What’s Going On Here?United Airlines reported its fourth-straight quarter of losses late on Wednesday, and it’s carrying something very suspicious into the next few months too. What Does This Mean?United burned through $33 million a day last quarter – even more than the quarter before as staff layoff costs and interest on its mounting debt continued to spiral. The company did raise billions from investors and in US government support last year, mind you, so it’s hopeful it’ll have enough cash on hand to keep going until air travel starts to recover in earnest. And hey, at least it’s making money somewhere: United’s cargo business – which admittedly only represents 16% of its total revenue – jumped 77% last quarter compared to the same time the year before. Why Should I Care?The bigger picture: Out-of-business class.
United isn’t expecting a meaningful recovery until toward the end of the year, but rival Delta Air Lines – which reported its worst-ever performance last week after hemorrhaging $12 billion last year – thinks it’ll kick off in spring. They both agree on one thing though: vacations will be first to come back, while the more lucrative but Zoom-disrupted world of business travel will take a while to bounce back.
Zooming out: Must be nice.
Hold on to your monocles: fresh data out this week showed private flights from the UK are only down 42% since the start of the pandemic, compared to the 75% drop in the country’s commercial flights. Some private jet operators are reporting so many first-time clients hoping to avoid crowded terminals, in fact, that they sold more flights last year than in 2019. And while aircraft manufacturer Honeywell Aerospace predicts that private jet flights will have fully recovered by the middle of this year, commercial flights are, at best, expected to be back up to 70% of their pre-pandemic levels by the same point (tweet this). | 
