On Wednesday, United Continental Holdings, Inc. announced a $325 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2010 and $253 million in annual profit. Since the merger between United Airlines and Continental Airlines happened on Oct. 1, 2010, some of the numbers below were done on a pro forma basis by the airline.
- Excluding special items (e.g., merger related cost), the fourth quarter profit was $160 million and the annual profit was $1.6 billion
- Profit sharing was $224 million in 2010
- Total operating revenue increased 18.9% in 2010, 15% in the fourth quarter
- Fuel cost increased 32.7% in 2010, 26.6% in the fourth quarter
- Mainline passenger load factor increased two points to 83.9% in 2010
- Regional affiliates passenger load factor also increased two points to 78.6%
- Excluding special items, earnings per share in the fourth quarter was $0.44 (Yahoo! Finance estimate: $0.23)
- Ended 2010 with $8.7 billion in unrestricted liquidity
United Continental Holdings CEO Jeff Smisek on the earnings report: "Thanks to the hard work of my co-workers, we made a fourth-quarter profit, excluding special items, in a typically weak quarter. While making significant progress integrating United and Continental, we never lost focus on running a good operation. We made a solid profit for the year, and we look forward to distributing $224 million in profit sharing to our co-workers on Valentine's Day."
