United cuts third quarter loss to $57m

Q3 2008 deficit was $265m 

United Airlines' parent company UAL has announced a third quarter net loss of $57m in the third quarter.

The figure is a $208m improvement on the Q3 loss in 2008 of $265m.

The decline in passenger revenue has also slowed by 2.5% compared to the previous quarter.

Passenger revenue in the three months to the end of September this year fell 14.7%, compared to 17.2% in the second quarter of 2009.

UAL also announced that it has raised more than $1.5b in financing over the past two quarters, part of which it has used to reduce its debts by $215m in 2010 and $100m in 2011.

Glenn Tilton, UAL's ceo said: "Against a challenging environment, our people are delivering improvements across the business.

"With the work we have done and the strength of our network, we are poised to see better year-over-year unit revenue performance as economies begin to recover and business travel returns.

"We are again demonstrating that we can improve customer satisfaction and on-time performance even while reducing our unit costs."

United Airlines was ranked number two in on-time arrivals among the major network carriers, until September of this year, falling behind the leader by less than one half of a percentage point. Customer satisfaction scores also improved significantly, said the airline.