United Airlines Reports Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2017 Performance

CHICAGO, Jan. 23, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- United Airlines (UAL) today announced its fourth-quarter and full-year 2017 financial results. 

• UAL reported fourth-quarter net income of $580 million, diluted earnings per share of $1.99, pre-tax earnings of $600 million and pre-tax margin of 6.4 percent. Excluding special charges and income tax adjustments, UAL reported fourth-quarter net income of $408 million, diluted earnings per share of $1.40, pre-tax earnings of $631 million and pre-tax margin of 6.7 percent.
• UAL reported full-year net income of $2.1 billion, diluted earnings per share of $7.02, pre-tax earnings of $3.0 billion and pre-tax margin of 7.9 percent. Excluding special charges and income tax adjustments, UAL reported full-year net income of $2.1 billion, diluted earnings per share of $6.76, pre-tax earnings of $3.2 billion and pre-tax margin of 8.4 percent.
• UAL repurchased $553 million of its common shares in the fourth quarter, bringing the full-year share repurchases to $1.8 billion and completing the company's July 2016 $2 billion share repurchase program. The company's board of directors authorized a new $3 billion share repurchase program in December.
• During 2017, United consistently notched operational bests in on-time arrivals and completions while seeing the fewest cancellations and the best baggage performance in company history.
• Employees earned $349 million in profit sharing for 2017.

"I am incredibly proud of how our employees delivered in 2017, achieving our best-ever operational performance. Reliability is an important pillar in our continued focus on further improving the customer experience," said Oscar Munoz, chief executive officer of United Airlines. "Looking ahead, we are committed to improving profitability over the long-term by building on the strong foundation we have laid over the past two years. Everyone at United is excited to enter 2018 with a clear set of priorities and a renewed sense of purpose around unlocking the full potential of United Airlines."

Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Revenue

For the fourth quarter of 2017, revenue was $9.4 billion, an increase of 4.3 percent year-over-year. Fourth-quarter 2017 consolidated passenger revenue per available seat mile (PRASM) was up 0.2 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2016. Cargo revenue was $304 million in the fourth quarter of 2017, an increase of 21.6 percent year-over-year primarily due to higher international freight volume and yields. For the full year of 2017, total revenue was $37.7 billion, an increase of 3.2 percent year-over-year.

"Everything we do at United is underpinned by a commitment to deliver top tier operational reliability," said Scott Kirby, president of United Airlines. "Thanks to the drive and dedication of our employees, we have significantly raised the bar in this area, delivering a record-setting operational performance in 2017. Looking ahead, our focus will be on continuing to improve customer service and expanding United's network to offer customers more choice."

Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Costs

Total operating expense was $8.7 billion in the fourth quarter, up 8.2 percent year-over-year. Consolidated unit cost per available seat mile (CASM) increased 4.0 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2016 due largely to higher fuel and labor expense. Fourth-quarter consolidated CASM, excluding special charges, third-party business expenses, fuel and profit sharing, increased 1.5 percent year-over-year, driven mainly by higher labor expense. For the full year, consolidated CASM increased 2.8 percent compared to full-year 2016 due largely to higher fuel and labor expense. Excluding special charges, third-party business expenses, fuel and profit sharing, consolidated CASM increased 3.1 percent compared to the prior year primarily due to expenses resulting from labor agreements ratified in 2016.

"We are encouraged by our financial results in the fourth quarter which capped a year of strong earnings. Additionally, throughout the year we made significant investments in the business while continuing to return cash to our shareholders through $1.8 billion of share repurchases," said Andrew Levy, executive vice president and chief financial officer of United Airlines. "In 2018, we will continue to focus on cost control, invest strategically into the business and utilize our new $3 billion share repurchase authorization to return cash to our shareholders."

 Capital Allocation

UAL generated $728 million in operating cash flow during the fourth quarter of 2017 and ended the quarter with $5.8 billion in unrestricted liquidity, including $2.0 billion of undrawn commitments under its revolving credit facility. UAL generated $3.4 billion in operating cash flow for the full year. The company continued to invest in its business through capital expenditures of $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter and a total of $4.0 billion for the full year. Adjusted capital expenditures, measured as capital expenditures including assets acquired through the issuance of debt and capital leases, airport construction financing, and excluding fully reimbursable projects, were $1.0 billion during the fourth quarter and $4.7 billion for the full year in 2017. The company contributed $419 million to its pension plans and made debt and capital lease principal payments of $1.0 billion during 2017.

For the 12 months ended Dec. 31, 2017, the company's pre-tax income was $3.0 billion and return on invested capital (ROIC) was 13.8 percent. In the fourth quarter, UAL purchased $553 million of its common shares at an average price of $59.61 per share. During 2017, UAL purchased $1.8 billion of its common shares at an average price of $66.30 per share. The company completed its July 2016 $2 billion share repurchase program and announced authorization for a new $3 billion share repurchase program, which represents approximately 14 percent of the company's market capitalization based on the closing stock price on Jan. 22, 2018.

