United in the Spotlight

United doesn’t need any more silver medals. But it won another last quarter. While outperforming many low-cost rivals, it failed again to overtake Delta in the profit chase. Among the U.S. Big Three, Delta took gold with a 10% operating margin, ex special items. United’s figure was 8%. This gap, recall, was narrower in Q3, which covers the summer period, when United tends to perform better given the seasonal tendencies of its network—Delta has more winter-peaking sunshine routes. The more important point though, is that both airlines are performing well, albeit producing Q4 margins that were not quite as good as they were in 2022, or for that matter 2019—labor cost inflation is a major reason why.