Last week I covered Delta’s Q2 earnings and looking at the data coming from United Airlines there are quite a few commonalities. Both airlines managed to protect profits in an unstable landscape but saw costs (up by 19% in United’s case) eat out a significant chunk of their lunch, so to speak.
In this post:
- United’s Q2 Earnings at a Glance
- Fuel Cost: The Cause United’s Q2 Profit Contraction
- Higher Passenger Fares Applied to Protect Margins
- Yields Up Across The Board
- Fleet and Passenger Volumes Increase
- Sign up to my newsletter
United’s Q2 Earnings at a Glance
| Q2 (Millions) | 2026 | 2025 | Var | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passenger Revenue | 16,100 | 13,836 | 2,264 | 16,36% |
| Cargo Revenue | 527 | 430 | 97 | 22,56% |
| Other Revenue | 1,045 | 970 | 75 | 7,73% |
| Total Operating Revenue | 17,672 | 15,236 | 2,436 | 15.99% |
| Salaries | 4,686 | 4,413 | 273 | 6,19% |
| Fuel | 5,110 | 2,775 | 2,335 | 84,14% |
| Airport Fees | 1,056 | 961 | 95 | 9,89% |
| Maintenance | 906 | 865 | 41 | 4,74% |
| Amortization | 762 | 733 | 29 | 3,96% |
| Aircraft Rent | 112 | 67 | 45 | 67,16% |
| Other Expenses | 3,944 | 4,097 | -153 | -3,73% |
| Total Operating Expenses | 16,576 | 13,911 | 2.665 | 19,16% |
| Operating Income | 1,096 | 1,325 | -229 | -27,50% |
| Non Operating Expenses | 69 | 77 | -8 | -10,39% |
| Pre-Tax Income | 1,027 | 1,248 | -221 | 37,89% |
| Tax | 221 | 275 | -54 | -19,64% |
| Net Income | 806 | 973 | -167 | -17,16% |
| Operating Margin | 6.2% | 8.7% | -1.5pp | |
| Net Margin | 4.6% | 6.4% | -1.8pp |
Fuel Cost: The Cause United’s Q2 Profit Contraction
The theme is the same across the board in the aviation industry. The airlines are all hurting with costs, specifically the cost of Jet-A fuel.
United got hurt even worse than Delta in Q2 looking at performance YoY. While Delta a 67% fuel cost increase United Airlines fuel bill spiked by an eye-watering 84.1%.
Fuel cost almost doubled compared to Q2 of 2025 jumping up from 2.7 billion USD to 5.1 billion USD.
What that boils down to is a contraction of the overall profitability of the airline. The operating profit shrunk by -17.3% as a result of that higher fuel price and so did the net profit which shrunk by a similar -17.2%.
In margin terms that means that United Airlines turned over a 6.2% operating margin (down from 8.7% in 2025 Q2) and a 4.6% net margin (down from 6.4% in 2025 Q2).
Higher Passenger Fares Applied to Protect Margins
The only way airlines can protect their profits in such an environment is by rising fare prices. That’s what Delta did, and is of course also United Airlines’ solution.
Passenger and cargo operations drove more revenue in 2026 Q2 compared to last year. Total operating revenue was up by 16% YoY primarily as a result of air fare increases. Passengers volume growth did have a role in the increase but not as large considering its increase was a much more modest +5.43%.
A note as a passenger, I’m sure fares will come back down when fuel comes down but airlines are very clever at cutting out ancillary services out of basic fares in times like these (such as baggage allowances) and those will never come back the way they were.
Yields Up Across The Board But Less to High Competition European Market
| Q2 (millions) | 2026 | 2025 Var% | Yield Vs 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domestic | 9.506 | 20,3% | 13% |
| Europe | 3.199 | 10,2% | 9% |
| ME/Africa | 225 | -16,4% | 22,8% |
| Pacific | 1.788 | 18,7% | 10,9% |
| Latin America | 1.382 | 10,5% | 10,7% |
| Total | 16.100 | 16,4% | 12,1% |
The breakdown of United Airlines passenger revenue gives us a couple of interesting insights to talk about.
First of all domestic remains the most valuable market for United and is also the fastest growing one. I can only see this trend accelerate with Spirit Airlines out of the game.
Domestic accounts for 59% of United’s total passenger revenue with international generating the remaining 41%.
The other really interesting insight I got out of this dataset it’s that yields did go up across all macro-regions, but not in the same way across the board. For instance, yields grew in Q2 2026 over the same quarter of 2025 by 13% in the US, 10.9% in towards the Pacific, 10.7% towards Latin America and went through the roof towards the Middle East and Africa by 22.8%. The latter is a result of the Gulf instability.
Where yields grew much slower is towards Europe. There United Airlines probably couldn’t increase fares as much as it would have liked to due to the heavy competition and the fact that European airlines are heavily fuel hedged and therefore capable of pricing flights lower.
Fleet and Passenger Volumes Increase in 2026 Q2 YoY
| Q2 | 2026 | 2025 | Var | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passengers (thousands) | 48.692 | 46.186 | 2.506 | 5,43% |
| RPM (millions) | 72.765 | 70.088 | 2.677 | 3,82% |
| ASM (millions) | 87.279 | 84.347 | 2.932 | 3,48% |
| Load Factor | 83,4% | 83,1% | 0,30 | – |
| Aircraft | 1.552 | 1.473 | 79 | 5,36% |
| Avg. Stage Length | 1.460 | 1.508 | -48 | -3,18% |
| Employee Headcount (thousands) | 117,5 | 111,3 | 6,20 | 5,57% |
| Avg. Fuel Price | 4,19 | 2,34 | 1,85 | 79,06% |
Let’s wrap things up with some operational data. As mentioned passengers volumes increased with 2.5 million passengers more flying United Airlines in 2026 Q2 over 2025.
Load factor remained stable with RPM (revenue passengers miles) and ASM (available seats per mile) increasing by similar rates, 3.82% and 3.48%.
United also flies 79 more planes this year than it did in Q2 of 2025 and the final piece of data I found interesting is the average stage length. United Airlines flights on average became shorter by 48 miles or a 3.18% decrease.