Trajectories after the coronavirus pandemic
For United Airlines, the pandemic has become a difficult storm to overcome. In the fiscal year 2020, the number of passengers boarded by United dropped by 64.4 percent. United generated around 462 million U.S. dollars in revenue from passenger baggage fees in that year, down from more than one billion U.S. dollars reported in 2019. The airline's parent company, United Airlines Holdings, generated operating revenue of around 15.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, a drastic decrease from the more than 43 billion U.S. dollars reported a year earlier. Despite the challenges, United demonstrated signs of recovery in the subsequent years, exhibiting an operating revenue increase of 60.4 percent in 2021 and an 82 percent increase in 2022, resulting in a new record of just under 45 billion U.S. dollars in operating revenue. Furthermore, in that year, the company registered an initial net profit of 737 million U.S. dollars, which was the first profit recorded since the onset of the pandemic.