United Airlines posts $434m Q2 loss but revenue up

United reduced its quarterly loss to $434m and posted surprisingly strong revenue as US vacation travel picked up. In reporting Q2 results Tuesday, the airline said it expects to earn a pretax profit in the remaining two quarters of the year. That would break a string of six-straight money-losing quarters since the pandemic began to crush air travel. “Our airline has reached a meaningful turning point: We’re expecting to be back to making a profit once again,” CEO Scott Kirby said. However, United is trailing key rivals as the airlines claw to get back to profitability. In April, Southwest was the first US airline to report a profit since the pandemic hit, and Delta followed last week — in both cases, profits were possible only because airlines have received $54b from taxpayers. United said it can become profitable this year without more government money. Wall Street expects losses in both the third and fourth quarters. More than 2m people a day have boarded planes in the US this month, nearly the double the number that were flying back in March. The recovery, however, is very fragile. Travel is still down 20% from pre-pandemic July 2019. High-fare corporate and international flyers, who contribute an oversized portion of United’s revenue, are still mostly absent, although United said both are improving faster than expected. United filled 83% of seats on domestic flights but only 53% on international ones.<br/>