United Airlines is doubling down on premium offerings and brand-loyal customers after a third quarter in which premium and loyalty revenue were strong.
"For the last few years, we've talked about an industry that is transforming, and United Airlines is competitively positioned to win," United CEO Scott Kirby said during the airline's Q3 earnings call on Oct. 16.
Kirby noted that despite the macroeconomic volatility in the first three quarters of the year, the airline projects earnings growth for the full year, which is "proof that the brand-loyal United Next strategy is resilient in tough times," he said.
Premium third-quarter revenue was up 6% year over year, and premium-class revenue per available seat mile outperformed the main cabin by five points, United chief commercial officer Andrew Nocella said. MileagePlus loyalty revenue increased more than 9%, he added, and the carrier is seeing increased retention of cardholders along with higher spending.
"We believe that our tilt to brand-loyal capacity and products in the last five years was well-timed, but also consistent with the demand profile in our hub cities, which is why it's worked so well and why our premium efforts will be more margin-accretive than others," Nocella said.
Kirby said, "I call it brand-loyal demand instead of premium demand to start with because many of our brand-loyal customers are flying in economy. That demand has been resilient. There are people that, one, in many cases, do have the incomes to continue traveling. Travel is high on the list of what people want to do and most of those people do. Many are business travelers that are flying for business. And because you have a higher share there, that's what really makes that resilient."
As for the corporate segment, "United had the company's all-time highest business revenue ticketing during the week ending October 5, and of the top 5 best weeks in our history, three of the remaining four occurred in September 2025," Nocella said.
He added, however, that "the quality of premium leisure business often exceeds that of traditional corporate business, which, by the way, is a much smaller percentage of United's business than it was in 2019."
Still, that hasn't yet happened in international long-haul flying, Nocella said. "The corporate there does remain a much higher yield than the premium leisure business at this point. But again, premium leisure continues to accelerate," he said. "We seek to maintain all that corporate business and gain corporate share, while at the same time, as we reconfigure aircraft, take on more and more premium leisure business.
"United's business model now has a more balanced demand level across more of the year as our increasingly optimal mix between leisure demand, premium leisure demand and business demand is yet another emerging advantage we have over commodity-based airlines," he added.
For 2026, United's premium capacity will be up two to three points more year over year than its total capacity, Nocella said. "I'm not going to give you guidance for next year, but we've preprogrammed this long ago to take advantage of these premium trends."
Next year, the carrier also plans to end the summer schedule a week early, operate 15% fewer redeye flights and cut more capacity from the July 4 holiday "in pursuit of higher margins," Nocella said. "I also expect that our Atlantic capacity year over year, excluding Tel Aviv, will be flat to negative in Q3 2026."
United Q3 metrics
United's third-quarter passenger revenue was $13.8 billion, an increase of 1.9%. Total revenue was more than $15.2 billion, a 2.6% increase. Net income was $949 million. Capacity increased 7.2%.
In an update on United's new WiFi installations, the carrier's first Starlink-equipped Boeing 737-800 departed from Newark. For United Express regional planes, Nocella said United is more than halfway through installations on Embraer 175s and the Bombardier CRJ-550.
Source: Business Travel News