United Airlines (UAL) PT Raised to $136 at Bernstein SocGen Group

Bernstein SocGen Group analyst David Vernon raised the price target on United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL) to $136.00 (from $129.00) while maintaining a Outperform rating.

The analyst comments "4Q25 earnings recap. 4Q25 adj diluted EPS of $3.10 beat the street / us by 6% / 4% (Exhibit 2). Landing within the guide range from before the gov. shutdown (Exhibit 4) is impressive, speaks to very healthy premium market. Diverse revenue streams continued to see meaningful YoY growth in 4Q: loyalty +10%, premium +9%, Basic Economy +7% (all > total revenue ~+5%). New guide implies stronger start to year than expected, bullish commentary implies upside to in-line FY26 guide. 1Q26 EPS guide of $1.25 at the midpoint ($1.00-$1.50) was +7.5% / +4.5% vs. consensus / us going into the print (Exhibit 6). FY26 EPS guide midpoint of $13 ($12.00-$14.00) and capex expectations (< $8B) fell ~in-line with street expectations (Exhibit 7). Caribbean’s only a small fraction of UAL (Exhibit 8), and recently Caribbean demand improved vs. earlier weeks of ‘26. Inspires some confidence in limited downside risk to UAL bookings from Venezuela situation. UAL also said overall demand looks really healthy, very strong business demand, and even with Caribbean situation unfolding, if things continue as is, current guide will look conservative. On credit card policy change risk, UAL cardholders skew higher-end, likely helping to mitigate vulnerability vs. other lower-cost airlines / non-airline co-brand card programs (though this issue is evolving and ultimately could have meaningful, though currently unknowable, industry-wide impact). Our estimates go up, slightly ahead of consensus on better topline outlook, think they hit closer to high-end of guide. Consensus / our estimate has risen by 12.9% in 1Q; For FY26, our estimate has gone up 3.1%, a bit more than the 2.4% boost baked into consensus (off the same $13.04 prior to print). We land ahead of the street (+3% in 1Q, +1% in FY26) on a slightly stronger top-line outlook (Exhibit 9, Exhibit 10)."

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