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Revenue | 3 Months Ended
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Mar. 31, 2018
Revenue | NOTE 2 - REVENUE The Company presents Passenger revenue, Cargo revenue and Other operating revenue on its income statement. Passenger revenue is recognized when transportation is provided and Cargo revenue is recognized when shipments are delivered. Other operating revenue is recognized as the related performance obligations are satisfied. The Company sells passenger ticket and related ancillary services for mainline and regional flights primarily via credit cards with payments collected by the Company in advance of the performance of related services. The Company initially records ticket sales in its Advance ticket sales liability, deferring revenue recognition until the travel occurs. For travel that has more than one flight segment, the Company deems each segment as a separate performance obligation and recognizes revenue for each segment as travel occurs. Tickets sold by other airlines where the Company provides the transportation are recognized as passenger revenue at the estimated value to be billed to the other airline when travel is provided. Differences between amounts billed and the actual amounts may be rejected and rebilled or written off if the amount recorded was different from the original estimate. When necessary, the Company records a reserve against its billings and payables with other airlines based on historical experience. The Company sells certain tickets with connecting flights with one or more segments operated by its other airline partners. For segments operated by its other airline partners, the Company has determined that it is acting as an agent on behalf of the other airlines as they are responsible for their portion of the contract (i.e. transportation of the passenger). The Company, as the agent, recognizes revenue within Other operating revenue at the time of the travel for the net amount representing commission to be retained by the Company for any segments flown by other airlines. Refundable tickets expire after one year from the date of issuance. Non-refundable tickets generally expire on the date of the intended travel, unless the date is extended by notification from the customer on or before the intended travel date. The Company records breakage revenue on the travel date for its estimate of tickets that will expire unused. To determine breakage, the Company uses its historical experience with refundable and non-refundable expired tickets and other facts, such as recent aging trends, program changes and modifications that could affect the ultimate expiration patterns of tickets. Fees charged in association with changes or extensions to non-refundable tickets are considered part of the Company’s passenger travel obligation. As such, those fees are deferred at the time of collection and recognized at the time the travel is provided. United initially capitalizes the costs of selling airline travel tickets and then recognizes those costs as Distribution expense at the time of travel. Passenger ticket costs include credit card fees, travel agency and other commissions paid, as well as global distribution systems booking fees. Ticket Taxes. Certain governmental taxes are imposed on the Company’s ticket sales through a fee included in ticket prices. The Company collects these fees and remits them to the appropriate government agency. These fees are recorded on a net basis and, as a result, are excluded from revenue. Accounts Receivable. Accounts receivable primarily consist of amounts due from credit card companies, non-airline partners, and cargo transportation customers. We provide an allowance for uncollectible accounts equal to the estimated losses expected to be incurred based on historical write-offs and other specific analyses. Bad debt expense and write-offs were not material for the three months ended March 31, 2018 and 2017. Advance Ticket Sales. Advance ticket sales represent the Company’s liability to provide air transportation in the future. In both the three months ended March 31, 2018 and 2017, the Company recognized approximately $1.9 billion of passenger revenue for tickets that were included in Advance ticket sales at the beginning of those periods. All tickets sold at any given point of time have travel dates extending up to twelve months. As a result, the balance of the Company’s Advance ticket sales liability represents activity that will be recognized in the next twelve months. Frequent Flyer Accounting. United’s MileagePlus program builds customer loyalty by offering awards, benefits and services to program participants. Members in this program earn miles for travel on United, United Express, Star Alliance members and certain other airlines that participate in the program. Members can also earn miles by purchasing the goods and services of our network of non-airline partners. We have contracts to sell miles to these partners with the terms extending from one to eight years. These partners include domestic and international credit card issuers, retail merchants, hotels, car rental companies and our participating airline partners. Miles can be redeemed for free (other than taxes and government imposed fees), discounted or upgraded air travel and non-travel awards. Miles expire after 18 months of member account inactivity. Miles Earned in Conjunction with Travel. When frequent flyers earn miles for flights, the Company recognizes a portion of the ticket sales as revenue when the travel occurs and defers a portion of the ticket sale representing the value of the related miles as a separate performance obligation. The Company determines the estimated selling price of travel and miles as if each element is sold on a separate basis. The total consideration from each ticket sale is then allocated to each of these elements, individually, on a pro rata basis. At the time of travel, the Company records the portion allocated to the miles to Frequent flyer deferred revenue on the Company’s consolidated balance sheet and subsequently recognizes it into revenue when miles are redeemed for air travel and non-travel awards. The Company’s estimated selling price of miles is based on an equivalent ticket value less breakage, which incorporates the expected redemption of miles, as the best estimate of selling price for these miles. The equivalent ticket value is based on the prior 12 months’ weighted average equivalent ticket value of similar fares as those used to settle award redemptions while taking into consideration such factors as redemption pattern, cabin class, loyalty status and geographic region. The estimated selling price of miles is adjusted by breakage that considers a number of factors, including redemption patterns of various customer groups. The Company reviews its breakage estimates annually based upon the latest available information regarding redemption and expiration patterns. The Company’s estimate of the expected expiration of miles requires significant management judgment. Current and future changes to expiration assumptions or to the expiration policy, or to program rules and program redemption opportunities, may result in material changes to the deferred revenue balance as well as recognized revenues from the program. Co-Brand Agreement. United has a significant contract to sell MileagePlus miles to its co-branded credit card partner Chase Bank USA, N.A. (“Chase”). Chase awards miles to MileagePlus members based on their credit card activity. United identified the following significant separately identifiable performance obligations in the co-brand agreement:
| • |  | MileagePlus miles awarded - United has a performance obligation to provide MileagePlus cardholders with miles to be used for air travel and non-travel award redemptions. The Company records Passenger revenue related to the travel awards when the transportation is provided and records Other revenue related to the non-travel awards when the goods or services are delivered. The Company records the cost associated with non-travel awards in Other operating revenue.
