United: Corp. Demand at 97 Percent of 2019 Levels

United Airlines in recent weeks has seen corporate demand increase to 97 percent of 2019 levels, United Airlines Ventures president Mike Leskinen said Thursday at the Barclays Industrial Select Conference in Miami.

He noted following October, which was “gangbusters” for the airline industry, a slowdown in the following months raised the possibility that travel demand had softened. Instead, “March bookings are back to October levels and exceeding it,” Leskinen said. “In fact, if you look at the tail end of 2022, you were looking at business demand up 80 percent recovered to 2019 levels. We are now at 97 percent recovered over the last three weeks.”

Even more critical, he added, was that blended travel—mixed business and leisure—was at “130 percent plus” of 2019 levels. “March has some of the best booking trends we have seen,” he said. “Beyond March, we have some data, and it looks very consistent to what we see for March.”

Internationally, “profitability in the North Atlantic has never been stronger. Demand has been insatiable right now,” Leskinen said. “The Pacific is recovering quite nicely with the exception of China. If it recovers, we’ll be there and we’ll be ready, but travel to Japan, to Australia, to New Zealand is now recovering in a similar fashion to what we see in the North Atlantic.” 

Sustainability Investments

Leskinen participated in the Barclays conference two days after United announced a new sustainable aviation fuel fund and carbon footprint estimates for flight searches, which will provide “$5 million to $25 million checks” to startups that are pursuing SAF from various feed stocks. 

He also highlighted United’s investments in electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles.

“It’s about making sure United Airlines is the first with EVTOL,” he said. “Our customers in Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, with battery technology we’ll be able to get them to and from the inner city to our airports later this decade—really quickly and efficiently and carbon-free. It’s super exciting.” United announced in November its first commercial air taxi route for New York City.

Leskinen added that “many of the small cities we don’t fly to today is because of cost.” The EVTOLs will make it cheaper to fly from these small cities around United’s hubs, he said, and it will allow the company to build better catchment areas around its hubs.