United Air shares close higher on Friday, over 480 flights to be added to US schedule, air carrier says

United Airlines Holdings Inc (UAL) said on Friday that it would add more than 480 daily flights to its US schedule in June in order to meet summer period demand, which is expected to increase as COVID-19 vaccine roll-out progresses.

“As leisure journey continues to return this summer time, we’re including extra flights to our June schedule,” Ankit Gupta, United’s Vice President of Domestic Network Planning and Scheduling, said in a statement.

United Airlines said that it would fly 67% of its US schedule and 60% of its overall schedule in comparison with June 2019.

The air carrier also said it intended to add new flights to Hawaii, Alaska and Montana.

United Air shares closed higher for the fourth time in the past ten trading sessions on NASDAQ on Friday. It has also been the sharpest single-session gain since March 25th. The stock went up 4.08% ($2.08) to $53.11, after touching an intraday high at $53.35, or a price level not seen since April 20th ($53.73).

Shares of United Airlines Holdings Inc have risen 22.80% so far in 2021 compared with an 11.29% gain for the benchmark index, S&P 500 (SPX).

In 2020, United Air’s stock went down 50.90%, thus, it underperformed the S&P 500, which registered a 16.26% gain.