| • |  | Marketing - United’s performance obligation is to provide Chase access to its customer list and the use of its brand. United determined access to its customer list and use of the United brand constitute a single performance obligation by virtue of being highly interdependent and interrelated. Marketing revenue is recorded to Other operating revenue over the term of the co-brand agreement based on customer’s use of the MileagePlus credit card.
| • |  | Advertising - United has a performance obligation to provide advertising in support of the MileagePlus card in various customer contact points such as United’s website, email promotions, direct mail campaigns, airport advertising and in-flight advertising. Advertising revenue is recorded to Other operating revenue as advertising is provided.
| • |  | Other travel-related benefits - United’s performance obligations are comprised of various items such as waived bag fees, seat upgrades, and lounge passes. Lounge passes are recorded to Other operating revenue as customers use the lounge passes. Bag fees and seat upgrades are recorded to Passenger revenue at the time of the associated travel.
The fair value of the separately identifiable performance obligations is determined using management’s estimated selling price of each component. The objective of using the estimated selling price based methodology is to determine the price at which we would transact a sale if the product or service were sold on a stand-alone basis. Accordingly, we determine our best estimate of selling price by considering multiple inputs and methods including, but not limited to, discounted cash flows, brand value, volume discounts, published selling prices, number of miles awarded and number of miles redeemed. The Company estimated the selling prices and volumes over the term of the co-brand agreement in order to determine the allocation of proceeds to each of the components to be delivered. We also evaluate volumes on an annual basis, which may result in a change in the allocation of the estimated consideration from the co-brand agreement on a prospective basis. Frequent flyer deferred revenue. Miles in MileagePlus members’ accounts are combined into one homogeneous pool and are thus not separately identifiable, for award redemption purposes, between miles earned in the current period and those in their beginning balance. The Company expects the majority of these miles to be redeemed within the first four years with the highest redemption rate in year one. The table below presents a roll forward of Frequent flyer deferred revenue (in millions):
|  | Three Months Ended March 31, |
|  | 2018 |  |  | 2017 |
Total Frequent flyer deferred revenue—beginning balance |  | $ | 4,783 |  |  | $ | 4,889 |
Total miles awarded |  |  | 603 |  |  |  | 488 |
Travel miles redeemed (Passenger revenue) |  |  | (409) |  |  |  | (398) |
Non-travel miles redeemed (Other operating revenue) |  |  | (40) |  |  |  | (39) |
Total Frequent flyer deferred revenue—ending balance |  | $ | 4,937 |  |  | $ | 4,940 |
In the three months ended March 31, 2018 and 2017, the Company recognized, in Other operating revenue, $482 million and $403 million, respectively, related to the marketing, advertising and other travel-related benefits of the mileage revenue associated with our various partner agreements including, but not limited to, our Chase co-brand agreement. The portion related to the MileagePlus miles awarded of the total amounts received is deferred and presented in the table above as an increase to the frequent flyer liability. The Company also recognized, in Other operating revenue, $28 million in costs associated with the non-travel miles redeemed in the three months ended March 31, 2018 and 2017. Passenger Revenue by Geography. The Company further disaggregates passenger revenue by geographic regions and by mainline versus regional. The following table presents passenger revenue by geographic region and by mainline versus regional for the three months ended March 31 (in millions):
|  | 2018 |  |  | 2017 |
Mainline |  | $ | 3,485 |  |  | $ | 3,272 |
Regional |  |  | 1,483 |  |  |  | 1,379 |
Domestic |  |  | 4,968 |  |  |  | 4,651 |
Atlantic |  |  | 1,252 |  |  |  | 1,117 |
Pacific |  |  | 1,069 |  |  |  | 1,053 |
Latin America |  |  | 860 |  |  |  | 832 |
International |  |  | 3,181 |  |  |  | 3,002 |
Consolidated |  | $ | 8,149 |  |  | $ | 7,653 |
Mainline |  |  | 6,616 |  |  |  | 6,227 |
Regional |  |  | 1,533 |  |  |  | 1,426 |
Consolidated |  | $ | 8,149 |  |  | $ | 7,653 |
Ancillary Fees. The Company charges fees, separately from ticket sales, for certain ancillary services that are directly related to passengers’ travel, such as ticket change fees, baggage fees, inflight amenities fees, and other ticket-related fees. These ancillary fees are part of the travel performance obligation and, as such, are recognized as passenger revenue when the travel occurs. The Company recorded $497 million and $478 million of ancillary fees within passenger revenue in the first three months of 2018 and 2017, respectively.

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