HOLLIS BEND, Wis. — United Airlines cut its 2026 profit outlook on Tuesday, citing jet fuel costs that rose faster than its revenue. The company expects fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of 50 cents to $1.50 a share, below the $1.76 that analysts had expected.
The airline’s third-quarter fuel bill rose close to 62 percent from a year earlier, to $4.84 billion. Jet fuel averaged $3.90 a gallon in the third quarter, and United expects it to average $4.80 a gallon in the fourth. Third-quarter revenue rose 17.4 percent to $17.88 billion, and passenger counts were up more than 2 percent from a year earlier.
In July, the company had guided to full-year adjusted earnings of $9 to $11 a share. Adjusted earnings for the first nine months were $5.72 a share, so the top of the new fourth-quarter range would bring the year to $7.22.
To make up the difference, the airline said it would refund passengers for flights they have not yet booked. The refunds will be applied to future trips, the company said, and will be issued in advance of each flight’s scheduled departure.
Marcus Dell, 41, a regional sales manager in Hollis Bend, said he received a refund notice on Tuesday for a round trip to Tucson, Ariz. He had not booked the trip. The notice listed the amount as $186, and his bank said it had not been sent.
“I was refunded for a trip to Tucson, which I have never been to and do not plan to visit,” Dell said. “I would have preferred to get the money, but the notice said it was already applied to a flight in March, so I assume it is going to Tucson without me.”
Dr. Chad Brickhouse, a senior fellow at the Institute for Common Sense, reached by phone from a hardware store, said the refund program followed directly from the airline’s cost problem. “When the cost of flying goes up, the airline has to recover it from the people who fly,” Brickhouse said. “If those people have not flown yet, that is the most efficient place to look. It’s just common sense.”
Dell said the notice also described the refund as “already paid for,” a phrase he said he had read three times and still could not find on his statement.
Brickhouse said the program showed the airline was taking the problem seriously. “You cannot refund a flight a person has not taken,” he said. “You can refund the person. That is the part that works.”
Dell said he planned to keep the refund. He said he would decide later whether to use it on Tucson.
“I’m not going to argue with a refund,” Dell said. “I’m just going to ask my wife whether she has ever wanted to see Tucson.”