United Airlines Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
October 18, 2023

There are 17 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the United Airlines Holdings Earnings Conference Call for the Third Quarter 2023. My name is Silas, and I will be your conference facilitator today. Following the initial remarks from management, We will open the line for questions. This call is being recorded and is copyrighted. Please note that no portion of the call may be recorded, transcribed or rebroadcast without the company's permission.

Operator

Your participation implies your consent to our recording of this call. If you do not agree with these terms, simply drop off the line. I will now turn the presentation over to your host for today's call, Seema Edwards, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Silas. Morning, everyone, and welcome to United's Q3 2023 earnings conference call. Yesterday, we issued our earnings release, which is available on our website at ir.united.com. Information in yesterday's release and the remarks made during this conference call may contain forward looking statements, which represent the company's current expectations or beliefs concerning future events and financial performance. All forward looking statements are based upon information currently available to the company.

Speaker 1

A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. Please refer to our earnings release, Form 10 ks and 10 Q and other reports filed with the SEC by United Airlines Holdings and United Airlines for a more thorough description of these factors. Unless otherwise noted, we will be discussing our financial metrics On a non GAAP basis on this call, please refer to the related definitions and reconciliations in our press release. For a reconciliation of these non GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please refer to the tables at the end of our earnings release. Joining us on the call today to discuss our results and outlook are our Chief Executive Officer, Scott Kirby President, Brett Harp Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, Andrew Nacelles and our new Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Michael In addition, we have other members of the executive team on the line available to assist with the Q and A.

Speaker 1

And now, I'd like to turn the call over to Scott.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Christina. I want to start today by saying how heartbroken we are by the horrific attacks on Israel and the escalating conflict In the region that has millions of innocent people in harm's way. Here at United, when tragedy strikes anywhere around the world, we focus first on safety and second on how we can use Our unique capabilities to help. While we suspended our service to Tel Aviv, we were the 1st U. S.

Speaker 2

Carrier to add extra flights to Athens where customers connect Our Ameri Airlines operating between Tel Aviv and Athens. We also engaged some regularly scheduled flights to Athens, added a dedicated Tel Aviv The Fort Dask is continued playing to Oman in Dubai to maximize flexibility for our customers with tickets to Tel Aviv. We're closely monitoring the situation on the ground and staying in close touch State Department officials so that we can resume service as soon as possible. We look forward to cessation of violence in the region. And as we've done in the past crises around the globe, we expect United to continue to play a meaningful role in the humanitarian response.

Speaker 2

Turning back to the business. I want to start by welcoming Mike to the leadership team. You all know him well, but I'm excited to have him as a partner who agrees with my no excuses approach He was 100% committed to make United work for our employees, customers and shareholders. I also want to congratulate Christina for her A recent announcement as from cranes here in Chicago is one of the top 40 under 40. The 3rd quarter was another solid milestone to demonstrate that UnitedLex is working as we expected and the growth we are adding is profitable.

Speaker 2

The fuel spike this quarter, we're very encouraged by our results. It's clear to see why from the numbers. Top line revenue grew 12.5 percent to $14,500,000,000 making it the highest Q3 in our history. Our costs were also on track with our plan as we delivered strong operations In both August September. United's diverse revenue streams have also allowed us to handle variations in demand and produce solid absolute and even better relative results.

Speaker 2

It's evident in the numbers. United and one other airline expected to account for 98% of the total industry revenue growth this quarter And over 90% of the industry's total pretax profitability. Even in a tough industry environment, United's diverse model It's yielding strong, absolute and even more impressive relative margins. So what is it about revenue diversity that makes us different? 1st, because of our size and industry leading global network, our loyalty program is the most attractive program in the world for customers And therefore, it generates significantly directly our EBIT significant loyalty, but also significant opportunity to do even more with it in the future.

Speaker 2

Expect to hear a lot more details from us on this front starting at an Investor Day in early 2024. 2nd, we have unmatched geographic diversity with a large domestic network complemented by the largest long haul international network and both are solidly profitable. While this is a great attribute, it does create some short term risk and volatility as we're seeing right now With a transitory hit to margins this quarter as a result of the tragedy of misery. 3rd, we feel to both business travelers and it's been nice to see recent momentum in that segment, But also increasingly the leisure customers as well. We've gotten a lot more agile at pivoting capacity in the leisure markets and not surprisingly have found that our core customers Can now fly us in both business and leisure markets as we add seats to leisure destinations.

Speaker 2

Our ability to move domestic capacity in the leisure markets when they're strong It's a consequential driver of our strong relative revenue performance. And 4, we continue to advance and improve our segmentation efforts. This is a project almost a decade in the making, but all the way from basic economy, which just allows us to compete profitably on price on the low end And all the way up to Polaris on long haul international, United is able to give our customers the real choice they want. So what does that mean going forward? In short, it's a confirmation that UnitedLex is working as we expected.

Speaker 2

We thought the industry operating environment would be difficult. We thought that medium term capacity aspirations Would be higher than demand growth. We thought that domestic would be a lot tougher than international in the short to medium term, but we also thought United would win share, grow our gauge and grow our connectivity That would allow United specifically to improve our results. By the way, we also expected and now believe we'll have it even faster The domestic market is going to see a shakeout that leads to an improvement in margins over the medium to long term. It's impossible to call the timing exactly, And I guess that we see meaningful industry changes by 2H24.

Speaker 2

And for what it's worth, that's what has happened every single time we've been through One of the cycles in my career. And as that is happening, I'll continue closely tracking the airline industry revenue to GDP relationship. I've talked about this in the past, but that ratio declined by approximately 35% in the past few decades. I don't think we'll make all that up, But almost everything we do make up goes straight to the bottom line. So in conclusion, I'm proud of the team at United.

Speaker 2

We're creating something special here. Even in a tough industry environment, we're producing strong absolute results while producing the best relative results in our history. We believe we

Speaker 3

have a

Speaker 2

lot of runway ahead of us with UnitedLex Our diverse revenue streams along with our ability to catch up on Gauge and connectivity position United well. We expect That the current stress in certain segments of the industry is also going to lead to structural changes that lay the foundation for an even better future for United, our employees, our customers and our shareholders. With that, I'll turn

Speaker 4

it over to Brett. Thank you, Scott, and thank you to each member of the

Speaker 5

United team. Your dedication is what continues to propel us to the top. I also want to acknowledge the tragic conflict in Israel. At United, our top priority is the safety of our crews and Customers, we are closely monitoring the situation. Following our coordination with the State Department, we have suspended flights to Tel Aviv until the end of October, we're offering waivers to impacted customers.

