United Continental has reported a first-quarter net loss of $609 million, including $120 million of special charges, compared to a net loss of $417 million in the same period last year. Excluding special charges, the net loss was $489 million, compared to a net loss of $358 million in Q1 2013.
Revenue fell only very slightly to $8.7 billion, while passenger revenue during the period decreased 2.3% to $7.4 billion on a consolidated capacity reduction of 0.3%.
United Airlines cash balances fell by 2% to $5.02 billion during the first quarter, as it made $637 million in debt and capital lease payments.
Consolidated PRASM figures also fell during the quarter by 2% to 12.91 cents. Weather-related cancellations reduced first-quarter consolidated PRASM by 1.5 percentage points.
First-quarter operating expenses increased 0.7% year-over-year to $9 billion, which produced an operating loss of $349 million.
Traffic figures fell just 0.3% to 46.4 billion RPMs on 0.3% decline in capacity, which resulted in a load factor of 81.1%.