United Rethinking Boeing – 4 Other Takeaways From Q4 Earnings

24.01.2024 - 00:19 / skift.com / Scott Kirby / Andrew Nocella / Meghna Maharishi

United Airlines is reevaluating its fleet plan due to Boeing 737 Max 10 delays, the carrier’s CEO said in a call with analysts on Tuesday. 

“We are taking it out of our internal plans,” United CEO Scott Kirby said during the call. “We’ll be working on what that means with Boeing. But Boeing is not going to be able to meet their contractual deliveries on at least many of those airplanes.”

Earlier in the day, Kirby expressed his frustrations with the delays in an interview with CNBC. The Max 10, along with Max 7, have yet to be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration. 

Mike Leskinen, United’s chief financial officer, said on the call that the carrier had 107 aircraft deliveries scheduled for 2024, but after the Max 9 grounding, it is now “unrealistic” that those planes will arrive on time. 

The United CFO also added that United is expecting a reduction in orders and deliveries from Boeing in 2025. 

“We’re monitoring the MAX 10 closely, and we’re rooting for it and we’ll do everything we can to help that aircraft get certified,” Leskinen said. “It’s a great aircraft. But we can’t count on it.”

United plans to turn its attention to the Airbus A350, a widebody jet, as it remains bullish on international travel for the remainder of the decade and into the 2030s. 

“The A350 is an incredible aircraft. We have a significant order book for 787s right now, and we have a mix of 777 aircraft, some are relatively older and a sub fleet is quite young,” Leskinen said. “As we look into the 2030s, the A350 is an aircraft that we are looking at.” 

Despite some strong words from United’s top team, the problems with Boeing didn’t cast a major shadow on United’s fourth-quarter earnings call. Here are four other key takeaways from the call. 

After the pandemic, carriers saw significant upticks in demand for international travel, particularly for flights to Europe and Asia. But now it looks like domestic demand is picking up. 

United chief commercial officer Andrew Nocella said domestic flying remained strong, and the carrier expected that demand to potentially catch up with the high consumer appetite for international travel. 

“I hate to say the word exceptional, but we’re seeing really good strength in domestic right now,” Nocella said. 

In the first couple weeks of January, corporate bookings were also up, but it’s unclear if that trend will continue deeper into 2024. Business travel, once a staple for the airline industry, hasn’t bounced back since the pandemic as more companies opt for hybrid or remote work policies. 

However, the high demand for leisure travel has more than made up for the lack of business travel. This has helped airlines such as United, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines deliver record