Speaker 5

We will continue to monitor the situation and adjust as needed. Mike will provide more detail on the impact of these capacity investments shortly. Last quarter, we announced changes to our operation at Newark It's better hedged against disruptions, including taking advantage of FAA granted waivers to reduce our flight schedule allowing for necessary airspace relief in the highly congested region. While July was a difficult weather month, The Newark waivers and other proactive measures to improve reliability helped avoid pre pandemic levels of ATC related delays. In the Q3, delayed arrivals were down 16 points versus the Q3 of 2019.

Speaker 5

Additionally, In August, we had the fewest cancels of any August in history, operating the 3rd largest quarter, wide body schedule ever. In September, the FAA granted extensions to the New York airspace waivers allowing the ability to maintain a reduced flight schedule at Newark that will help minimize air traffic delays through the rest of the year. The flexibility enabled by waivers are providing to be are proving to be Successful in ensuring operational reliability and resiliency at our largest international hub and have meaningfully improved the travel For our customers traveling in and out of Newark and throughout our network. Looking to our system operations, During the quarter, we carried over 482,000 revenue passengers daily. The most in any quarter in United's history, We're top tier system customer D00 in August September.

Speaker 5

We're grateful to the FAA for allowing us to make necessary adjustments in Newark And thank our employees who worked hard to get our customers to their destinations safely and on time. While most of our network Recovered to 2019 capacity levels or beyond. Our China network has been last to recover. At the start of the quarter, we were operating 4 flights a week from San Francisco to Shanghai. And this month, we increased that to a daily flight.

Speaker 5

Next month, we will be the 1st U. S. Airline to return to Beijing with a daily flight from San Francisco. We believe this measured approach to bringing China capacity Back online as appropriate as demand slowly recovers. These increased flights are a significant step forward in rebuilding our Asia Pacific network.

Speaker 5

Late last month, our pilots ratified their industry leading agreement. This contract enables us to continue providing great career opportunities in United And I'm excited for the future as we continue to execute our Unitedx plan. At this point, we have ratified agreements for 4 out of our 5 major work groups. The flight attendants represented by AFA are in active negotiations and we look forward to sharing an update When we have one. As a reminder, we began accruing for pilot pay rate increases in the Q1 of this year.

Speaker 5

Our outlook has and continues to represent our expectation for this agreement. And with that, I will hand it over to Andrew to discuss the revenue environment.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Brett. Total revenue for the 3rd quarter increased 12.5%,

Speaker 2

1 point ahead

Speaker 4

of our guidance midpoint. TRASM was down 2.8%, TRASM was down 1% and capacity increased 15.7% year over year. Capacity came in a bit below our original outlook, mostly due to the changes in our Hawaii flying levels in response to the fires. It's nice to come in ahead of our revenue outlook as the strong Q3 outcome further validates that our United Next commercial strategies are working well And that we have differentiated United from our competition. Demand for the Atlantic and the Pacific was truly outstanding, And we see that trend continuing into the Q4.

Speaker 4

3rd quarter domestic PRASM results were consistent with our year over year performance in the second quarter down 2.1 points. In other words, we saw no real change in our domestic trends in the quarter over quarter review. Our focus on prudent gauge growth centered in our hubs resulted in strong positive marginal revenue on our incremental capacity. We did focus a majority of our Q3 growth on international flying. International capacity increased 22%.

Speaker 4

International PRASM was up 1.3% year over year. International profit margins remained well ahead of domestic, Though domestic margins remain solidly profitable. We also saw strong performance across most

Speaker 2

of the globe. Clearly, Europe was a

Speaker 4

standout with capacity being up 12% with positive PRASM performance. Asia Pacific led international PRASM up 3.8% on 86% more capacity. Turning to our outlook for

Speaker 6

the Q4, we expect total revenue

Speaker 4

to be up approximately 10.5% on approximately 15.5% more capacity. This implies TRASM will be down around 4.5% year over year. Our guide assumes we'll begin limited service to Tel Aviv again in November. Tel Aviv accounts for approximately 2% of United's consolidated capacity. As we think about the sequential trend in unit revenues, know many of you are wondering if we are seeing a slowdown.

Speaker 4

Resurgent of the Pacific flying is resulting in many long haul flights being added, Increasing United's long haul international stage line by 5 points versus Q3. United's Q4 unit revenue expectations are consistent with Q3 adjusted for stage. United has taken full advantage of the demand surge across the Pacific with capacity being added to markets, including the long pending resumption of daily flights to Beijing and Shanghai from San Francisco and the addition of Manila, just to name a few. Having done capacity planning in my entire career, I have to say that our team is the best in the business. United properly allocated our 2023 growth International markets over domestic and in domestic markets we've wisely invested in gauge not scope or depth.

Speaker 4

Less than 1% of United's domestic This winter is in new markets not planned in 2019. Capacity planning for 2024 will be even more important to achieve our financial goals. While we're not going to provide guidance for 2024 today, we have plans to let the 30% growth we've added to the Atlantic since 2019 Sure. In 2024, I expect to fly a similar level of capacity in 2024S23. We also plan on little to no growth the first half of next year on domestic flying.

Speaker 4

This preview of our 2024 capacity, I think, will allow United to continue to produce top tier results as we align with industry conditions. I wanted to touch on a few other important commercial elements today as well. Recently, the question I get asked the most often by our frequent flyers is about potential changes to achieve premier status on United. The good news is we have no material changes planned for 2025 program year. We've carefully managed our Premier population in recent years to maintain a robust Valuable set of benefits for each Premier member.

Speaker 4

We very much believe in never causing a situation where everyone has a Premier status, which obviously results in no one receiving an adequate level of Premier benefits. Our UnitedLex strategy to offer Premier members access to more premium seats each of our competitors is enhancing the value of our pre compliance loyalty program. I also wanted to take a moment to About revenue segmentation, we've worked really hard on perfecting segmentation of our products in recent years. Not only do we have multiple product types appealing to a broad range of customers, We also have new more effective ways to distribute our products by united.com and NDC Technology. United is, of course, very focused on growing all of our premium products given where our hubs are located.

Speaker 4

When I look back at where United was in 17, we simply didn't offer premium products that many of our best customers were willing to pay for. We put a plan in place with UnitedNext to correct this disconnect our commercial plans, and we're making quick progress. Premium Plus is one of our best examples of segmentation and has been a huge success. Premium Plus 3rd quarter 2023 capacity is 5 times that of 2019, but revenue up 7 times 2019 And it's now our most profitable cabin. Premium Plus is now offered on all twin engine international aircraft to United and also on board will be on board our new A321 XLR jets, which replaced our 757 starting in 2025.

