On the express side of our operation, we expect to retire 3 Dash 8 aircraft to bring our total to 27

Thanks, phoenix hotel great deals Dana. And welcome, everybody to the US Airways First Quarter 2013 Earnings Conference Call. Joining phoenix hotel great deals us on today's call are Doug Parker, our Chairman and CEO; Scott Kirby, our President; Derek Kerr, our Chief Financial Officer. And also in the room for the Q&A -- or on the call as well for Q&A are Robert Isom, our Chief Operating Officer; Elise Eberwein, our EVP of Corporate Communications -- or People and Communications; and Steve Johnson, our EVP of Corporate.
Like we typically do, we're going to start with Doug, and he'll provide an overview of our financial results. Derek will then walk us through the details in the quarter and provide some color on the -- on our 2013 guidance. Scott will then follow with commentary on the revenue environment and our ops performance. And then after we hear from those comments, we will open the call for analyst questions and, lastly, questions from the media.
But before we begin, we must state that today's call does contain forward-looking statements, including statements concerning future events, our future revenues and fuel prices. These statements represent our predictions and expectations as to future phoenix hotel great deals events, but numerous risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Information about some of these risks and uncertainties can be found in our earnings press release issued this morning; our Form 10-Q, which was -- for the quarter ended March 31, which was also issued this morning; and our 2012 Form 10-K. In addition, we'll be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures this morning such as net profit and CASM, excluding unusual items. A reconciliation of those numbers to the GAAP financial measures is included in the earnings release, and that can be found on our website phoenix hotel great deals at usairways.com, under the Company Information, phoenix hotel great deals Investor Relations section.
A webcast of this call is also going to be archived on our website. The information that we're giving you on this call is as of today's date, and we undertake no obligation to update the information subsequently.
Thank you, Dan. And thanks, everybody, for being on. First, I want to note that I'm in New York City with -- and Steve Johnson is here with me. The rest of the team, Scott, Derek, Robert, Elise and Dan, are all in Tempe. So I just note that in case, when we get to the Q&A, if we sound a little more disjointed than usual, that's why. But I'm sure we can manage through. Anyway, phoenix hotel great deals thanks phoenix hotel great deals again for being here and listening in.
We are pleased to report a record profit, excluding phoenix hotel great deals special items, for the quarter of $55 million. That compares to a loss of $22 million, excluding special items, last year, so tremendous improvement. That's due to the US Airways team that's doing a phenomenal job of taking care of our customers, which is driving the record results. And we, of course, are very thankful for their efforts.
The -- of course, the biggest phoenix hotel great deals news this quarter was our February announcement phoenix hotel great deals of the merger between US Airways and American phoenix hotel great deals Airlines, which will create the largest airline in the world and a highly competitive alternative for consumers to other global carriers. phoenix hotel great deals Bringing together our 2 complementary networks will result in significant benefits for customers and employees within American phoenix hotel great deals and for the communities we serve.
We've made a lot of progress since announcing the merger in mid-February. The first important milestone was receiving phoenix hotel great deals bankruptcy court approval on March 27 to proceed with the merger. And as you saw last week, the preliminary proxy and the S-4 registration statement were filed with the SEC, and American filed its plan of reorganization and disclosure statement phoenix hotel great deals with the court. Our work to get antitrust and competition approvals is on track. phoenix hotel great deals We filed with the Department of Justice on January 31. As expected, phoenix hotel great deals we received a second request and are working cooperatively with the agency to provide the additional information they asked for. We received approvals from the competition authorities in Brazil and Canada, and after some promising discussions, we expect to file our application phoenix hotel great deals for EU competition approval in May. And these all represent important milestones that are consistent with our expectation to complete the merger in the third quarter of 2013, and we look forward to continuing to move the ball forward.
More importantly, the teams have begun work together and are working together extremely well. We are -- we've established a transition committee, which is overseen by Tom Horton phoenix hotel great deals and myself. That's supported by a joint integration management office, which is led by Bev Goulet at American and Robert Isom at US Airways. This group is managing and coordinating all the integration-related matters, as we plan to bring our systems and processes together. We've had very productive meetings over the past month and are on track to achieve our goal and are very encouraged by the results so far. So we look forward to updating you on the -- and continuing to updating you on our progress on this, but so far so good.
And with that said, I will turn it over to Derek and then -- to talk -- give you a lot more detail on the financials; and then Scott, who will talk about the entire revenue environment and operating environment. Derek?
