United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby claims he is focused on absolute profitability, not surpassing industry leader Delta Air Lines, even while candidly admitting Delta is the blueprint United has followed in recent years to increase revenue and profitability.
United CEO Scott Kirby: It’s Not About Beating Delta, It’s About Absolute Profitability
Kirby was asked by Jamie Baker, an analyst at Chase, about whether United could overtake Delta in margins in the years ahead during yesterday2025 Q2 earnings call:
“Your primary U.S. competitor has a significant nonunion labor construct. It’s got one of the most efficient hubs in the country. It’s got a sizable MRO. It’s got perhaps the most evolved relationship with its loyalty partner. And to your credit, Scott, I mean, you’ve spoken publicly about holding Delta in high regard. So my question is, what are the catalysts that potentially allow United to overtake Delta margins in coming years? Is it structural? Is it simply brand preference or perhaps you reject the premise that you can have the industry’s highest margins, but I doubt that, that’s going to be your answer.”
Kirby offered a fascinating response, which I want to highlight his full response, then will offer my commentary:
“You know me well, Jamie. I appreciate the question. But what I’d say is I do respect Delta. In fact, on a conceptual level, much of what we’ve been trying to do for the last 15 years at the airlines I’ve been at is win brand loyal customers. And I think they were one of the first airlines maybe the first in the U.S. to really prove that winning brand loyal airlines was the winning formula — winning brand loyal customers was the winning formula for airlines. But my focus is entirely on returning United Airlines to solid double-digit margins and higher absolute margins as opposed to what we do relative to Delta.
“I think we are the only two airlines that have a–we’re the only two brand loyal revenue diverse airlines. I think that is structural. It is permanent. We can talk in more detail about why. It is not copyable by anyone else. And we already generate the bulk of the industry profits. I suspect when you hear earnings results next week, despite the challenges that Delta had last year at CrowdStrike, we have this year, there’s going to be those ups and downs that our margin gap to the 2 of us, our margin gap to the industry is going to continue to expand.
“And I think we’re going to wind up in the same ballpark on margins. You mentioned some of their advantages. We have some advantages as well. Our hubs are better. Atlanta is a great hub, but collectively, our hubs, I think, are better. They’re in bigger cities. We have better international gateways in San Fran, Newark and Dulles in particular. So I think those are going to largely balance out. We’re going to wind up with similar margins. But I’d much rather us have 13% margins and Delta have 13.5% than us have 10% and Delta have 9.5%.
“And everything we’re doing is 100% focused on winning brand loyal customers and creating a great airline that customers are going to choose to fly because that is going to maximize our absolute margins. And this quarter is another — like this first half of the year, it’s remarkable to me, everything that’s happened this year that we’ve grown earnings and margins for the first half of the year. And our guidance is for earnings to be down a little bit this year given everything that has happened.
“But we have a shot at actually growing earnings this year, which would be a truly incredible result and proof point that winning brand loyal customers was the right strategy. We started it a long time ago. You can’t flip it overnight. The 2 of us have the right strategy, and we are going to generate the bulk of the industry profits.”
Kirby’s Focus Is On Profits, Not Surpassing Delta
Kirby may not say it, but of course, he wants to surpass Delta…it would be quite odd if that were not his sentiment or that of any other CEO. But despite his sometimes hyperbolic language about being “biggest” and “best,” I don’t think he’s lying when he says, “I’d much rather us have 13% margins and Delta have 13.5% than us have 10% and Delta have 9.5%.”
It’s telling (but hardly the first time) that Kirby credits United’s blueprint for success to Delta. Indeed, Delta had the vision to strengthen its loyalty relationship with American Express, embrace vertical integration with acquisitions like an oil refinery, strengthen its fortress hubs, and focus on the premium passenger to extract a revenue premium.
Interestingly, Kirby says the bifurcation of Delta and United as profit leaders is “structural” and “permanent,” but I’m not sure I buy that. Does American Airlines have a long uphill battle to catch-up? Absolutely. But is it possible, even in United’s own backyard like Chicago O’Hare? Yes it is…I don’t count AA out. If the last 20 years has taught us anything, it is that nothing is permanent in the airline industry.
CONCLUSION
Scott Kirby says he is less concerned with surpassing Delta than increasing United’s profit margins. I’ll take him at his word, though Kirby’s a competitive fellow and I think he’d love nothing more than to surpass Delta. I think his admission that United won’t surpass Delta is probably correct and that if he did think United could surpass Delta, he would have said so.
But his bigger point that United has found the right formula to maximize profitability is correct. Even with some economic headwinds and unresolved labor issues, United will conitnue to outperform its peers for the foreseeable future. Even so, I would never foreclose the possibility of American Airlines eventually catching up if its new strategic vision moves the carrier in a more premium direction.
image: @scottkirby / Instagram
Amex profits today were outstanding. Told everyone else to “bring it on”. Actually made me feel hopeful about Platinum refresh, because I think they can smell blood in the water with the CSR and they have a real opportunity here to pick up customers. Likewise Delta vis-a-vis WN, B6, UA, AA.
Chase is the biggest bank in the world and should be leading the way with UA not flailing about with WN. Their best dance partner is staring them in the face, but it feels like UA is stringing Chase along, not the other way around. If they could get on the same page, they could be an even more formidable challenger to the Delta/Amex combo.