Speaker 4

Another important driver of revenues has been the success of domestic 1st Class. We plan on increasing our 1st class seats per departure from 9 in 2019 to 16 by 2027, an 80% increase. This increase in 1st class seats comes as more and more customers are seeking elevated experiences. United's Basic Economy product represents the other side of the spectrum compared to many of our premium products, Basic has made United more competitive versus ultra low cost competitors and given our customers more choices. Basic economy is now 12% of our domestic passengers, and we expect to be even more competitive in this segment of the market in the With the arrival of our large narrow body jets in 2024 2025.

Speaker 4

These new jets have low marginal chasms United to be price competitive would anyone at any time. While it took time to perfect the offer and we are only in the early stages of inducting these jets, Basic has changed the competitive dynamics of our industry. I think it's also become increasingly clear that United's core business model of multiple product choices An expanded club network, experience levels from basic economy to Polaris provide travelers choices and for United to grow premium products choices Travelers are willing to pay for. Beyond segmentation, United's network split evenly between domestic and global capacity. Our leading positions

Speaker 1

Just Thank

Speaker 3

you for that brief interruption. Can we

Operator

continue, Silas? Thank you for standing by. We are now live again to the audience.

Speaker 1

Andrew, you can go ahead.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Obviously, Ed, with diversified revenue streams provide United with a resiliency other business models We'll just not ever achieve. RASM accretive gauge growth focused in our hubs, in turn, provides United with the unmatched ability to create cost convergence for years to come With our low cost providers. Thanks again to the best team in the business. And with that, I will hand it off to Mike.

Speaker 6

Thanks, Andrew, and good morning, everyone. Before I get into the results, I want to take a minute to say how honored and excited I am to join the United executive team during such a transformative time. Industry dynamics are constantly changing, and I continue to see the incredible opportunity ahead for United. We believe our no excuses mentality and Your strategy with United Next are laying the foundation for success. I look forward to continuing the conversations I've had with the investment community thus far in my new role, and I'm excited to lead the talented finance team here at United.

Speaker 6

Now let's turn to the results. For the Q3, we delivered pretax earnings of $1,600,000,000 and a pretax margin of 10.8%. Our earnings per share of $3.65 was ahead of expectations as our revenue growth came in a full point ahead of our guidance midpoint. Thanks to the amazing commercial team for their great work. They truly are the best in the business.

Speaker 6

Fuel remains volatile and worked against us in the quarter. Our average fuel price for the quarter ended $0.30 higher than the midpoint of our July expectation and more than accounts for the entirety of the reduced outlook for the Q3. Our CASMex remained on track at up 2.6% versus the Q3 of 2022. Our operation in Tel Aviv has been impacted by the recent events in the region and is materially impacting our outlook as this market represents approximately 2% of our capacity. For the Q4, we expect CASM ex to be up approximately 3.5 percent, with capacity up 15.5 percent, both versus the Q4 of last year.

Speaker 6

Our guidance incorporates no service to Tel Aviv through the end of October. If flights are further suspended through the end of the year, it would reduce capacity by an additional approximately 1.5 points And add approximately 1.5 points of CASMex, as it's very difficult to cut the associated expenses related to this flying so close in. These changes bring capacity for the full year up around 17.5% year over year, just below our guidance. We're proud of that result given all the headwinds United and our industry faced, a huge testament to the hard work of our operations team. Lower capacity along with elevated maintenance expense has pressured CASM ex and pushed us above the high end of our CASM ex range for the full year.

Speaker 6

For the Q4, we expect earnings per share of approximately $1.80 with an average fuel price of approximately $3.28 Absent our Tel Aviv flying through the rest of the year, our 4th quarter earnings per share would be reduced by approximately $0.30 Looking ahead to 2024, we feel good about the core fundamentals of our expenses. However, we are facing sizable headwinds with labor and expectation of a new flight attendant agreement and continued higher maintenance expense. We believe our capacity growth along with improvements in utilization are helpful tailwinds as we manage down expenses. We are working through our 2024 budget and new projections for 2024 capacity, CASM ex and our other financials, and we'll provide our customary guidance on our January call. On the fleet, in the Q3, we took delivery of 18 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft and pay for 14 of those aircraft with cash.

Speaker 6

We expect to take delivery of 2737 MAX Aircraft in the 4th quarter And we took delivery of our 1st Airbus A321neo last week. This is a reduction of 12 aircraft versus our plan in July for the second half of the year. Due to these aircraft shifting into 2024, we now expect our full year 2023 adjusted capital expenditures to be approximately $8,000,000,000 Earlier this month, we announced our order for 60 A321neos and exercised options for 50,780 for delivery in 20 28 and beyond. Managing the delivery skyline for the future of United is critical. This order builds on the successes we are already seeing with United Next and reflects our confidence as we extend our planning into the next decade.

Speaker 6

With the retirement of our Boeing 75767 7, fleet later this decade, these aircraft are important additions as we work towards fleet simplification and capitalize on our cost reduction opportunity. Turning briefly to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with almost $19,000,000,000 in liquidity, including our undrawn revolver. Before we end our prepared remarks today, it's important to recognize that while our financial results remain strong, as an industry, we are facing new and unique challenges. Our growth has helped us deliver strong relative cost performance and that's even before we begin the accelerated gauge growth that we expect will come from the 7 37 MAX 10 and the A321 additions to our fleet.

Speaker 6

We are committed to continuing to deliver industry leading cost performance, And this will form the foundation for continued cost convergence and improving absolute profitability. And because our growth is focused on our hubs, we're also growing with industry leading PRASM. There are and will always be headwinds facing our industry. But as we enter 2024, United has great momentum and I'm confident a very bright future. With that, I'll hand it over to Christina to start the Q and A.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Mike. We will now take questions from the analyst community. Please limit yourself to one question and if needed one follow-up question. Silas, please describe the procedure to ask a question.

Operator

Thank you. The question and answer session will be conducted electronically. The first question comes from Jamie Baker from JPMorgan.

Speaker 7

Hey, good morning everybody. So following up on some of the prepared remarks probably for Andrew or maybe Scott, I can't recall a time When there's been such a chasm between domestic yields at United and those of the LMAs, How would you rank order the drivers of this? How much is reflective of low end consumer weakness? How much is Your own success with Basic Economy, how much is loyalty, maybe the LMAs are just selling out too far in advance. Just trying to assess the permanence Of the phenomenon, so if you could rank order the drivers, that would be great.

Speaker 4

Hi, Jamie. I'll try to give that a try. I mean rank order and then maybe a little difficult, but let's see what we can do. I do think your question is really one of the most important questions that anyone could ask today because there's such a difference occurring versus the past. And Clearly, what I think I would start off with is there's a large range of business models today that didn't exist in years past in this business.

