They can't hide the money. It's there for an industry-leading contract and full retro. Quarterly numbers come out Thursday, TA on Friday or next week. Timing has never been better.

$6.2B cash on hand, $38.6B in assets.

UAL Balance Sheet | United Continental Holdings Stock - Yahoo! Finance

And in case you read further and see the $37B in liabilities consider DAL has just $2.9B in cash with $45.8B in liabilities--and they have no problem compensating pilots well and cash-incentivizing contract completions over and over again.

DAL Balance Sheet | Delta Air Lines Inc. (New) Comm Stock - Yahoo! Finance

Four/three years since amenable nothing to do with cash, it has to with the attitude that labor is not needed for this merger.

And if we give up scope in exchange for a 400M pittance and a cost neutral (since Contract 97) pay table...they will be right.

CHICAGO, Oct. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- United Continental Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: UAL) today reported third-quarter 2012 net income of $520 million, or $1.35 per diluted share, excluding $514 million of net special charges. Including special charges, UAL reported third-quarter 2012 net income of $6 million, or $0.02 per diluted share.

UAL ended the third quarter with $7.2 billion in unrestricted liquidity.
"I want to thank my co-workers for working together to help us earn more than half a billion dollars of profit this quarter," said Jeff Smisek, UAL's president and chief executive officer. "We overcame tough operational challenges and remain focused on running a reliable airline, delivering to our customers the benefits of our product investments and delivering to our co-workers tools and training to provide good customer service."

For the third quarter of 2012, total revenue was $9.9 billion, a decrease of 2.6 percent year-over-year. Third-quarter consolidated passenger revenue decreased 2.6 percent to $8.8 billion, compared to the same period in 2011.

2012—Special items

Labor Agreement Costs: On Aug. 3, 2012, the company announced it had reached an agreement in principle with respect to a new joint collective
bargaining agreement with the Air Line Pilots Association ("ALPA"), representing pilots at United and Continental. The company recorded $454
million of expense in the third quarter associated with lump sum cash payments that would be made in conjunction with the ratification of the contract
and the completion of the integrated pilot seniority list. This charge also includes costs associated with changes to existing pilot disability plans
negotiated in connection with the agreement in principle. The lump sum payments are not in lieu of future pay increases and were accrued in the third
quarter as a result of the payments becoming probable, primarily due to reaching the agreement in principle. The agreement in principle is subject to
definitive documentation, and any such definitive documentation is subject to approvals by each of the United and Continental ALPA master executive
councils and ratification by the company's pilots.The company currently expects to make cash payments of approximately $250 million in late 2012 or
early 2013 relating to these charges and the balance in subsequent periods.

Now, now, APC...you forgot to mention the "managing expectations message" which always seems to be released to the employees in conjunction with earnings.

From the United Daily from Wednesday, October 24th:

Delta and US Airways report earnings, cost reduction focus
Delta Air Lines (DAL) and US Airways (LCC) reported third-quarter financial results on Wednesday, and Southwest Airlines (LUV) reported earnings last week. On their respective earnings calls, both DAL and LUV emphasized that reducing and controlling costs will be a priority.
DAL earned net income of $1.05 billion this quarter, or $1.23 per share, compared with $549 million, or 65 cents, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, DAL earned $768 million of net profit, or 90 cents per share. LCC reported its net income was $245 million, or $1.24 a share, in the third quarter, compared with $76 million, or 41 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, LCC’s profit was 98 cents a share in the latest period.
DAL announced that it is “undertaking $1 billion structural cost reduction in bid to hold down nonfuel unit costs,” according to Reuters. Last week, LUV said it planned to manage hiring over the next year in an aggressive move to cut overhead costs by $100 million.
United is one of the highest cost airlines, with unit cost, or CASM – cost per available seat mile – just below that of American Airlines. While we don’t need to be the lowest-cost carrier in the skies, we do need to stay competitive. As we manage our business for long-term profitability, we need to eliminate costs and operate more efficiently, so our CASM doesn't become uncompetitive. Read more about CASM and our cost management efforts in the Jeff’s Journal posting of June 4.
We announce our third-quarter financial results on Thursday.


I like the fact that we don't have to be the lowest-cost carrier in the skies, just that we need to have the highest compensated executive ranks in the US aviation industry. Why does that always seem to be left out of their "costs are too high" message?

Personally I don't think the shareholders are getting a deal for the money that we are giving the executives. Every other airline has reported increases in profits and the UCH profit this quarter fell. Makes them worth every penny they earn (the operative word of course is penny).

What a loser this guy is. This merger should have been completed over a year ago.

Instead we pay him a ridiculous, criminal sum to leave hundreds of millions in revenue on the table.

GTFO already.

All part of the game. If it's Delta+1 for us then I expect at least $650,000,001 in the payout to ALPA.

Last quarter they had 6.2B. At the end of this quarter they have 7.2B in unrestricted cash.

Yet, the article says a profit of 6 million.

Can someone please explain this to a simpleton?

What these press release do not show is the cash flow numbers...for that you have to look at the official SEC statements. For the past two quarters UCH has generated positive cash flow. In the 2nd quarter it was over $900m. I have not seen the SEC filing for the 3rd qtr yet, but I suspect the numbers should be pretty close.