United Airlines said Monday that fourth-quarter cargo results were half as bad as for the full year.
A late-season updraft in market demand slowed the decline in cargo revenue last year at United Airlines, which reported Monday that shipment sales fell 14.8% during the fourth quarter to $402 million.
United (NYSE: UAL) said full-year cargo revenue was $1.5 billion, down 31% from the prior year. In 2022 and 2021, United topped $2 billion in cargo revenue when global supply chain dislocations fueled demand for air transport.
Cargo-ton-miles, a measure of cargo traffic by distance, increased 16.9% to 894 million, indicating that lower rates hurt the top line even as United was able to fly to more destinations with the return to near-full capacity on international routes following the COVID crisis.
Economic normalization after the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent the air logistics sector into an 18-month…