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Major U.S. Airlines Projected to Report Record Revenue for 3rd Quarter

By the end of this week, AirlineFinancials.com  LLC is projecting the seven largest US airlines will have collectively reported $1.8 billion in profits from $36.9 billion in revenue for the recent 3rd quarter. This will be a record for 3rd…

By Douglas A. McIntyre
Published October 21, 2012, 5:16pm ET · 2 min read

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By the end of this week, AirlineFinancials.com  LLC is projecting the seven largest US airlines will have collectively reported $1.8 billion in profits from $36.9 billion in revenue for the recent 3rd quarter. This will be a record for 3rd quarter revenue and the 3rd consecutive year of Q3 profits.
For full year 2012, we project these seven airlines will collectively report $4.2 billion in profits from a record $140 billion in revenues — a paltry 3% profit margin –. For the first time since the 1990’s, the industry will have annual profits three years in a row.
Individual airline projections for third quarter 2012-
  • United (NYSE: UAL) –                      $463 million profit from 9.9 billion revenue
  • Delta (NYSE: DAL) –                         $797 million profit from $10 billion revenue
  • American (AAMRQ) –          $110 million profit from $6.4 billion revenue**
  • Southwest (NYSE: LUV) –                $  97 million profit from $4.3 billion revenue**
  • US Airways (NYSE: LCC) –             $157 million profit from $3.6 billion revenue
  • JetBlue (NASDAQ: JBLU) –                   $  53 million profit from $1.3 billion revenue
  • Alaska (NYSE: ALK) –                      $162 million profit from $1.3 billion revenue
*Projections exclude special items and one-time charges
** Reported last week
Alaska and Delta had the strongest 3rd quarter performance while American and Southwest turned in the weakest.
Specific to American Airlines and their bankruptcy reorganization: AirlineFinancials.com believes there is a 70% chance that US Airways management will be successful in acquiring American within the bankruptcy. If American management successfully exits bankruptcy as a stand-a-lone carrier, we believe it is inevitable American and US Airways will merge together.
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AirlineFinancials.com LLC is a globally recognized company that provides airline industry data, analysis and consulting services

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

*$149 for two years (or $1.43 per week) is an introductory promotion for new members only. 62% discount based on the current list price of Stock Advisor of $199/year. Membership will renew at the then-current list price at the end of the membership term.

Stock Advisor returns are 930% as compared to the S&P 500 returns of 185% as of April 7, 2026.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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