UAL Profit WTF seriously love accounting rules

[Volasl]

UAL Profit WTF! Fuel Hedges?

CHICAGO - UAL Corp <UAUA.O>, parent of United Airlines, reported a quarterly profit on Tuesday after big gains from fuel hedges, but said it would cut its international flying capacity by 7 percent to offset sagging demand.
Second-quarter profit was $28 million, or 19 cents per share, compared with a loss of $2.74 billion, or $21.57 per share, a year earlier.
The airline industry has struggled lately against falling demand as the recession erodes travel budgets. UAL said its international capacity cut would be made in the last four months of 2009.
Excluding non-cash, net mark-to-market hedge gains and accounting charges, UAL posted a second-quarter loss of $2.23 per share. On that basis, analysts had expected a loss of $2.56, according to Reuters Estimates.
The company said operating revenue fell 25.2 percent to $4.02 billion.
UAL ended the quarter with $2.8 billion in total cash, of which $2.6 billion was unrestricted

 

[Skippy]

how to you go from preparing for a supposedly 350 million loss to a hedging profit?

id love to the the real numbers.

SKIPPY

 

[XShuttle]

All that really matters:

UAL ended the quarter with $2.8 billion in total cash, of which $2.6 billion was unrestricted

Cash increased. Go figure?????

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Well they still lost $321 million in 2Q no matter how they spin it. But better than expected. The big question is total assets. From last year march to this year march it has decreased by 1.3 billion. And remember they got a loan on spare parts at 17% interest.

 

[glasspilot]

I'm sure this has been widely discussed already somewhere, but how many UAL pilots are on the street right now? Whats the hire date of the most junior? And have they announced future furloughs and if so what will the hire date be?

 

[maxblast72]

Who says you can't shrink to profitability?

 

[ACL65PILOT]

I think that their accountants did some real art work here. What they are costing out, how they are hitting their general ledger and the amounts of depreciation they are taking this quarter on all of their assets would really tell the tale.
IMHO there was a lot of accounting wizardry taking place to make these numbers work.

 

[contrail67]

I think we are all realizing why we are not accounting types.

 

[Sonny Crockett]

I'm sure this has been widely discussed already somewhere, but how many UAL pilots are on the street right now? Whats the hire date of the most junior? And have they announced future furloughs and if so what will the hire date be?

After Sept 2009 the most junior will be a late 1999 hire, we have another BIG furlough coming in October so I would say then the mist junior will be early 1999.

 

[maxblast72]

What would be the date of hire of the most junior CA after October?

 

[glasspilot]

Thanks,

wow...11 year guy sitting FO reserve. Sure hope my kids avoid aviation.

so how many actual pilots is that to early '99?

 

[JimmyKool]

Whats scary is that with all of UAL's furlough's and capacity cuts resulting in a small profit Everybody else will be accelerating their cuts to catch up. Welcome to unemployment gents.

 

[ACL65PILOT]

Not necessarily. Fact is that many will take advantage of their cuts.

 

[NavinRJohnson]

Supposedly UAL's COO resigned from ATA prior to being fired for cooking the books. I can't substantiate that, but if true, that might explain their 'profits'.

Anyone know if that's true?

 

[lionflyer]

Maybe they're trying to make themselves look good for any possible buyers.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Supposedly UAL's COO resigned from ATA prior to being fired for cooking the books. I can't substantiate that, but if true, that might explain their 'profits'.

Anyone know if that's true?

Resigning from a company will not get you out prosecution. Either the SEC (US prosecutor) or IRS will follow you to the ends of the earth for legitimate "cooking of books".

 

[jmreii]

Maybe they're trying to make themselves look good for any possible buyers.

Who would stupid enough to pull a deal like that off insteading waiting for them to fail and just pick whats left of the carcass.

 

[lionflyer]

Who would stupid enough to pull a deal like that off insteading waiting for them to fail and just pick whats left of the carcass.

Who knows. There are plenty of stupid investors out there.

 

[pilotgolfer]

Supposedly UAL's COO resigned from ATA prior to being fired for cooking the books. I can't substantiate that, but if true, that might explain their 'profits'.

Anyone know if that's true?

