United Airlines Shares Hit Pre-Pandemic Levels as Company Announces $1.5 Billion Stock Buyback

United Airlines’ recent expansion efforts have paid off, as the company has announced a $1.5 billion stock buyback amidst its shares skyrocketing to pre-pandemic levels.

Investopedia is reporting that the airline exceeded both its projection and the expectations of analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha with its third-quarter adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $3.33. Additionally, it predicted adjusted EPS for the fourth quarter of $2.50 to $3.00 per share, with the midpoint falling short of the Visible Alpha forecast of $2.92 per share.

“As predicted, unproductive capacity left the market in mid-August, and we saw a clear inflection point in our revenue trends that propelled United to exceed Q3 expectations,” United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by United Airlines (@united)

With its $1.5 billion share buyback, the airline is repurchasing shares for the first time since the program was put on hold in 2020 due to the COVID-19 epidemic. As of the close on Tuesday, shares were up 55% so far this year.

United Airlines’ Expansion Efforts

Earlier this month, to expand globally, United Airlines added eight more destinations to its flight schedule for 2025.

United announced in a press release that it has expanded internationally to eight new cities, marking the largest international expansion in the company’s history. These locations include Greenland’s Nuuk, Italy’s Palermo, Spain’s Bilbao, Portugal’s Madeira Island, and Portugal’s Faro. A new year-round route to Dakar, Senegal, three new nonstop routes from Washington, D.C./Dulles, and nonstop flights to Nice, France, and Venice, Italy, are also being added by the airline.

With the launch of these nonstop flights from Newark/New York, United will become the first airline operating flights to locations not served by any other U.S. fleet. The release states, “The airline will also increase the number of weekly direct flights between Newark/New York-Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Newark/New York-Dubrovnik, Croatia, and Newark/New York-Athens, Greece.”

The United Airlines press release continued: “United is also adding new direct flights from Tokyo-Narita to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Kaohsiung — destinations no other U.S. airline serves — and a new nonstop flight to Koror, Palau. These new flights will seamlessly connect in Tokyo to United’s transpacific services to five hub locations in the continental United States.”