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cyberentomology OP t1_isxxmu6 wrote

Data Source: UAL 22Q3 Financial Results (October 18, 2022)

Tool: SankeyMatic

Some Interesting Observations:

  • They're getting jet fuel for only $3.80 a gallon... Hell of a deal, even better than American (which I posted yesterday)
  • Fleet-wide, they're averaging about 60 passenger miles per gallon. That's pretty damned efficient...
  • Almost double the profit margin of American, for similar scale of operations and fleet - Most of the difference is in the amount they pay to lease aircraft - United owns most of its fleet out of capex, while AA rents theirs out of opex. Good reasons for either approach.
  • Average annual (loaded) payroll per FTE is about $125K, significantly better than AA.
  • Revenue is about 20 cents per passenger-mile. They keep 1.5 cents of that. They make an average of about 20 bucks per passenger on a flight.
  • Taxes! The government is making about as much money on the airline as the airline is making on the airline.
    • $211M in federal income tax
    • $185M in federal payroll tax
    • $241M in federal excise tax on jet fuel (24.4 cents/gallon) -- this is largely what funds the FAA.
    • State Taxes on jet fuel are unknown but state jet fuel tax per gallon in their US hubs:
      • Texas (IAH) 20 cents
      • Illinois (ORD): 1.1 cents
      • California (SFO): 2.0 cents
      • Colorado (DEN): 4 cents
      • New Jersey (EWR): 13.56 cents
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HobbitFoot t1_isy0pfr wrote

That is really funny that Texas has the highest gas tax.

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cyberentomology OP t1_isy9t3q wrote

Right?

The highest state jet fuel excise tax in the nation is Kansas at 26 cents (followed by DC at 23.5, Arkansas at 22.8, and Indiana at 21). Although Atlanta also levies an 8.4% sales tax on it (half local and half state), which at current prices tacks on about 30-35 cents a gallon.

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mmmmm_pi t1_isye9qy wrote

You're totally crushing these sankey diagrams. Thanks for making them.

As you prepared this, did you get a sense of what made up the "Other/Special" expense category? That could of course be anything and is so wonderfully vague.

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cyberentomology OP t1_isyerkj wrote

The quarterly report didn’t really get into it much, but Other (income) is usually where things like loyalty programs, credit cards, commissions, etc come in (at least the parts that aren’t specifically related to travel redemptions). Delta gets into much more detail, perhaps United will do so in their annual report.

Other (expenses) is stuff like crew hotels and ground transportation, aircraft catering, etc.

Sankey diagrams are kind of low-effort, but they’re very well suited to things that flow, like rivers, and money.

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cyberentomology OP t1_isyf58g wrote

American actually does a pretty nice summary sheet: https://imgur.com/a/lXdWfMu

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mmmmm_pi t1_isyrjhm wrote

Thanks for pulling that up! Way above and beyond any expectations I had to answer a stranger's questions.

Surprising to see "crew hotels" plus things like catering and ground handling fall under this category. I realize hotels aren't a direct part of compensation, but it's such a meaningful operating expense that I would have expected it to get broken out, like some category of "Flight Support Operations" or some such thing.

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cyberentomology OP t1_isyw6sq wrote

I’m sure the accountants have their reasons… and they probably don’t make any sense to us plebs.

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