Speaker 4

And these models are clearly creating winners and losers in a way many of us did not anticipate during the pandemic. I recall telling all of you on the Q1 2020, 2022 call that industry domestic margins will be challenging post pandemic. Clearly, the thinking at the time was for most at least was that all airlines would be pressured equally at best Are the legacy carriers even more so, right? It was widely assumed that lower margin, higher cost legacy carriers would shrink, Rebalance in supply and demand, an outcome that had happened so many times in the past, so why not again? The number of Times I heard that the airline with the lowest cost wins the race.

Speaker 4

I can't even begin to count. So that kind of sets up what about the business models has Shifted so much to cause this paradigm change we're seeing today. Why are these low cost airlines so unprofitable? Why does United have top tier results? And first, I just want to be really clear.

Speaker 4

United's domestic network is Profitable. So it's not simply our great global network that's creating this outcome for us. First issue, of course, Mike talked about is cost. Every airline has to manage higher inflationary cost pressures, but the lowest cost carriers' cost structure relative to the legacy carriers are clearly convergent. The shrinking cost gap is just a fundamental shift for United and our industry, and I guess I would rank that number 1.

Speaker 4

You said it's impossible to run your airline like it's 2019. High utilization was a critical ingredient for success Certain models and that's simply not possible, where we are today and also having large labor cost differentials are not possible. Low cost carriers also tend to operate with very high gauge already. It will be much more difficult for them to drive costs materially lower With larger gauge plans like United, United has increased domestic gauge more than any airline since 2019, And our plan is to push that even further in the years to come. Another issue that I think we should talk about is difficult for Many to grasp is not every ASM is created equal.

Speaker 4

It's easy the mistake made often in the middle of really large spreadsheets that everyone uses to evaluate our outlooks, right? At United, we proved this point early in 2018 2019 with our growth in revenue performance, and we just did it again In Q3, market saturation of the low cost business model in certain regions is creating very low marginal RASMs for some of our competitors. In fact, many of our competitors have marginal revenue percentages that are negative. There are only so many seats Florida, Cancun or Vegas can support in such a short period of time. Also, low cost carriers generally must operate with very large gaming equipment To have low cost without the connectivity benefit of the hub and spoke business model, expansion of the low cost model into smaller and medium sized markets With these very large jets lacking connectivity just creates low marginal RASMs.

Speaker 4

Market Saturation and the mismatch of gauge and other connectivity continues to plague certain business models. Expansion opportunities with this type of business model are not endless our view, but in response to that shortcoming, many of our domestic competitors have doubled down with plans for even more growth in 2024. 2024 marginal growth in markets will absolutely be no better than 2023. No airline network Team would say let's add the bad markets in 2023 so we can save the good ones for 2024. The other Factor is the percentage of ASMs that these airlines have in new markets.

Speaker 4

Very fast growth rates simply create a high percentage of new capacity, Which by its nature in the best of times is below average. The Q4 this Q4 United has less than 1% of our ASMs in new markets versus 2019, this is an absolute difference maker. And capacity growth is designed as a strategy to maintain low cost Without revenue accretive markets to add, the entire business model can break, and that is what we think is happening right now. United's domestic capacity growth has always been about correcting a gauge mismatch created by the overuse of high cost Passenger unfriendly single class regional jets. At United, we have this diversity of revenue streams that provide us long term stability in earnings That one dimensional plan will never achieve.

Speaker 4

We have a range of products, including an array of premium seating options that's increasingly popular with our travelers. We fly as much capacity in global markets as we do domestically. We fly to big cities and small. We have a great hub and spoke business model. United has significant margin accretive growth, and we've proven that time and time again.

Speaker 4

United's business model can support dramatically higher engage. And once added, we spill less and less traffic to others. United's higher gauge will create more and more cost convergence between now 2027. The complexity of United's product offering is not a disadvantage. It, in fact, is a structural advantage It generates revenues more than the cost it creates by the complexity and just cannot be replicated.

Speaker 4

In the past, United and other legacy carriers that have emerged from the crisis Smaller, creating excess planes and other resources for others to grow. This time, that will not happen. This time around, it is not united with the low margins. We will not adjust our plans. United's focus on global markets has Clearly won the day in Q3 and you can see that in the results.

Speaker 4

Our focus on domestic gauge is absolutely the right one. We'll no longer spill as much revenue to others as we've done in the past. Our focus on basic fares means we'll be able to be even more competitive. United will moderate our domestic growth plans, as I said earlier, for the first half of twenty twenty four because we're focused on building our Asia Pacific line where we see the strongest Short term results. But I have to say, maybe in our timing, there may be off to a few other The timing may be off, Jamie, but the quarters are coming and there's a lot of other variables.

Speaker 4

And I just really am confident that Sooner or later, the industry will rebalance like it has done in the past and the United and a few others with similar diversified revenue streams are going to come out on top. That was a long answer. I didn't write exactly the way you were. That's great.

Speaker 7

Yes. Yes. Andrew, That's great. I really do appreciate it. But let me just follow-up with a quick philosophical question, okay?

Speaker 7

If spill carriers can't make money, But full service airlines can. Doesn't that suggest we're actually at the optimal amount of domestic capacity rather than the oversupply that investors keep asking me about?

Speaker 2

Well, I guess I'll try now.

Speaker 6

It's hard to build on it's

Speaker 2

hard to follow in. That was a great answer

Speaker 8

And very comprehensive.

Speaker 2

And probably why we feel that what Andrew said is why we feel so different than I recognize everyone on this call feels or Then the market feels. We feel really confident about where we're headed, what this means for margins, out in 2026, by the time we're there. We just feel really But without asking answering the question about sort of overall industry capacity, I kind of at a high level think of this Jamie is To me, one of the most remarkable statistics this quarter is that 90% of the industry revenue growth is going to be at 2 airlines And 90% of the pretax profitability. We just have better models. And what we've tried to do as we went through COVID, the goal was to create an airline that had better product service experience for customers Across the board.

Speaker 2

We can't just be a low a leader airline. We can't just be a low fare airline. We can't just be a premium airline. We need to deliver For all customers, we tried to create products that were better on the high end, but all the way down to the low end. I Believe strongly that air travel is not a commodity.

Speaker 2

Some of the industry think it's a commodity. That's how you get to low cost wins if you believe it's a commodity. I do not think that. And I think we are proving our results that 2 airlines are proving that air travel is not a commodity. So without commenting on what the total industry What is happening is that clients have that differentiated product service experience are getting almost all of the revenue growth And customers are voting with their wallets and those models are working.

Speaker 7

Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate it. Take care.

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Linenberg from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Yes. Hey, good morning, everyone. Congratulations, Mike, on your promotion and Christina on Your recognition. Scott, I'm going to go to the other end kind of that the side of your business that caters You know, call it the higher end consumer. And I guess when I think about just the recent top up order on the 787s adding to Your current order, I mean, it's significant.

