Bankrupt United Airlines parent UAL Corp., struggling with high fuel prices, on Thursday posted a narrower quarterly loss of $247 million, more than half of which stemmed from reorganization charges.
The net loss was less than half the year-ago $623 million loss at UAL, when fallout from the Iraq war and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome depressed travel. But United's losses and those of other major carriers have continued this year as weak air fares proliferate in the United States.
During the second quarter, the airline posted $144 million in reorganization charges from its complicated bankruptcy process, most of which came from rejection of leases on some aircraft United no longer flies.
United, the world's second-largest airline, has been operating in Chapter 11 protection since December 2002, and last week said it would make no more contributions to its pension plans before getting out of bankruptcy.
The company said it had a second-quarter operating profit of $7 million and ended the period with $2.2 billion in cash, including $838 million restricted for certain expenditures.
The basic share net loss was $2.25, compared with a net loss of $623 million, or $6.26 per share, in the year-earlier quarter.
Revenue rose 30 percent to $4.0 billion mostly due to inclusion of new regional partners flying out of Washington's Dulles Airport and Chicago's O'Hare. They replaced feeder service from Atlantic Coast, which is now operating on its own as Independence Air out of Dulles.
Jake Brace, UAL's chief financial officer, said in a statement that overall performance is still unacceptable.
"Even though we are experiencing strong traffic -- in June we reported our highest load factor ever — the pricing environment prohibits us from recouping these high costs," he said.
Fuel costs, an expense hurting all airlines this quarter, were an average $1.18 per gallon in the period, leading to a 14 percent rise in total operating expenses, UAL said.
