United also outsources an bunch of international flying:
- Atlantic JV (Joint Venture) with The Lufthansa Group and Air Canada
- Pacific JV with ANA
- Transborder JV with Air Canada
- NZ JV with Air New Zealand

 

He's an annoying kool-aid chugger who has no identity outside of his employer, but he's also not wrong.

The gonkulator tells me that Delta’s pre-tax profit is ~59 % higher in cumulative absolute terms for YTD 2025. They're obviously doing something that we aren't, and simply buying a ton of airplanes isn't addressing that.

 

Many pilots forget we have more in common with the hourly ramp worker than the management types. They forget we're working under a contract and are employed by the airlines and not part of the management/investment class. We get paid the same no matter how the company preforms or is run. The way some problem talk here you would think we were all early investors in some tech start-up about to make it big.

I care only so far as to make sure my paychecks keep coming, everything above that isn't my problem or concern.

Ripinpeace and friendlypilot are both two sides of the same coin. Hard core company butt kissers that make their respective companies their lives. If you read their posts on their respective forum sections they are mouthpieces for their companies and will follow you around the site if you dare speak ill of their company. They both love coming over to the aa forum to remind 'the special needs airline of the industry' how much better their companies are. They come on these forums and post like a deranged eagles fan goes on web forums and posts about a season. Much like the eagles fan these two have nothing else going on in their lives if this is their priority

Can't you two argue about who has the biggest house, nicest car or hottest wife like normal classless pilots? This fixation with your employers profit margins is weird. Like either of you had any say in it.

 

That’s a bit simplistic. If the company’s performance gets you the option of WBCA 5 years earlier or later, that could have a massive impact on your career earnings. Ditto that if growth or reductions affects your ability to hold more efficient schedules, more days off, puts us in a position to negotiate bigger contract gains- prevents or results in furloughs & downgrades, etc. Some guys really geek out on the 10-K stuff- which, at the end of the day, yeah, is just reading tea leaves since we don’t control it. But we absolutely benefit directly & indirectly when the company is well run.

 

don’t forget the difference between 10% profit sharing vs 1% (or none).

 

I'm betting a 5-6% PS at best this year.

 

yup. Lower profit, more pilots.

but I’ll take that over furloughs. (Best wishes to our NK folks)

 

United is in aggressive competition in ORD with AA and SW in DEN. Who is DL in aggressive competition with? That’s probably a good chunk of the answer.

Also the weather in Q3 was a disaster everywhere….death by a thousand cuts. It wasn’t a single crowd strike week it was every damn day. Overall we handled it as well as we could have.

 

Most of their bases, not with anyone. But they are in pretty fierce competition with everyone in LAX, and with AS in Seattle. I guess AA and B6 if you count JFK/LGA.

I guess I'm curious to see what their "secret sauce" is because they consistently have much, much higher margins than us.

 

Competition flows where it thinks it can compete. SWA had 32 gates in ATL 12 years ago with plans for more gates and an aggressive expansion. They operate 18 underutilized gates in ATL today. JetBlue once planned a huge move into ATL. It quietly died.