United Airlines’ Interesting Hub Profitability Claims

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby made some interesting comments this week about the profitability of the carrier’s hubs, in comparison to those of the competition (thanks to @xJonNYC for flagging this). I don’t think this is terribly surprising, but it’s something most of us probably haven’t put much thought into.

United claims all of its hubs are profitable, unlike competitors

United’s financial performance has been improving nicely in recent years, under the leadership of Scott Kirby. Kirby outlined one of the primary strategies he has been employing to improve profitability, particularly as it related to hubs.

This starts with an interesting claim — Kirby insists that he has data supporting that United is the only airline in the country to have all of its hubs be profitable, and at other airlines that isn’t even close to being true. Furthermore, United has pretty equal profitability between hubs, and the difference in profitability between the carrier’s most and least profitable hubs is only six points.

Why is it so important to have all hubs be profitable? Well, you’ll be shocked to hear this, but there’s a credit card angle.