UAL management will host an Investor Event at 4:30pm ET today to discuss fourth-quarter and full-year 2017 earnings, outline 2018 priorities, provide an update on United's network strategy and deliver a financial update. During this presentation, UAL will provide full-year 2018 guidance including earnings per share and establish long-term earnings targets. Please visit ir.united.com to access the first-quarter 2018 investor update, the webcast of the event and the company's presentation made available during the webcast, the entirety of which will be available on the website at the conclusion of the event.

Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Highlights

Operations and Employees

• Achieved a record-setting year for operational reliability, including best on-time departure performance, fewest cancellations, and best baggage handling performance.
• The fourth quarter saw a record-breaking performance during the busy holiday travel season.
  • In December, United was first place among competitors in mainline on-time departures, completion factor, and on-time arrivals.
  • In November, United set company performance records during the busy Thanksgiving travel week, landing its best-ever Thanksgiving completion factor and twice breaking on-time performance records in the midst of the busiest travel days of the year.
• Employees earned incentive payments of approximately $30 million for achieving operations performance goals in the fourth quarter, marking a full year of earned bonuses totaling approximately $87 million.
• The company earned its seventh consecutive perfect 100 percent score on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index and a spot on the organization's list of "Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality."
• Recognized as a Top 100 Best Places to Work in the U.S. by the Glassdoor Employees' Choice Awards.
• Announced the appointment of Regional Presidents for California and New York/New Jersey, demonstrating our commitment to these communities and our hubs.
• In response to the catastrophic weather events Harvey, Irma and Maria, United and its employees came together to keep the operation moving and take part in relief efforts, delivering more than 1.7 million pounds of relief supplies to impacted areas, and together with customers and employees, raised and contributed more than $9 million to community assistance.

Network and Fleet

• Last year, announced 44 new domestic routes from the company's seven U.S. mainland hubs, and increased service on 11 routes to the Hawaiian Islands from Denver, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco – offering more nonstop service to Hawaiian destinations than any other carrier. 
• Announced 13 new international routes in 2017 including its newest route San Francisco to Papeete, Tahiti starting seasonally in October 2018.
• By increasing its nonstop service from six hub cities to nine ski destinations, United offers customers the most service to the most ski destinations across the U.S.
• During 2017, took delivery of 19 new Boeing aircraft, including twelve 777-300ER, three 787-9, four 737-800 and eight used Airbus aircraft including two A320 and six A319.
• Announced an agreement with Boeing to convert 100 current 737 MAX orders into 737 MAX 10 aircraft starting in late 2020.
• Announced an agreement with Airbus to modify its A350 order resulting in a conversion of the model type from the A350-1000 to the A350-900, an increase in the order size from 35 to 45 aircraft and a deferral of the first delivery to late 2022.
• Retired the company's iconic Boeing 747 fleet with a final farewell flight between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Customer Experience

• Took several actions to improve the overall customer experience – including providing more tools to employees to assist customers and increasing compensation for denied boarding.
• Rolled out system-wide new Customer Solutions Desk with a dedicated team to develop creative solutions to assist customers in reaching their final destinations when their travel plans don't go as expected.
• Decreased involuntary denied boardings by 92% since April, and in December only had 13 involuntary denied boardings.
• Upgraded the Houston and Newark terminal experience with the opening of OTG experience, opened new security lanes with automated security bins at Chicago and Newark, and opened the brand new upgraded Los Angeles United Club along with new Global Services lobbies in Houston, Newark and Los Angeles.
• Improved the customer experience at Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport by offering customers shorter, more convenient connection times and better access to more destinations through "rebanking" of the hub. UAL will "rebank" Chicago O'Hare beginning in February of 2018.
• Unveiled new enhancements to United's award-winning mobile app including bag tracking feature, ability to change and cancel flights in the app, add MileagePlus and United Club cards to the Apple Wallet, and allow customers to access boarding passes for 19 other carriers.
• Became the first airline to give customers access to flight information and other amenities skills for Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Fitbit Ionic smartwatch.
• Continued to improve the mobile tools used by employees, including the first release of the "in the moment" care app, and new functionality in flight attendant tools to better serve customers.
• The company received the CIO 100 award, an acknowledged mark of enterprise excellence in business technology.
• Launched a new online portal, United Jetstream, in an effort to simplify the travel management process and give corporate and agency customers an intuitive suite of self-service tools.

About United

United Airlines and United Express operate approximately 4,500 flights a day to 338 airports across five continents. In 2017, United and United Express operated more than 1.6 million flights carrying more than 148 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, Newark/New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. United operates 744 mainline aircraft and the airline's United Express carriers operate 518 regional aircraft. The airline is a founding member of Star Alliance, which provides service to 191 countries via 28 member airlines. 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 current and 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; costs associated with any modification or termination of our aircraft orders; our ability to utilize our net operating losses; our ability to attract and retain customers; potential reputational or other impact from adverse events in our operations; 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 and political 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 if we decide to do so; 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; the effects of any technology failures or cybersecurity breaches; disruptions to our regional network; the costs and availability of aviation and other insurance; industry consolidation or changes in airline alliances; the success of our investments in airlines in other parts of the world; 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 any 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 our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016, 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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SOURCE United Airlines