UAL
First-class quarter
United Airlines didn’t exactly show up to earnings wearing sweatpants. The airline posted Q1 diluted EPS of $2.14, up 85% year over year, while adjusted EPS came in at $1.19 — smack in the company’s own guidance range. Revenue also did its part, rising 10.6% as demand held up and the pricing mix stayed friendly.
The part investors actually care about
Here’s the real move: United said it’ll cut 5 points of planned capacity growth for the rest of the year, and expects capacity in Q3 and Q4 to be roughly flat to up just 2% year over year. Translation: less supply, less chaos, and a better shot at keeping fares from turning into a race to the bottom.
Brand loyalty, but make it airline
Management is leaning hard into the “premium experience” playbook, with more cabin segmentation and improvements to MileagePlus. That’s basically airline speak for: we want your business, but we’d like to charge more for the good seat and make you feel slightly less like baggage.
The bigger picture
United also said it logged its best Q1 on-time departure rate among the eight largest U.S. carriers, which is nice because nobody writes an angry post about a flight that left early. Big picture: the company is trying to prove it can grow earnings without just stuffing more seats into the plane, and Wall Street usually likes that story when the math actually works.