Speaker 9

I think it's actually one of the largest wide body orders out there, at least for a U. S. Carrier. Is the internal thinking at United, Just given the shape of the OEMs, whether it's the manufacturers or the engine makers that we could be facing maybe some Kind of wide body shortage in the back half of this decade. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 4

Mike, I'll give it a try. I do think the production lines for wide bodied jets don't produce nearly as many aircraft As the narrow bodies as you know. So there's definitely not as many that are going to be produced. But more to the point, the wide bodies we just Order are for 2028 and beyond. And it's really our confidence in our plan, but it's And so we secured those positions.

Speaker 4

We're confident we'll use them. We have a significant fleet of 777s and 767s That need to retire at some point later this decade, at least for the 767 for sure. So with the number of retirements we have, the confidence in our plan, and some of the OEM issues that you just brought up, This just made sense. Again, it's for 2028 and beyond. It's a long time away.

Speaker 4

But we are really confident in the plan. We're confident that global growth, We will have to lean into that and we will want to lean into that in the latter part of the decade.

Speaker 6

Mike, this is Mike. I'll pile With the delays in the supply chain, they've become persistent. And so part of what we're doing Is controlling skyline for a longer period of time than we have historically. This industry has been an industry that has in the past gone from putting out fire to fire And United Next strategy is putting us on a firmer footing to plan for the longer term. So, A, I want to highlight that The contractual delivery dates, they've been pushing to the right and we'll probably continue to see that.

Speaker 6

And you see us As you see us playing internally, we'll have some expectation of continued slipping. But make no mistake, we will make adjustments The order book and the delivery times in a way that maximizes returns to our shareholders and we will focus on return on invested capital In addition to our pretax margin as we take delivery of those aircraft.

Speaker 9

Okay, great. Thank you. And just one quick follow-up. Just any Early thoughts on maybe this proposed regulation around credit cards and maybe a cap on merchant fees. I know it's proposed legislation, so it obviously has to go through a process, but any sort of early take on it or maybe it's a TBD?

Speaker 9

Thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker 2

Sure. I'm happy to answer that. It could be really, really bad policy for consumers in this country. It's a bill that would 84% of U. S.

Speaker 2

Consumers have some kind of rewards card in their wallet, but almost everyone on this call has one. And they like them And they like them a lot. Our customers certainly like them a lot. And so I think it'd be hard in Congress to take a vote that 84% of your voters, are going to be upset with the outcome of that vote.

Speaker 10

And by

Speaker 2

the way, this is the Kill Rewards program that would not exist anymore. We So debit card rewards programs when it happens. And I think it's bad policy. And I also think it kind of misses the mark, Because in the credit card, there's a couple of things. It misses the mark with small businesses.

Speaker 2

I understand the frustration with small businesses. But small businesses are actually there's middlemen in between credit card companies, the banks and the small businesses. I think that's probably where the bulk of the issues are. Some of those middlemen charge Square charges as little as 35 basis points and some of those middlemen are charging 300 or 400 basis points. And so I think it probably misses the mark.

Speaker 2

And then the final point would be, it's remarkable how good the cybersecurity is At the credit card processors, they've invested heavily in it. It's not easy to replicate. I mean, think about how many Billions of transactions are happening every day and how rare breaches or problems are. And so I think this is one of those that I've spent now a fair amount of time in DC talking to people. They didn't know much about it before, because as it's come up.

Speaker 2

But as you talk to people about it, they more and more say, well, those are a bunch of good points. We need to go through regular order. We need to examine this. So I think as long as we do that, as long as we examine it through regular order, which is the right way to pass up consequential legislation, The facts will win today and nothing is going to happen and it won't become all.

Speaker 9

Great. Thanks, Scott.

Operator

Our next question comes from Connor Cunningham with Melius Research.

Speaker 8

Hi, everyone. Thank you. Just on costs, I'm trying to understand the trends between your core cost performance and just how these Supply chain transitory issues that you've laid out are kind of impacting. I realize that it's probably really hard to tell right now, but can you if you could just frame up when you think Some of these potential transitory cost pressures may ease next year. That would be helpful.

Speaker 8

Thank you.

Speaker 6

Conor, this is Mike. Let me take a shot at that. And I will acknowledge the 4Q CASM headwind we faced versus our expectations earlier in the year. Let me try to size that. We flew we expect to fly in the 4th quarter about 3 points lower than we thought just 3 months ago.

Speaker 6

Now two points of that is due to captain upgrade issue that Scott talked about on our last earnings call. The captain upgrade issue has impacted the entire industry. We have navigated that really well at United, but it did hit us here at the end of the year. Our new contract with Alpha Does fix that. And so on the horizon, we have a full expectation that that constraint goes away.

Speaker 6

But for the Q4, that caused 2 of the three points. The other point was due to the violence in Tel Aviv and the loss of that flying. That is something that we can reposition over time and we would expect to be able to serve Tel Aviv when the violence ceases. And so those three full points coming out relatively rapidly, you can't take the costs out, that was the majority Of the CASM, of the increase in the CASM for the Q4. Industry is facing other issues, but that's what happened here at United.

Speaker 6

And we expect to mitigate that in 2024 and beyond. The other issue, which I'm not sure how persistent is yet, is that maintenance costs. Maintenance costs throughout the years have been higher than we expected. And for United, It's been a big piece has been the increased need for spare parts. That's on aircraft, but particularly when we repair engines As the work scope has been larger than expected.

Speaker 6

Some of that is related to supply chain, and it's difficult to see when that ends. I will add and so those were the 2 components, majority capacity, and then some additional headwinds for maintenance in the 4th quarter. We're not giving 2024 guidance at this time. The industry is facing cost pressures, inflationary cost pressures, labor cost pressures, maintenance cost pressures. What I will commit to today is that United will be industry leading in how we manage our costs.

Speaker 6

Cost convergence is a structural trend. It is what is causing the lower cost carriers They're not lower cost for long, the low cost carriers to struggle and it is a foundation to United next. And so I don't know where all that's going to settle. We will give you guidance as we would normally on the January conference call, but I will commit to industry leading CASM going forward.

Speaker 8

Okay. That's super helpful. And then maybe just a little bit on so a lot of your cost stuff next year kind of seems like it's Somewhat capacity related or delivery new delivery related. And so I'm just trying to understand if you could maybe protect is there any swing capacity excess capacity that you may be able to have that could protect some of that growth that you have next year that may be slowed as a result of some of these delivery delays? Thanks again.

Speaker 6

Hi, you're thinking about it the right way. But we are given all the constraints, We are working to and the incremental flights from United being quite profitable given the great results from our commercial team, We're going to fly as much as we can to maximize profitability, but we do face some of those constraints. The key around the pressure of growing is you do need to hire folks on board before you actually add the ASMs. So we will that's a headwind United faces as long as we're executing on the United Next strategy. We're going to work to optimize that, But that doesn't go fully away until you would return to a slower growth rate.

