United Airlines posts $434 million 2Q loss but revenue up

United Airlines reduced its quarterly loss to $434 million and posted surprisingly strong revenue as U.S. vacation travel picked up.

In reporting its second-quarter results Tuesday, the Chicago-based 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 in a prepared statement.

However, United is trailing key rivals as the airlines claw to get back to profitability. In April, Southwest was the first U.S. airline to report a profit since the pandemic hit, and Delta followed last week — in both cases, profits were possible only because of money from taxpayers.

United's shares rose 6.6% in regular trading Tuesday as travel stocks rebounded from large losses on Monday. In extended trading after the results were released, the shares slipped less than 1%.

More than 2 million people a day have boarded planes in the U.S. 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 — United filled 83% of seats on domestic flights but only 53% on international ones.

United recently told investors about plans to build its U.S. operation, “but the company is still dependent on international routes to make a full profit recovery,” said Peter McNally, an analyst with Third Bridge Group in New York.

United's second-quarter loss would have been far worse — $1.3 billion — without...