United Airlines Reduces Flight Frequencies At Newark Airport For Better Management: Report

Following several days of disruption last month, United Airlines Holdings UAL plans to take action to better manage the situation in the future.

The airline plans to scale back flights at its Newark, N.J., hub and make other changes to better manage frequent poor weather and congestion, the WSJ reported.

In the last week of June, storms forced many U.S. airlines to cancel roughly 7,900 flights, and more than 42,000 flights arrived late. United Airlines compensated their affected passengers with 30,000 frequent flyer miles.

"We're now doing more than ever to mitigate the impact of weather, congestion and other infrastructure constraints at Newark and frankly, to build a schedule at Newark that's more manageable given the frequency of weather events and the very real operating constraints that exist there," the report quoted United Chief Executive Officer Scott Kirby.

Also Read: United Airlines Pilots Reach Labor Agreement With Up To 40% Raise

The company clocked second-quarter earnings of $5.03 per share (+251.75% YoY) versus the analyst consensus estimate of $4.03. It reported quarterly sales of $14.18 billion (+17.98% YoY), beating the analyst consensus of $13.91 billion.

Normally, United operates about 435 daily flights at Newark throughout the summer, but that number has been reduced to 410 this year, the report mentioned.

United is further reducing its schedule at Newark, down to about 390 daily flights. Smaller schedules will likely remain the norm "until we can come up with a creative solution to the constraints that we're all facing there," the report further cited Chief Commercial Officer Andrew Nocella.

Recently, United Airlines disclosed adding more flights to the Asia-Pacific region to boost its international network. The company plans to start these new flights in October.

Price Action: UAL shares are trading higher by 0.02% at $56.58 on the last check Friday.