Speaker 8

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Catherine O'Brien with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for the time and congrats Mike and Christina. I noticed in the release you called out the basic economy was up 50% year over year. Andrew, can you just dig into what drove that? Is that 12% of domestic passengers?

Speaker 11

Is that up significantly? Is there also a pricing element? Thanks.

Speaker 4

It's a good question. We, last year, facing the surge in demand, just maybe the simplest way to say it is we sold out too soon, And we didn't have appropriate room for these basic passengers and our gauge was smaller. And this year as we get Closer to implementing all of our UnitedLex plans, we were much more careful not to sell out too soon. So our close in bookings Are actually quite strong. It's interesting to say that as I read commentary from around the rest of the industry that kind of says the opposite.

Speaker 4

And I do have to wonder whether one is tied to the other, obviously. But because we say we didn't sell out too soon, because we have plenty of room And because we have just a normal booking curve for all this, we are able to accommodate those passengers in this quarter Unlike we did in the past and with the new gauge aircraft coming in the future, we'll be able to continue to do that going forward. So I think that's the simplest and easiest Explanation as to why you saw that change in our basic economy passengers. And look, it's

Speaker 6

a product we've talked about

Speaker 4

a lot, provides choice for our customers On the low end, we have lots of products on the high end as well. It gives us the diversity we need, and I think it's really allowing us to compete very effectively With all of our competitors, but particularly our ultra low cost competitors.

Speaker 11

That's great. Thanks. And then maybe one for Mike, just On a follow-up on the delivery continued delivery delays we're seeing. With the recent announcements on And then on Pratt potentially putting pressure on engine availability and on NIO deliveries. And then I don't think the MAX-ten has been certified yet, but correct I'm wrong.

Speaker 11

How do we think about that delivery outlook for next year? Are there alternatives to the MAX ten maybe you would consider? Or I appreciate now that you guys have in the queue the contractual deliveries versus the expected, but should we expect to see that delta maybe grow when we get the queue later today? Thanks so much

Speaker 6

Thanks for the question, Katie. And that is what we can do is we can manage our expected deliveries versus the contractual deliveries and size the deliveries and size the business appropriately. The more that we hire workforce For aircraft that don't come that they weren't delivered when we need them, the bigger that headwind is For us. And so one of the first things I need to do in my new role is to properly size That buffer between expected and contracted deliveries. So that's point 1.

Speaker 6

Point 2, we have older aircraft and we will push of those older aircraft to fly longer, with expected delays in delivery. I happen to love that option because that is also And so in the long run, we want to simplify the fleet and those MAX-10s are going to be Structurally lower costs, we're excited about them. The A321s are fantastic aircraft. Both of those aircraft are Fantastic for a network like United where Gauge we get a real advantage out of Gauge. I expect those deliveries to really Start to drive lower CASM in 2025, not 2024.

Speaker 6

And so, we should understand the timing of that. But we've got numerous levers to manage the delays from the supply chain and we can do a better job optimizing based on Delays that are becoming a little bit more predictable.

Speaker 11

Great. Thanks for the time.

Operator

Our next question comes from Ravi Shanker with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 10

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Just wanted to follow-up on the commentary earlier about, you need to cater to all Customers, which I totally get kind of given the broad base of the market, but obviously we're seeing some of your peers try to push into premier or push into low end. And it's anyway, just kind of the face of it feels like specializing may be an easier thing to go after than trying to cater to everyone With the network and the product you have, so kind of just wanted to get us dig a little deeper into kind of why that strategy of kind of being everything to everyone rather than being Just maybe a full service premium network airline.

Speaker 4

I'll start. I'm going to assume others may want to chime in on this. But Urs, I think there's a really important distinction in your question we need to clarify. We're not trying to be all things to all people within the United States or around the globe. There are parts Of our network, that don't cover every single market in the United States.

Speaker 4

And I think if you were to try and say we are going to cover Every single O and D pair in the United States is the world's largest airline. That would be incredibly challenging and that is not something we're trying to do. We are trying in our hubs, and all the spokes who serve well from our hubs to make sure we offer a diverse range of products That appeal to all the customers that fly on United Airlines. And some of those customers by the way flying United Airlines for business And sometimes the same customers fly on United for leisure, vacation or other needs. And so they have that optionality to purchase anything from basic economy To Polaris as part of that.

Speaker 4

And if they join MileagePlus, they have obviously a larger chance to get upgraded into our large premium economy are into our 1st class cabins, which are growing. So that diverse set of revenue streams, I know others I know it sounds complicated, but it is our secret recipe. It is what the market wants. It's what our customers want. And we are not trying to be all things to all people.

Speaker 4

We're trying to make sure for the customers that fly United that they have a range of product choices for the particular trip they're going to take on that journey.

Speaker 2

And I would say it is more complicated. You're right. Simpler to you're going to only try to appeal to one niche. But the niche the niches are small. The number of markets that exist That you can only be a low fare, low cost commoditized player is small.

Speaker 2

The number of markets that exist you can only be a premium airline. It's even smaller. And so they're just tiny niches and we're a big airline.

Speaker 6

This is Paimon. We fly 200,000,000 passengers annually and those passengers, fly for different reasons and they and the passengers will Shift from leisure to business passengers throughout their life. And so it is important that we serve all of them and we serve all of them with a product that suits their needs.

Speaker 10

That's very helpful color. Thank you for that. And maybe as a quick follow-up and apologies if I missed this earlier. There's some speculation about us potentially being at peak international right now, specifically peak transatlantic. What would you say to that of going into 2024, kind of do you see enough runway?

Speaker 10

I think you said coming out of the summer of 2022 that 2023 would be a lot bigger and kind of had that visibility. You confident that, that strength can continue to 2024 as well?

Speaker 4

Well, I'd say right now, particularly Today, for example, we continue to see strength across Atlantic. We particularly see it to Southern Europe. I can tell the industry does by all of our changes, And that's great to see. So we think that the trends are going to continue. Daphne said, I did say earlier in my comments that we are going to give the Atlantic Rasp, we've grown a lot since 2019, for sure.

Speaker 4

And this year will be a year of Basically no capacity growth across the Atlantic. I said I wasn't going to give capacity guidance, but clearly that's a big hint for a big part of the airline. So sorry, Mike. And the other thing I've said is like the last part of the world to recover is Asia. And Asia is Still, however you want to look at it, very strong.