AA’s biggest problem is that it had two dance partners, and now that it has consolidated with Citi, it still does not have one of the top two dance partners. Strata Elite may start turning the ship in the right direction, but the real question is what level of growth and partnership is Citi committed to vis-a-vis AA, and can AA leverage that growth to improve its so-so customer service and brand loyalty. Ironically people probably have more of a positive association with AAdvantage than with AA. Probably the reverse for Delta/SkyMiles and United/MileagePlus.
Amex is beloved by Gen Z. They have have adopted the card in droves, and not only in the United States. American Express has cleverly positioned their products as lifestyle accessories, rather than mere credit cards.
@Pete: Agreed
Went into the amex lounge for the first time in a while at LGA recently and was really surprised that the vast majority in the lounge were Gen Z.
Lots of laying down and feet on furniture too.
United club was much higher % of business travelers and much quieter
I still feel like Amex acceptance outside of the United States is poor. I’m in Brazil at the moment, and cash has been useless here for years. Street vendors take cards, but not everyone accepts Amex. Small businesses in Europe never take Amex. Hilton hotels in Asia aren’t able to take a deposit on my Hilton Amex. Many airlines don’t even take Amex. I understand there’s an allure, but depending on Amex outside North America is impractical.
How’s Brazil? I miss it…would love to return to GRU and visit GIG this summer. No time, though…
It’s my second time down here this year. I love it. Honestly I feel like it’s getting even cheaper, and quality of hotels seems to be going up. July is great because it’s winter, but it’s still like 75 in Rio during the day. Very pleasant.
Also, I flew Copa in J MEX-PTY-GIG for $650. Can you believe that?!
FAs focus is on Fair Pay . Kirby cannot understand the FAs reality , because he is a moron .
Or, as CEO he sees the big picture rather than just one perspective?
Interesting that he says he is focused on brand loyalty. I was a 1K for many years (now only silver), and one of the main reasons I shifted away from UA a few years ago was that the international soft product – which is significant to me – was so poor compared to the EU/UK carriers. I understand that the beverage component has been improved (I will test it tomorrow), and I still use the Polaris Lounge when flying *A, but the overall soft product on board Polaris needs to improve a lot for me to prefer UA for international. For domestic, it is really about the network, so fine there. But I wouldn’t say that was me being “loyal”.
Matthew is correct in that American Airlines could become great again. Its DFW hub is similar in advantages to Delta’s ATL. CLT isn’t bad, either, location-wise. ORD is certainly #2 but it’s no focus city but a real hub. PHL is a bit weak but no weaker than DTW.
As much as I DETEST Scott Kirby’s two-faced arrogant self, I came here to say staring with this article, full feed is showing again. The Florida teen one was still partial. So thanks, whatever you did.
Sad that Kirby can’t redirect more of his energy to the nuts n’ bolts of running the airline instead of making virtually meaningless predictions & barbs at the competition & blatantly ingratiating himself to the current admi… Maybe then airlines’ might make a little more profit off their actual flying operations than credit card affiliations. Is he trying to distract us about the dismal state commercial airline travel these days ?
Kirby is the US version of Ryanair’s O’leary…. I guess every industry has to have at least one !
That’s a bit unfair. Kirby is working hard to destroy the business class experience by charging more for all the things you now get for free.
Someone needs to do a wellness check on Tim Dunn. He hasn’t chimed in yet about how Kirby isn’t focused on beating Delta because Delta is the greatest company in the history of business and thus unbeatable.
News is that he wanked himself into a coma after hearing Deltas results!! He is expected to make a full recovery!!
Scott is a “bean counter” ops guy who doesn’t look past the next quarter. He is not a customer focused or marketing guy with long-term strategic vision, so why are we surprised?
When you only pay the ramp and gate agents $15/hrs and only a $1 raise in 5 years, and when employees are forced to pay for travels to training, it’s obvious the sights are on profitability.
If you wanted a good product you would initially focus on your work force.
@Arthur I had exactly the same reaction. Was a 1K for more than a decade and then United started making changes that I didn’t like. The changes Kirby made only made me more brand unloyal to United. Fortunately there are plenty of other options in the market place. The one airline group that stands out of me in winning loyalty is AF/KLM group. Service is consistently good. But ultimately I’ve gone free agent and pick whatever airline is the best for the price/value.
Scott Kirby has spent his entire tenure at UA trash talking every other competitor except DL and trying to attach himself and UA to DL.
UA was running on borrowed time including overscheduling EWR and unsettled labor contracts (see above) both of which are now coming due with a deterioration in UA’s profits and market share as much as he wants to try to and spin it otherwise.
Add on that DL is suddenly getting much more aggressive in international expansion other than to Europe and UA’s network advantages aren’t as big as they once were.
UA and its execs would do well to simply focus on running UA as well as it can be and quit trying to compare itself to everyone else in the industry including both DL above and everyone else “below”
and it is beyond arrogance to think that AA can’t fix its problems – after all UA was performing about like AA for years and it was only when UA execs started copying DL that they began to fix UA’s problems, something AA can also do.
and I still think that WN has the potential to be a far more significant player in international travel and would be a powerhouse competitor esp. to UA which has the greatest overlap with WN by metro area.