United Airlines Retakes Spot as World’s Second Largest Carrier, Eclipsing Delta
By Anna Breuer on 11 January 2019
United Airlines has reclaimed its spot as the world’s second largest airline, surpassing archrival Delta Air Lines.
The Chicago airline reported 230.2 billion RPMs, or revenue passenger miles, for 2018, while Delta said it had 225.2 billion.
Revenue passenger mile is one measure of an airline’s size. Others include fleet size, revenue, profit, and number of passengers carried.
American Airlines is currently the largest by all of these measures and revenue passenger miles. It has held this spot since its merger with US Airways in 2013.
United lost the No. 2 spot to Delta in 2015.
Revenue passenger miles are an airline’s traffic figures that multiplies the number of passengers by the distance flown.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