Speaker 4

We're growing a lot of capacity upfront. And we're going to focus our efforts Where we see that growth, where we see the profitability opportunity, and if you look at our schedules going into next year, You can see that a gigantic percent change in our capacity is in fact Asia. So we put the capacity where we think we need to put it. Really bullish on international. We've come a long way.

Speaker 4

It's very profitable. And there's a lot more to come. And as I said, in the latter part of this decade, I think we'll lean into it even further. We have the right hubs, right gateways where we have the leading business demand, the leading leisure demand and the leading cargo demand. And that recipe is just unique to United and we're going to take full advantage of it.

Speaker 6

I spoke to an earlier question around the I spoke to an earlier question around the constraints to industry capacity and there's nowhere that that's more true than for wide body aircraft. In addition to that, as Andrew alluded to, but I'll just emphasize, we have the best international gateways leaving the United States Of any carrier. And so this is where, as Andrew says, we were born on 3rd base and we're going

Speaker 2

to capitalize on that.

Speaker 10

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Scott Group with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Speaker 12

Hey, thanks. Good morning. So Scott, yesterday you said that adjustments are inevitable and you expect them by the second half of twenty twenty four. I guess I'm wondering what are you just talking about there are going to be capacity cuts by the second half next year? Are you talking about something bigger than that?

Speaker 12

And then when I just think about the overall

Speaker 2

Well, I'm not going to predict what the Exact changes are going to be, but here's what I'd say.

Speaker 4

There

Speaker 2

has been a structural change in the industry. And the structural change is, I've hinted at this earlier in today's call. I don't think air travel is a commodity. Some in the industry think it is. I do not.

Speaker 2

I think product service experience matter. Everything we've been doing in the last 3 years has been focused on improving that for our customers. That's true across the board, From the premium, but all the way down to the basic economy customers. And then particularly as it pertains to low cost carriers. I think there's 3 things that we have done that have Completely changed the competitive dynamic there.

Speaker 6

First,

Speaker 2

as we're growing with higher gauge, We now have low marginal CASMs on those big airplanes. When we used to try to compete with them with regional jets, we couldn't compete. We had high cost Product and we ran out of seats. We now have seats to sell, on low marginal CASM on big growing airplane. 2nd is basic economy.

Speaker 2

And that is a product that is where we can be price competitive, but offer a far superior product Still, then you can get on a low cost carrier and still be price competitive. And the third is the pivot into leisure markets. We've added more capacity and it's done really well, when we've added capacity into leader market. And you put those three things together and what we've tried to do Is Craig a product that customers will choose? And so what we try to do is create a cost competitive product for customers, But that is better and so they will choose to fly United.

Speaker 2

And that is exactly what we've done. That's how you see us have 90 2 airlines have 90 8% of the revenue growth. And that makes it hard if you're someone else. I'm not going to predict what they have

Speaker 3

to do.

Speaker 2

But if I was one of those airlines, I'd be really worried about not having a competitive product with United Airlines. That's the issue.

Speaker 12

It strikes me, I don't think I've heard you talk so much and then so positively about basic economy in a while. Like It feels like a change in tone or strategy. Can you just talk about that and why it's happening now? Is it reflective of the competitive dynamic, the demand environment? It feels like a change.

Speaker 2

It took us look, I think it took us a while to work it out. It also helped that some of our competitors went the other direction. I mean, charging people $99 at the gate and paying your employees a commission to take their purses away crossed the line. And so while they've gone one direction, we've gone the other with an improved product. But the other thing that's really changed in the last year As we finally started to get the gauge run, we couldn't make this work when

Speaker 5

we were flying 650 regional jets around the country.

Speaker 2

And like That's why like this is all coming together. I love when a plan comes together. This is coming together.

Speaker 8

And I

Speaker 2

know it's not reflected in our stock price yet And the market is skeptical of it. But this is a plan that is working exactly like we thought it would. And that is the big change for basic economies. It is a better product for us. We figured out how to make it work, but we now have the gauge to be able to sell the product.

Speaker 12

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Duane Pfennigwerth from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Speaker 13

Mike, I was going to Congratulate you on the promotion, but given I'm so far back in the queue. No, I'm just kidding. Congrats on the step up here. I don't want to pile on basic economy, but I did think the disclosure was kind of interesting. You called out 50% growth.

Speaker 13

Is that simply a function of kind of inventory availability? So this time last year, things were really tight And they're a bit looser this year, so we can drive that growth. And I guess depending upon the environment, That 12% of customers was also an interesting stat. So you can turn the dials and maybe you have kind of half a Spirit Airlines within United inventory to maybe kind of multiple Spirit Airlines within United inventory. I'm guessing you probably pushed back on that metaphor, but Maybe you could just speak to kind of inventory availability as a driver there.

Speaker 4

We'll probably save that for a more Smaller conversation, to be honest. What I would say is the comps last year, we just couldn't execute the way we wanted to execute. And so it's off a small base. It creates a big percentage, but it is a meaningful change. And as I said earlier, we're going to lean into it.

Speaker 4

We have these big aircraft And we're going to be more competitive in the future, not less.

Operator

Your line is now unmuted.

Speaker 1

Alex, are you there?

Operator

Thank you for standing by. We are now live again to the conference.

Speaker 1

Are we back online?

Operator

Yes, we are now back online.

Speaker 1

Pass it on to the next analyst, which is Helane from Cowen.

Operator

Absolutely. Helane Becker from TD Cowen, you are unmuted. Please go ahead.

Speaker 14

Thanks very much for the time. Christina, congratulations. Given I was quoted in the article, I knew it was coming. And Mike, same to you. So here's my question.

Speaker 14

As I think about the fact that we have all these infrastructure issues, especially in the New York area that are going to persist for Several years. How should we think about 2 things? You increase gauge, obviously, to capture the demand, but then there's a point where you want to capture higher ticket prices. So what's the sweet spot where you can do both, where you can benefit from Capacity limitations with higher aircraft and raise ticket prices so that you improve margins.

Speaker 2

Helane, we think about it through a different prism. We want to provide a good experience to our customers. And New York And New Jersey have not been a good experience for a decade. And the core reason they have is there are more flights scheduled than the airports could handle. We are we think it is a win for everyone, particularly starting with customers, To have the number a realistic number of flights at the airport capacity and air traffic control handling those airports and we're very Grateful to the FAA for doing that, for listening, and following through on that.

Speaker 2

And We're anxious to serve as many customers as we can and so we are up gauging. So we're flying more seats. We're flying fewer number of flights, but more seats

Speaker 3

As

Speaker 2

we're updating and so we're focused on delivering for customers and that means flying bigger airplanes. Good news is bigger airplanes also have lower cost And when the operation runs better, it's even lower cost per seat, which customers ultimately benefit from, and that's what we're doing.

