United Airlines Announces Strong First-Quarter 2016 Performance

CHICAGO, April 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- United Airlines (UAL) today reported its first-quarter 2016 financial results. 

• Excluding special items, UAL reported first-quarter net income of $435 million, earnings per share of $1.23 per diluted share and pre-tax earnings of $688 million.
• Including special items, UAL reported first-quarter net income of $313 million, earnings per share of $0.88 per diluted share and pre-tax earnings of $494 million.
• During the first quarter of 2016, the company repurchased $1.5 billion worth of its common stock, representing approximately 8 percent of shares outstanding.

"I am extremely proud of United's nearly 86,000 aviation professionals for their contributions to these strong results – including the improvements in our reliability, customer satisfaction and financial performance," said Oscar Munoz, president and chief executive officer of United Airlines. "As we accelerate United's path forward, we will continue to focus on running a great airline today while innovating for tomorrow."

First-Quarter Revenue

For the first quarter of 2016, total revenue was $8.2 billion, a decrease of 4.8 percent year-over-year. First-quarter 2016 consolidated passenger revenue per available seat mile (PRASM) decreased 7.4 percent and consolidated yield decreased 6.1 percent compared to the first quarter of 2015. The decline in PRASM continues to be driven by economic factors including a strong U.S. dollar and lower oil prices. In addition, the company experienced a larger-than-anticipated decrease in close-in business travel during the weeks surrounding the Easter holiday and spring break.

The company continues to focus on providing customers options to personalize their travel experience and, this quarter, launched its new bundled products offering, which is exceeding expectations.    

First-Quarter Costs

Total operating expense excluding special charges was $7.4 billion in the first quarter, down 5.7 percent year-over-year. Including special charges, total operating expense was $7.5 billion, a 4.1 percent decrease year-over-year. The decrease was largely driven by lower oil prices. Consolidated unit cost (CASM), excluding special charges, third-party business expenses, fuel and profit sharing, increased 1.3 percent compared to the first quarter of 2015. Consolidated CASM including those items decreased 5.7 percent year-over-year.

Liquidity and Capital Allocation

In the first quarter, UAL generated $1.2 billion in operating cash flow, $376 million in free cash flow and ended the quarter with $5.3 billion in unrestricted liquidity, including $1.35 billion of undrawn commitments under its revolving credit facility. During the first quarter, the company continued to invest in its business through gross capital expenditures of approximately $820 million, excluding fully reimbursable projects, and repurchased $1.5 billion worth of its common stock, representing approximately 8 percent of shares outstanding.

UAL earned a 20.8 percent return on invested capital for the 12 months ended March 31, 2016. 

For more information on UAL's second-quarter 2016 guidance, please visit ir.united.com for the company's investor update.

Recent Accomplishments
Operations and Employees

• Reported best quarterly on-time performance since the merger with a mainline arrival rate of 71.9 percent.
• Achieved best quarterly mishandled bag rate since the merger.
• Employees earned cash-incentive payments of approximately $30 million for achieving operational performance goals.
• Reached ratified agreements with more than half of represented employees – pilots, dispatchers and IAM-represented employees. The company remains focused on getting contracts like these for flight attendants and technicians.

Network and Fleet

• Announced new international routes including service between San Francisco and Hangzhou, China and San Francisco and Singapore, both with the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner and subject to government approval.
• Launched the first-ever nonstop service between San Francisco and Tel Aviv.
• Announced a joint venture revenue-sharing agreement with Air New Zealand.
• Signed a multi-year agreement to strengthen partnership and established a joint strategic initiative with Air China.
• Ordered 65 customer-pleasing, two-cabin Boeing 737-700 aircraft, reducing reliance on 50-seat aircraft.

Customer Experience

• Achieved highest customer satisfaction score in the combined company's history.
• United's industry-leading mobile app topped 21 million downloads and was used by 50 percent of MileagePlus members when traveling.
• First U.S. airline to use commercial-scale volumes of biofuel for regularly scheduled flights.

About United

United Airlines and United Express operate an average of 5,000 flights a day to 336 airports across six continents. In 2015, United and United Express operated more than 1.5 million flights carrying more than 140 million customers. United is proud to have the world's most comprehensive route network, including U.S. mainland hubs in Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New York/Newark, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. United operates more than 715 mainline aircraft, and this year, the airline anticipates taking delivery of 21 new Boeing aircraft, including 737 NGs, 787s and 777s. The airline is a founding member of Star Alliance, which provides service to 192 countries via 28 member airlines. Approximately 86,000 United employees reside in every U.S. state and in countries around the world. For more information, visit united.com, follow @United on Twitter or connect on Facebook. The common stock of United's parent, United Continental Holdings, Inc., is traded on the NYSE under the symbol UAL.

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995:

Certain statements included in this release are forward-looking and thus reflect our current expectations and beliefs with respect to certain future events and anticipated financial and operating performance. Such forward-looking statements are and will be subject to many risks and uncertainties relating to our operations and business environment that may cause actual results to differ materially from any future results expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Words such as "expects," "will," "plans," "anticipates," "indicates," "believes," "forecast," "guidance," "outlook," "goals" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Additionally, forward-looking statements include statements that do not relate solely to historical facts, such as statements which identify uncertainties or trends, discuss the possible future effects of current known trends or uncertainties, or which indicate that the future effects of known trends or uncertainties cannot be predicted, guaranteed or assured. All forward-looking statements in this release are based upon information available to us on the date of this release. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Our actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements due to numerous factors including, without limitation, the following: our ability to comply with the terms of our various financing arrangements; the costs and availability of financing; our ability to maintain adequate liquidity; our ability to execute our operational plans and revenue-generating initiatives, including optimizing our revenue; our ability to control our costs, including realizing benefits from our resource optimization efforts, cost reduction initiatives and fleet replacement programs; our ability to utilize our net operating losses; our ability to attract and retain customers; demand for transportation in the markets in which we operate; an outbreak of a disease that affects travel demand or travel behavior; demand for travel and the impact that global economic conditions have on customer travel patterns; excessive taxation and the inability to offset future taxable income; general economic conditions (including interest rates, foreign currency exchange rates, investment or credit market conditions, crude oil prices, costs of aircraft fuel and energy refining capacity in relevant markets); economic and political instability and other risks of doing business globally; our ability to cost-effectively hedge against increases in the price of aircraft fuel; any potential realized or unrealized gains or losses related to fuel or currency hedging programs; the effects of any hostilities, act of war or terrorist attack; the ability of other air carriers with whom we have alliances or partnerships to provide the services contemplated by the respective arrangements with such carriers; disruptions to our regional network; the costs and availability of aviation and other insurance; industry consolidation or changes in airline alliances; competitive pressures on pricing and on demand; our capacity decisions and the capacity decisions of our competitors; U.S. or foreign governmental legislation, regulation and other actions (including open skies agreements and environmental regulations); the impact of regulatory, investigative and legal proceedings and legal compliance risks; the impact of any management changes; labor costs; our ability to maintain satisfactory labor relations and the results of the collective bargaining agreement process with our union groups; any disruptions to operations due to any potential actions by our labor groups; weather conditions; and other risks and uncertainties set forth under Part I, Item 1A., "Risk Factors," of UAL's Annual Report on Form 10-K, as well as other risks and uncertainties set forth from time to time in the reports we file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

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