United Airlines’ financial performance has resulted in profit in the 3 months up to 31st June 2024. In the second quarter of 2024, United Airlines financial performance has resulted in a profit of 1.323 billion US dollars. This is a 23.1% increase in profit when compared to the same time in the previous year, when the company made 1.075 billion US dollars.
In terms of United Airlines’ revenue, the company made a figure of 13.021 billion US dollars in the second quarter of 2024. This is 10.3% higher than the 11.803 billion US dollars made at the same time in the previous year. In addition the fact that the percentage increase in profit was higher than the increase in revenue indicates that cost control has also improved over the same time period. So this is overall good news in terms of United Airlines’ financial performance.
Difficult Situation
However the situation has not been easy for United Airlines as well as other airlines in general. When the pandemic struck many airlines suffered due to government restrictions as demand for flights fell. This affected United Airlines’ financial performance as well. To make matters worse after restrictions were lifted the surge in demand for flights meant that airports and airlines could not cope. This is because staff had been laid off when demand was less. This caused considerable congestion at airports resulting in mass flight delays and cancellations. This particularly affected North America during the ensuing Independence Day weekend.
The difficulties have continued with Russian invasion of Ukraine and resulting sanctions leveled at Russian oil resulting in a hike in fuel costs. In addition there have been subsequent periods of adverse weather patterns in the winter months in North America such as Storm Elliot in 2023.
More recently however United Airlines, as with many other airlines has undergone issues as a result of a global computer outage caused by a faulty software update from the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike on the 19th July of this year. Thousands of flights were cancelled. This was a general problem which affected not only flights but also plagued government agencies including medical emergency services. Overall more than 3000 flights had been cancelled and 11000 delayed affecting many US airlines including United Airlines. United Airlines said that different systems were affected including those that calculate plane weight, phone systems and self check-in kiosks. This may affect United Airlines’ financial performance later on.
United Airlines’ Operations
Operationally, in addition to United Airlines’ financial performance being strong, the airline has fared well. United Airlines flew 44.4 million customers on the second quarter, a record for the company when compared to its historical performance. In addition the company’s regional branch United Express also had the second lowest cancel rate for a second quarter in company history. The company has also finished the second quarter of 2024 having attained the second best performance among airlines based in the US in having on-time flight departures. So as one can see United Airlines is performing well in terms of service delivery.
All in all therefore, United Airlines has performed well this quarter. United Airlines’ financial performance has remained strong and its ability to deliver operationally is also good. The situation for all airlines however is difficult and the company has had setbacks even recently with the global computer outage. We have to wait to see how this progresses.
