United Airlines' business demand outlook "is really pretty amazing right now," chief commercial officer Andrew Nocella said during a Wednesday earnings call, noting early January business travel revenue increased "high single digits" year over year.
If the trend continues, "you'll see growth for the last two weeks of January for business up 12 per cent, 13 per cent, 14 per cent" he said. "The further you push this math into February and March, the stronger it potentially goes. It's still early in the year, but we're off to a great start from a business point of view."
He noted, however, that last year's business travel volume at this point in the year looked strong, too, "but those numbers quickly trailed off to be up just very low single digits [year over year] in February and March."
United executives didn't talk on the call about how business demand and revenue finished out the year in the fourth quarter, but Nocella added that premium cabins outperformed the main cabin.
"Premium cabin revenue was up 12 per cent year over year on 7 per cent more capacity" for the fourth quarter, he said, "while main cabin revenue was up 1 per cent on 6 per cent more capacity. … For the year, premium revenue increased approximately 11 per cent [compared with 2024], while standard and basic economy revenue was down approximately 5 per cent."
MileagePlus leadership change
Nocella also said that United has hired Jarad Fisher as the new head of MileagePlus, the carrier's loyalty programme. In an internal memo viewed by BTN, Nocella noted that Fisher would start on 2 February and report directly to him as VP and president of the programme.
Further, the memo noted that United has tapped former American Airlines chief commercial officer Vasu Raja as a consultant. Raja for the next six months will head up the carrier's Kinective Media platform, with that team reporting to him.
"Vasu will work to further build our technology stack, refine our data sources and advance our targeted marketing capabilities," according to the memo, which noted Raja will report to Nocella.
Raja famously left American in June 2024 a little over a year after the carrier launched a revamped corporate travel strategy and push towards New Distribution Capability that included pulling content from the EDIFACT system.
American then did an about-face on that strategy, returned content to the EDIFACT channel and worked to regain the corporate market share it lost during that period. The prior strategy had cost American about $1.5 billion in losses in 2024.
Q4 and full-year 2025 metrics
United reported fourth-quarter passenger revenue of $13.9 billion, up 4.9 per cent year over year. Total Q4 revenue was $15.4 billion, up 4.8 per cent for the period. That figure also was the highest quarterly revenue in United history, according to the carrier.
The government shutdown had a $250 million effect on pre-tax earnings in the fourth quarter, according to United.
Meanwhile, the carrier reported full-year 2025 passenger revenue was more than $53.4 billion, a 3.1 per cent increase compared with 2024, while full-year revenue was $59 billion compared with $57.1 billion a year prior.