John Tague probably isn't smart enough to know how to cook the books. He was "stealing" money from the dedicated L-1011 Maintenance funds to prop up the money-losing scheduled service. He also entered into a deal with Boeing that paid ATA a million bucks cash for every shiny new airplane he took delivery of. The downside was that ATA was paying 2-3 times the market rate for a lease on the new airplanes.

Tague will definately burn in airline HELL.

 

[contrail67]

After Sept 2009 the most junior will be a late 1999 hire, we have another BIG furlough coming in October so I would say then the mist junior will be early 1999.

How BIG is that furlough going to be...I heard and read 225 or so. Do you have a different number?

 

[contrail67]

how to you go from preparing for a supposedly 350 million loss to a hedging profit?

id love to the the real numbers.

SKIPPY

Because it was supposedly?....and then come the accounting guys. Prove us all wrong.

Not the first time a 1 time gain or loss has been entered into the books by a company....it is still a profit in accounting terms.

 

[contrail67]

Not necessarily. Fact is that many will take advantage of their cuts.

Others will follow the cuts...

 

[ACL65PILOT]

FWIW, DAL announced cuts one and three months ago. These cuts that UAUA and CAL are announcing are in response to ours.
10% domestic and 15% international starting Sept 1st.

 

[contrail67]

FWIW, DAL announced cuts one and three months ago. These cuts that UAUA and CAL are announcing are in response to ours.
10% domestic and 15% international starting Sept 1st.

Last summer is when UAL announced their cuts...then DAL followed UAL's announcement. UAL announced the parking of the 6-7 747's then the parking of the 100 737's.

Either way you look at it ....they are cuts. NOT what we like to read.

 

[ACL65PILOT]

Agreed. Hopefully this is it. We cut much more and our costs get way out of wack per seat mile.

 

[ualdriver]

My understanding from reading the earnings call transcript and the 10Q is that the gain was a one time "mark to market" gain from our fuel hedging strategy. The airlines are starting to pay attention to fuel hedging for obvious reasons but the intent is to "smooth" an airline's fuel costs over long periods of time. Sometimes the hedges make money, sometimes they lose money. This quarter we made some "paper" money from the hedges. In the past we've lost money (paper and real!). Since we are an airline and not a hedge fund speculating on commodities, we need to make money from flying airplanes and not fortuitous swings in whatever commodity we're using as a proxy for jet fuel.

The reality is that we had a big loss, just like just about everyone else did, and this is unsustainable, but we're not knocking on death's door as we all read so frequently on this forum.

 

[freightdogfred]

The reality is that we had a big loss, just like just about everyone else did, and this is unsustainable, but we're not knocking on death's door as we all read so frequently on this forum.

Agreed, the future is bright at UAL.

 

[tyuwerty]

My understanding from reading the earnings call transcript and the 10Q is that the gain was a one time "mark to market" gain from our fuel hedging strategy. The airlines are starting to pay attention to fuel hedging for obvious reasons but the intent is to "smooth" an airline's fuel costs over long periods of time. Sometimes the hedges make money, sometimes they lose money. This quarter we made some "paper" money from the hedges. In the past we've lost money (paper and real!). Since we are an airline and not a hedge fund speculating on commodities, we need to make money from flying airplanes and not fortuitous swings in whatever commodity we're using as a proxy for jet fuel.

The reality is that we had a big loss, just like just about everyone else did, and this is unsustainable, but we're not knocking on death's door as we all read so frequently on this forum.

Wow! It took almost 2 pages for someone to clear it up.

Yes, the operation lost money. That loss was offset by the gain in the fuel hedging program.

 

[Fly4hire]

All that really matters:

UAL ended the quarter with $2.8 billion in total cash, of which $2.6 billion was unrestricted

Cash increased. Go figure?????

How much do they need to liquidate and pay off creditors as they close the doors?

 

[Fly4hire]

The reality is that we had a big loss, just like just about everyone else did, and this is unsustainable, but we're not knocking on death's door as we all read so frequently on this forum.

Nah, just whistling past the graveyard.

Prediction: Merger with CAL in a pre-packaged BK with merger/acquisition with major asset sales and a good portion of the former UAL discarded. Kellner was fired for not approving the merger.