https://liveandletsfly.com/united-airlines-ceo-ukraine/


United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has called the war in Ukraine a “human tragedy” and explained how it is impacting his airline.

CEO Kirby Discusses War In Ukraine And Its Impact On United Airlines

In a video message to employees viewed by Live and Let’s Fly, Kirby lamented the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine, sending “our heartfelt sympathies and support to the people of Ukraine and for what is happening in that part of the world right now.” Later in his message, he pivoted back to Ukraine and its impact on United:
“Now, Ukraine is first and foremost a human tragedy what’s happening there, but that’s also affecting United Airlines on a financial basis. Easy to see the impact of our flights over Russia, and it’s had a pretty big impact on our ability to serve markets like India. And we’re going to wind up being smaller in places like that.

“I’m also worried that it might have a longer term knock on effects of the economy, whether it’s inflation or something escalating in Ukraine.

“But by far, the biggest known impact from the Ukrainian situation for us on our financial position is the impact of fuel prices. But we’ve been through much worse challenges than this in the past, and we’ve overcome them. COVID was a much bigger impact, and we’re going to overcome this one.”


Key takeaways:

• Kirby implies that service to India will be reduced on a long-term basis. Could this spell doom for the new San Francisco – Bangalore service set to begin later in 2022?
• Fuel prices and inflation are a central concern.
• Even so, the war in Ukraine, higher fuel prices, and inflation have not kept people from booking airfare.

Because of rising oil prices, United expects to breakeven in the second quarter rather than report profit:

“I said we would have been solid profitable in the second quarter. Now it could change based on oil prices going up or going down more, or perhaps there will be a revenue impact with people afraid to travel, although we haven’t seen that yet. So there’s more volatility and uncertainty than normal. But we expect to be essentially breakeven.”

Kirby believes the U.S. and world are moving from pandemic to endemic stage and that COVID-19 will no longer be a travel concern that keeps people from traveling. While rising fuel prices and the escalation of war could dampen demand, even those concerns have had no impact in recent weeks on future bookings.

CONCLUSION

It’s hardly a surprise that the war in Ukraine and rising oil prices have pinched margins. Even so, United sees healthy demand and blue skies ahead, with optimism that the pandemic is receding for the final time. However, with continued uncertainty over Russian airspace, it does appear United’s service to India will be scaled back indefinitely.

So with still no flying to China for the foreseeable future and now India long term India flying reductions. Any guesses where the extra lift will go? How will that effect wide body staffing?

Once china gets through this wave, I hope they will have a desire to open up. My unlearned impression by how they are walking the line on Ukraine is that they definitely want to be part of the global economy and hopefully that means they want to open up travel asap.

Unless they invade Taiwan.

Chairman Pooh Bear gave speech yesterday talking about limiting social costs of Covid lockdowns. That is as close as the party has come to admitting zero Covid doesn’t work. Congrats to first crew that gets Beijing layover. Hope Elvis at Pearl is still there.

I think watching the debacle Ukraine has turned into for Russia probably pushed that back for quite a while. All Putin had to do was drive across a border with what was supposedly the second most capable army in the world. Now think about trying an amphibious assault against an island nation that’s been preparing for war for the better part of a century. That’s before we even touch on the economic impact of sanctions.

So now we are going to sanction China too? I know it’s St Patty’s Day drunk man, but come on.

So lemme get this straight… you think: A) China’s gonna invade Taiwan and B) The rest of the world is gonna let them with no consequences? Is that correct?

I have been trying to buy American for years now but it has increasingly been more and more difficult. If we talk with our dollars we will be supporting our own interests instead of buying cheaply made disposable items from China. Unfortunately we have a population mass that is addicted to walmart/costco type shopping. I am all for taxing the trade deficit with China.

We like to scold Germany for being dependent on Russia for energy, yet we are totally dependent on China. We would never pass serious sanctions against them because it would collapse our economy and they know it. The saving grace is that they are dependent on us as a massive customer as well.