Speaker 14

Sue, is the conclusion that I should have that the revenue is what it would have been had the infrastructure issue not existed and you flew more flights, But you would have had higher costs, right? This way you have lower costs and the same amount of revenue. Is that right?

Speaker 2

And I don't know that I kind of get into that level of detail you have in your spreadsheet. What I think is we're going to have a much better experience For customers?

Speaker 14

Great. Got it.

Speaker 2

I think we will have lower costs Because we'll have fewer irregular operations, and we'll have bigger airplanes. And I think that'll probably keep prices Certainly, in line to growing with inflation, be better for our customers and we'll be more profitable Because we don't have all the expenses associated with disruption and we don't have all the frustration that comes from that from customers. I think this is one of those few situations It's a win win win for everybody. Right.

Speaker 6

Lane, the worst thing from a cost perspective is irregular operations.

Speaker 14

Right.

Speaker 6

That's what surprises That's what surprises us. We built lots of buffers into the system to control for that and With better air traffic control with the airport that is capacity appropriately, we can do a lot more optimization.

Speaker 14

Got it. That's very helpful. Well, thanks everybody.

Operator

Our next question comes from Brandon Oglenski from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Speaker 15

Hi, good morning and thanks for taking the question and congrats Mike and Christina, so I know it's been a long call. I just want to get one more in here. But Andrew, I know you're not technically guiding to 2024, but you also mentioned domestic Hassie, I believe in your prepared remarks, we should think about it being pretty much flat I think in the first half of the year, but maybe you can clarify that. And what's driving that? Because I know under your next strategy, you did want to up gauge domestically.

Speaker 15

So is this in concert with OEM delivery expectations, pilots, Commercial, I mean, what are you seeing that's driving that?

Speaker 4

We're still putting our plan together, so I don't want Say it's final, but and I did say in my prepared remarks that we would have I forget the exact words, but low type of Really slow growth domestically. Look, our commercial efforts are just focused on overseas At this point, and across the Pacific in particular into the South Pacific. And so we've executing we're going to execute really well on that capacity in my opinion, and that's where our focus. As Mike said, there are a few constraints. We have OEM issues, and all that kind of leads to that outcome.

Speaker 4

And we think it's the

Speaker 3

right outcome for our capacity, for

Speaker 4

next year. And we'll have a lot Come for our capacity for next year. And we'll have a lot more to say in early 2024.

Speaker 15

I appreciate that. Thank you.

Operator

We will now switch to the media portion of the call. Please hold for a moment while we assemble our queue. Leslie Josephs from CNBC. Your line is unmuted. Please go ahead.

Speaker 16

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if you are seeing if you could kind of put into context how many requests for Status matches you've seen since Delta made those changes last month. And then also on your push to premium, Can you talk a little bit about the supply chain currently and how far behind you are on upgrading those cabins and when you expect things to catch up?

Speaker 4

Sure. Look, I'll give a little bit of commentary. RR status matches up dramatically? Yes. Is dramatically a big number?

Speaker 4

No. So, That's all I'll say on that front. And in terms of the Signature Interiors, we are definitely facing some constraints, but I'll pass that over to Toby, who runs that program for us. Let's start.

Speaker 6

Thanks, Andrew. I think we're about a year behind. The good news is that we're still taking the new deliveries. So we're right now flying about 120 airplanes that have the interior design, which we have gotten the resolution and which is really good for us operational as well because it has Space for one bag for each passenger, so no bags has come out. So that's probably the biggest thing.

Speaker 6

So I think right now, we're targeting 2026 for 100%

Speaker 2

To be complete. Leslie, I'd just add though that this is another one of the things that United got right. We believe back in 2020 that there was going to be a full recovery in demand and thought that the pandemic as tough as it was represented a once in history opportunity To get prepared and invest for the future. So 2 of the things we did was get ahead of the curve on we built more club space. So we now have 49% more club space than we did before the pandemic.

Speaker 2

And we just opened our The 2 largest clubs in our entire system that are great for customer feedback is awesome, 1 in Denver, 1 in Newark. So we plan ahead for this. And while the Signature Interiors are behind, we today have close to double the number of premium seats that we had pre pandemic. This is a team that started back in the summer of 2020 to prepare for the recovery in premium demand. And that's the reason Andrew said in his remarks, we don't need to change our programs and do anything because we prepare for this.

Speaker 16

Okay. And on the other end of the Basic Economy, are customers just buying that because they're more price sensitive now or and I wasn't sure 50% what percentage of your revenues is Basic Economy?

Speaker 4

Leslie, I would say it's likely a lot more share shift that in the previous quarters years We didn't have the large gauge aircraft to accommodate all the different range of passenger types and product types adequately. And we are now just beginning, but we have a lot more flexibility and we're able to accommodate those passengers and it happened. And I think I would describe it as probably a fair amount of share shift.

Speaker 11

Thank you.

Operator

Moving to the next caller, Mary Schlangenstein from Bloomberg News. Your line is unmuted. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Thank you. I wanted to ask you about the situation in Israel and whether you are assessing the potential for that to Spread to other areas and perhaps even to some areas of Europe where you may have to cancel more flights because people might be poking away over worries. And if you're seeing any of that already, where that's shifted to other countries or other cities that you serve?

Speaker 2

We're not seeing that at all.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Moving to our next caller, Justin Bachman from The Messenger. Please go ahead.

Speaker 12

Yes. Hi, good morning, everybody. Thanks for the time today. I wanted to go back to Scott's Point about the industry landscape changing. And I was hoping that you might be able to elaborate a bit on that where If we are facing a situation where every American chooses to fly Delta and United, what does that suggest where for the rest of the industry as far as Other players, do they become smaller, more niche?

Speaker 12

Or is there just too many airlines out there? I just wanted to see if you could expand on what that suggests over time. Thank you.

Speaker 2

I don't think it suggests that, but I think what we are proving is that customers care about quality product and service. And I think because of that, The airlines that succeed are going to invest in quality, product and service. And if you don't do that, you're going to fail.

Speaker 6

Justin, I'm going to jump in on this as well. What has changed is cost convergence, right? At this point, we're able to provide incremental seats to our customers at a price point that is competitive with the ULCCs and we provide better product. And so customers are choosing To fly better product at a similar price and we are just getting started.

Speaker 12

Right. No, I fully understand that. I'm just thinking, if you play that movie out, what does that suggest for the competitive landscape in 2, 3, 4 years, if those trends continue and things don't continue as they have been?

Speaker 6

That's a question for those airlines, not for us.

Speaker 12

Okay.

Operator

I will now turn the call back over to Christina Edwards for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Thanks for joining the call today. Please contact Investor and Media Relations if you have any further questions and we look forward to talking to you next quarter.

Operator

Thank you all. This concludes today's conference and you may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
United Airlines Q3 2023
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