline has reported a loss of $124 million US dollars, a drop compared to the previous profitable three quarters. However, it is an improvement compared to the financial performance of the same quarter last year.
United Airlines’ First Quarter 2024 Financial Performance
United Airlines’ financial performance has resulted in a loss in the first quarter of this year. In its latest release on the 16th of April, the airline reported a loss of 124 million US dollars in the three months up to 31st March 2024. This is a dip compared to the previous three quarters, which were profit-making (although the fourth quarter was slightly less so), contributing to an overall year-end profit for last year, which was three times more profitable than the previous year.
Nevertheless, the loss made in the first quarter of this year is still less than that made at the same time in the previous year. In the three months up to 31st March 2023, United Airlines’ financial performance resulted in a loss of 194 million US dollars. This means that the loss they made has been reduced by 36.1%. This shows that although the airline lost this quarter, its financial performance has significantly improved since the previous year.
United Airlines’ financial performance has resulted in a figure of 12.539 billion US dollars in revenue. This is, in fact, a 9.7% improvement on the 11.429 billion US dollars made in the previous year. This shows that airlines are growing in terms of popularity. In addition, as revenue has improved by 9.7%, whereas the loss has reduced by a more significant 36.1%, does indicate that United Airlines is getting better at controlling its costs.
Fleet Issues
The company responded to United Airlines’ financial performance by saying it was better than expected. This is because the airline faced the grounding of its Boeing 737 Max 9 planes for safety checks because of a US Federal Aviation Administration order as a result of an incident that took place with that plane model. This involved an Alaska Airlines flight where an unused door broke away mid-flight.
United Airlines was more heavily affected by this as it had the most planes of this model in operation, with 79 in its fleet. By the company’s estimation, United Airlines lost 200 million US dollars from this, and if the incident had not occurred, the airline would have been profitable for this quarter.
Despite these issues, the airline appears to be ordering more of these planes. However, the delivery timeline for all Boeing planes appears to be slower due to the incident. As a result, instead of receiving 101 narrowbody planes, already reduced by earlier delays, United Airlines will only receive 61 narrowbody planes. So, the incident has affected United Airlines’ financial performance and the airline’s ability to expand.
Progressing in SAF Research
As we know, in addition to United Airlines’ financial performance being good at the end of last year, the company also launched the United Airlines’ Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund to find businesses to fund startups investing in SAF research and development. The situation has progressed with eight new corporate partners, 200 million dollars of corporate funding, and half a million dollars in contributions from more than 115,000 customers into the fund.
As one can see, the company’s efforts to improve its environmental credentials are progressing. In terms of United Airlines’ financial performance, the airline has been loss making for this quarter but has improved since last year. It also had to deal with unexpected losses due to the grounding of its Boeing 737 Max 9 planes. We have to wait to see how this progresses.
