Andrew Nocella
Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at United Airlines
Thanks, Brett. United's revenue and financial performance will be top tier in Q1 and as Scott and Brett mentioned, we also had strong operational results. Without the grounding of the MAX 9, we clearly would have produced a profit in the quarter. Looking back at 2023, we did have a great year, particularly in Q2 and Q3. However, United's relative financial performance in Q1 of 2023 did not meet our expectations. Improving United's absolute and relative Q1 margin is something we're very focused on to achieve our long-term financial targets. Q1 has always been our most challenged quarter financially. Post-pandemic, Q1 seasonality worsened due to decreases in corporate business.
For the first quarter of 2024, we took the lessons from 2023 and carefully refined our commercial plan with encouraging results. A few of our domestic capacity changes in Q1 included Florida capacity increased 20% with financial results well above our system average. Las Vegas capacity increased 7% again with strong financial results. Margins on off-peak early AM and late PM flights improved by 12 points year-over-year and margins on off-peak days improved by 11 points driven by United changes and industry changes. In making these changes to how we deploy capacity in Q1, we sacrificed about 1 point of narrowbody utilization year-over-year, but in exchange, we offered a schedule that was more attractive to passengers with better departure and arrival times and more profitable for United. Lower utilization also enhanced our reliability. We believe our Q1 2024 results set United up for producing profitable first quarters in the upcoming years and show our agility on adjusting our plan to meet new challenges.
Turning to our overall revenue performance in the first quarter. Revenue increased 9.7% on 9.1% more capacity. Consolidated TRASM was up 0.6% and PRASM was up 1%. Domestic PRASM increased 6.1%, which we expect to be industry-leading year-over-year, while international PRASM was down 4.2%. Domestic revenue results were also well above our expectations on strong demand and did help offset lower RASMS year-over-year from global flying in Latin America. United's domestic RASM gains since 2019 lead the industry even with United having the largest increase in aircraft gauge of any U.S. airline.
United's domestic network has been starved of gauge historically. I think our domestic RASM results in Q1 yet again showed that not all industry capacity is created equally considering the marginal RASM performance of growth ASMs at other airlines versus United. Cargo revenue decreased 1.8% year-over-year and we're hopeful that this is the last year-over-year decline we'll see in the near-term. MileagePlus had another strong quarter with revenue up 15%. United's premier frequent flying members are more engaged than ever by flying and using one of our co-brand credit cards.
Managed corporate travel in Q1 was up 14% year-over-year. Yields for managed travel grew faster than non-managed travel due to stronger close in pricing and refined discount in guidelines. The strength of the business traffic rebound is a nice development for an airline like United. Latin American PRASM was down 12.7%. Weakness was felt in near Latin America markets for the most part versus South America. We are pleased with our capacity growth across the Pacific where capacity was up 66% and PRASM was down 12.9%. However, we do plan to make capacity adjustments to a small number of underperforming routes later this year.
Q1 performance for United's Atlantic flying was up with strong PRASM 11% up. We saw a material rebound in London where Polaris revenues were up 8% on 11% less capacity. We saw weakness to Germany offset by strength to Southern Europe and Africa where we increased capacity. United's efforts to build our brand in premium product choices while reducing customer friction is having a noticeable positive impact on our results as we gain share across the network for leisure and business travelers. For our road warrior frequent flyer business customers, United's elimination of change fees, the functionality our app to manage their entire travel experience, improvements to MileagePlus and the steady increase in United Club facilities has resulted in improving share. However, we cannot understate the importance of the elimination of change fees, which is a game changer for how people feel about United.
United's focus on premium products has matched well with increased consumer demand for our premium seat choices. We believe this focus has diversified and made our revenues less cyclical in the long run. Premium passenger revenue mix improved 1.9 points versus Q1 2023 and 3 points versus Q1 2019. In other words, we're seeing near-term acceleration. Premium revenues were up 14% year-over-year on 10% more capacity and we estimate that United's premium revenue streams lead the industry. While our largest focus is on growing premium revenues, we also believe our rollout of basic economy is critical -- a critical competitive tool and important to attracting customers of all types in our core geography.
Basic economy sales trends in Q1 were up 35% year-over-year. Basic has clearly changed our competitive stance versus the ULCCs. Larger narrowbody jets are also increasing United gates faster with more premium seats than any other U.S. airline. We are absorbing this gauge increase well, which can be easily measured in our continued domestic RASM growth relative to others. We continue to plan for further gauge growth between 2025 and 2027 toward our expanded MAX 9 and A321 fleet. Other product innovations are planned with the goal of increasing choice for customers, expanding premium revenue streams and segmenting demand.
United's gauge growth will also create further cost convergence. More importantly, gauge growth provides consumers a wide range of premium seat choices that they want and that we've proven we can monetize. For Q2, we continue to see strong domestic and Atlantic demand with positive PRASM results tempered by the Pacific where we expect a negative result year-over-year. We also expect Latin America will have a materially negative PRASM result year-over-year in the quarter. As we think about the second half of 2024, we do like the macro setup, particularly for domestic capacity where we think we can continue RASM growth above industry average. We are focused on building connectivity in our core non-coastal hubs in 2024 with both new mainline jets and with enhanced RJ capabilities.
With that, I wanted to congratulate the entire United team on a job well done and turn over the call to Mike to discuss our financial results and updated fleet plan. Mike?