MarketWatch: UAL, US Air plunge into the wild-red yonder

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UAL, US Airways swing to losses on higher fuel costs

By Christopher Hinton, MarketWatch


NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- UAL Corp. and US Airways on Tuesday reported they had swung to second-quarter losses as high jet fuel prices more than offset a small jump in revenue.

For the recent quarter, UAL, the parent company of United Airlines, reported a loss of $2.69 billion, or $21.47 a share. In the year-ago period they earned $537 million, or $1.83 a share.
Excluding certain largely non-cash charges, Chicago-based UAL said it lost $1.19 a share in the quarter. Analysts polled by FactSet Research expected, on average, a quarterly loss of $1.85 a share.

The country's second largest airlines operator in terms of assets, UAL said revenue rose 2% to $5.37 billion from $5.21 billion last year. Wall Street was looking for sales of $5.41 billion.

Total passenger revenue from United Airlines rose to $4.10 billion from $3.97 billion.

With record-high jet fuel prices and a historically softer quarter ahead, airlines have been strengthening their cash positions to weather through. UAL said its cash position was virtually flat with the first quarter at $2.9 billion. ........(more)

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