UAL $1.3B Pre-tax Profit Q3
 

Highlights:

-Capacity up 7.2% YoY
-Total operating revenue of $15.2 billion, up 2.6% compared to third-quarter 2024.
-CASM down (2.8%), and CASM-ex down (0.9%), compared to third-quarter 2024; 1 point of expense moved from third-quarter 2025 to fourth-quarter 2025 primarily driven by maintenance and a reduction of 1 point of labor expense due to the timing of certain union contracts.
-Net income of $0.9 billion; adjusted net income of $0.9 billion.
-Ending available liquidity of $16.3 billion.
-Total debt is $3B less than same time last year
-Raised profit forecast for Q4
-Spent $1.7B on new aircraft purchases in Q3 ($4.4B YTD for aircraft purchases)

Pretty strong results overall.

very nice, although Wall Street didn’t move based on numbers. Let’s see what aal can do.

Only fail.

half of Delta’s profit, on $1.5B less revenue, but I’m not smart enough to know what the exact contributing factors are behind that.

Can someone explain to a dumb dumb where we fell short in earnings?

Revenue was identical to DAL at 15.2 BN for the quarter.. what gives?

How is $1.3B half of $1.8B? Also Delta has massive cost advantages since its mostly non union and they outsource a lot of their International flying.

Delta did a great job, but so did United.

Delta is making 60% of industry profit this quarter with United at 40% due to Delta making ~50% more Q3.
3Q25 Net Income - DL: $1,417M UA: $949M. Delta did a great job, United did half of great.

Delta improved yields in Q3 by 4% while United’s dropped 2% both having capacity increases by 4% and 6.6% respectively. This is either indicating United’s recent adds are low yielding across the board both domestically and internationally (especially domestically) and that United’s growth rate is not sustainable due to diluting yields. United did beat their forecast, but not anywhere near the margin Delta beat theirs.

UA: -7.3% in Europe, -13.5% in Latin America, -6.2% Atlantic yields.

Non-Union is a positive metric while UA FA’s are counting to be raked over the coals while DL FA’s got 4 raises since last contract. Delta Global Scope of 23’ prevents Delta from ever outsourcing anymore Int’l. flying without increasing 1:1 block hours (more HV flying = more DL-metal). Velvet just happened past two days. Delta’s main focus will be intl. expansion and a big WB order between 787 or more 350/330’s by EOY + the existing 40 WB AB orders. New Int’l. routes TBA before EOY with Riyadh, Delhi, and Singapore being the frontrunners. Hiring now attrition + 3-4% growth Peace out Friendly ✌🏼

For one Delta's refinery is muddying up their financial statements. They show it in the earning statement, but then they net it out and say its not part of their "core operation" so they don't show the full loss. But at the same time they show that their adjusted fuel costs were 11% lower because of the "refinery credit". This was about $200M in less in fuel costs.

Delta also has less debt than United does, so United has a bigger debt hurdle to dig out of. Delta has $2.4B less net long term debt YTD while United's long term debt is $3.3B less YTD. United had a $172M charge for retirement of debt, while Delta did not. So United is digging out faster and incurring some non-cash expenses from that.

United is catching Delta quickly and could pass if United Next keeps working the way it has been.

Thanks Friendly.

Aren't we also buying all these new planes for cash? I saw that somewhere that we've spent $4.4BN so far this year in cash for aircraft.

If that's the case that's a huge deal with how many brand new airplanes we have on the ramp.

Congrats to United on a great Q3! Who the hell cares who is the leader in Q3 and beyond as long as everyone is making $$?? The only thing that matters is our next round of pattern bargaining and considering we are quickly approaching the next round [with everyone getting “me too” clauses] let’s spike the football 🏈 where it really matters!