Concur with above. We are about $100 million ahead of last year. Through nine months ending 30 September 2015 United earned $3.509B excluding special items. The same figure for 2016 is $3.604B. The pretext margin excluding special items for 2015 through nine months was 12.3% and for 2016 is 13.1%. That means we are $100 million ahead of last year and our overall margin is 80 basis points ahead.

 

http://ir.united.com/~/media/Files/U...gs-release.pdf

 

Fellas, I think Boeing Aviator is correct.
You have to add the special charges (and the associated tax benefit for those special charges) back in with the PS pool from the SEC filing. If you look at the 3Q2016 report and compare to 3Q2015, you will see that in the nine months of 2016 UAL reported(in mil):

3Q2016
$2935 (income before taxes)
$506 (PS expenses page 11)
$669 (special charges-page 5)
$241 (Special charges tax benefit- page 8).
Total- $4351
Revenues- $27,504
Margin- 15.8%

On the same pages and same lines for 2015 you see:
3Q2015
$3314 (income before taxes)
$545 (PS expenses)
$195 (special charges-page 5)
$0 (Special charges tax benefit- page 8)
Total- $4054
Revenue- $28,828
Margin- 14.06%

With that I'm showing us $297 ahead with a slightly higher margin...on paper...but wait there's more.

Now look at the 4Q2015 annual numbers to see what we need for this current quarter:

$4219 (income before taxes)
$1035 PS and adjustments ($698-PS expenses, $326-special charges, $11-Special charges tax benefit)
Total- $5254
Revenues- $37,864
Margin- 13.9%

Now reference the link to see how the company calculates it all and start substituting the numbers where appropriate.
https://flyingtogether.ual.com/web/content.jsp?SID=FlyingTogether_HR&path=/documents/Comp/25524_Infographic_v16_10-20.pdf

...but wait there's still more.
The denominator is a moving target unknown to us. The 2015 numbers show $6061 for UAL wide employee considered earnings. Who knows what that will be is year. I can think of these factors affecting the denominator:
1) All employee groups have gotten a pay raise and make more money
2) Level 3-4 salary grade employees are NOT participating for 2016 (See Profit Sharing FAQs from last year)
2a) does anyone know what a salary 3-4 is and how many we have?
3) Lots of high paying senior positions leaving and lower paying new hires coming in (and not eligible in 1st year)
3a) I still a slight uptick is salary and related costs showing on 3Q16 filing...roughly 6-9%
4) we just reduced CAPEX....when will we see the associated expense reduction? Lower expenses would make more profit...right?

I think in the 2016 annual report, when compared to 2015, we will see lower revenues, lower operating expenses, slightly lower PTIX, higher special charges all creating a higher margin in 2016. I think overall eligible employee earnings will be up and therefore I'm mailing in a solid 12.9% payout percentage for those who care.

Anyway, I'm not an expert but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.

 

You must be related to the most interesting man in the world, no??

Ahh, we must learn to enjoy the good times


I, for one, am trying not to dig too deep into the numbers for fear of "jinxing" the outcome, but I love to bet so in that sentiment:

I bet you $1 cagilllion monopoly dollars that the UAL pilot profit sharing payout percentage will be closer to 14% than it is to 13%.

What say you my good man?? Do we have a bet?? Can you stomach $1 cagillion???

signed this 8th day of December in the year of Our Lord 2016,

2 Sunny in New York

 

You're on ol' boy. I see your cagillion and raise you a trigillion

My Rosie numbers go as high as 14.2% based upon our downward trend in Operating and Non-Operating expenses and "no real increase" in employee considered earnings.

My Realistic numbers go as high as 13.4% if I factor in higher employee earnings.

My cup half full numbers as low as 6.9%....but I've already mailed in my 12.9%

Either way, better save it for a rainy day regardless what the % is. Storms-a-looming on the horizon.

 

Viperhawkdriver: There was so much math there my head nearly exploded but thanks for reducing it all to a 3rd grade math level so even I can understand it.

 

I don't think it matters for profit sharing caluations whether it's actual cash or not. For purposes of our profit sharing calculations per the UPA it's based on pretax income excluding any special items.

So the only relevance to us on the income statement is the line item above stating - income before income taxes. Not the Net income two lines below. Then adding in any special items. In this example special charges (note 10) 434M is added to the 931M income before income taxes figure. So in this example 1,365B is the number used for calculating pilot profit sharing for the 2nd Quarter 2016.

I've gone back and looked at pretax numbers plus added back any special items for the first three quarters of both 2016 & 2015 and I stand by my original statement. Through the 3rd quarter for profit sharing calculations we are 100M head this year vs last year.[/QUOTE]

I wasn't disputing your +100 million estimation. Just pointing out some of your facts were wrong regarding the NOL's and paying income taxes.

 

Looking at the Investor Relations section of United.com, I could find no information on the pre-tax margin for Q1 or Q2. However, pre-tax margin for Q3 2016 was 15.7% per the company's own earning release. The company is not consistent in the information they put in their easy-to-read statements on the IR site.

Per the November operational and metrics release yesterday:

CHICAGO, Dec. 8, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- United Airlines (UAL) today reported November 2016 operational results.

UAL's November 2016 consolidated traffic (revenue passenger miles) increased 1.7 percent and consolidated capacity (available seat miles) increased 1.6 percent versus November 2015. UAL's November 2016 consolidated load factor increased 0.1 points compared to November 2015.

For the month of November, UAL had the fewest cancelations of any month in the company's history. Additionally, during the Thanksgiving travel period, the company had its best consolidated Thanksgiving on-time arrival performance in its history.

The company now expects fourth-quarter 2016 consolidated passenger unit revenue to decline 3.0 to 4.0 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2015. The improvement from prior guidance is due to stronger than expected bookings during the second half of the quarter.

On Dec. 5, 2016, UAL technicians and related employees ratified a new contract. The impact from this newly ratified agreement is expected to increase fourth-quarter 2016 consolidated unit cost per available seat mile (CASM) excluding fuel, profit sharing and third-party expenses by approximately 0.5 points. Despite this additional expense in the quarter, the company now expects fourth-quarter 2016 CASM excluding fuel, profit sharing and third-party expenses to increase 4.0 to 4.5 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2015. The revised guidance is better than original expectations due to certain benefits-related expenses expected to end the year lower than initially anticipated.

The company now expects fourth-quarter 2016 pre-tax margin to be between 7.5 and 8.5 percent.

 

Why they aren't consistent in the stating it who knows. But from the preliminary updates (released after the quarter closed but before "official" earning announcements so it should be close to accurate.)

Q1 2016 estimate was 8-8.5%. (http://ir.united.com/~/media/Files/U...date-final.pdf)

Q2 estimate was 14-14.5% (http://ir.united.com/~/media/Files/U...tor-update.pdf)

 

Q3 estimate was 15.5-16% Form 8-K