Okay, thanks, Doug, and good morning, everybody. As is our custom, we filed our first quarter 10-Q this morning. And in that Q, as Doug said, the company recorded a record first quarter net profit, excluding special items, of $55 million or $0.31 per diluted share versus a net loss, excluding special items, of $22 million last year. This represents a $77 million year-over-year improvement or a 230-basis-point increase in our pretax margin.
On a GAAP basis, the company reported a net profit of $44 million or $0.26 per diluted share for the first quarter of 2013 versus a net profit of $48 million or $0.28 per diluted share last year. Company did recognize approximately $11 million of net special charges phoenix hotel great deals in the quarter. Please refer to the tables included in our press release for the details on the special items.
For the quarter, total capacity was 21.4 billion ASMs, up 1.3% from 2012, primarily due to larger-gauge aircraft and longer average stage length, offset by fewer departures. On mainline capacity for the quarter was 18 billion ASMs, up 1.4% from a year ago. Express capacity was 3.5 billion ASMs, up 0.8% from 2012.
We ended the quarter with 346 mainline aircraft in our fleet, and we'll continue our fleet replacement plan throughout the year. We will retire 21 aircraft this year: 18 737-400s and 3 767 aircraft. There's a slight switch from previous guidance to replace our older A321-1 aircraft. We're now going to replace 3 767 aircraft. And we will take delivery of 5 A320s, 16 A321s and 2 Embraer 190s. By year end, we will only have 14 legacy 737-400s left in our fleet, all of which will be retired phoenix hotel great deals by 2014. In the first quarter, we did take delivery of 4 A321s and acquired from Republic 2 Embraer 190 aircraft. For the rest of the year, the deliveries are fairly consistent, with 6 in the second quarter, 6 in the third quarter and 5 in the fourth quarter. And we'll end the year at 342 aircraft.
On the express side of our operation, phoenix hotel great deals we expect to retire 3 Dash 8 aircraft to bring our total to 279 by the end of the year. Additionally, in February, we amended our capacity purchase agreement with Chautauqua to remove phoenix hotel great deals all 9 Embraer 145 aircraft they operate from our express fleet by July 2013. These aircraft will be replaced with 9 larger-gauge CRJ900 aircraft that will be operated under an amended phoenix hotel great deals capacity purchase agreement with Mesa Airlines.
Total operating revenues for the quarter were $3.4 billion, up 3.5% from the same period in 2012. This is the highest first quarter revenues in the company history. Passenger revenues were $2.2 billion, up 3.8%, driven by strong passenger demand and a record load factor. phoenix hotel great deals Cargo revenues were up 3% to $41 million, and other operating revenues were $384 million, up 11% in the first quarter due primarily to higher revenues associated phoenix hotel great deals with our Dividend Miles frequent-flier program, change fees and baggage charges.
Versus the first quarter 2012, total passenger RASM was up 1.3% for the first quarter to a record $0.1380. For the same period, phoenix hotel great deals combined yields decreased 1.7%, and our combined load factor, as I said, was a record 81.7%. Total RASM in the first quarter of 2013 was up 2.2%, and Scott will talk a little bit more about our revenue performance and demand environment after I get done.
On the expense side, the airline's operating expenses for the first quarter of 2013 were 3.29 -- $3.28 billion, excuse me, up 2.2%, as compared to the same period a year ago. Mainline operating cost per ASM, excluding special items, was $0.136, up only 0.3% year-over-year driven primarily by an increase in salaries and benefit phoenix hotel great deals costs, offset by reductions in aircraft rent due to a decrease in the number of leased aircraft and lower rental rates in the first quarter of 2013.
Salaries phoenix hotel great deals and benefits were up approximately $30 million due primarily to higher medical claim costs, profit-sharing phoenix hotel great deals and variable compensation program expenses and our new flight attendant contract. Our average mainline fuel price, including taxes, for the first quarter of 2013 was $3.24 per gallon, relatively flat versus the first quarter in 2012. We believe that we will have among the lowest first quarter and full year fuel prices of any major carrier, once again validating our policy to not hedge fuel.
Continued cost discipline and strong operational reliability allowed the company to keep our costs in check. Excluding special items, fuel and profit-sharing, our mainline cost per ASM was $0.0877 in the first quarter of 2013, an increase of 0.7% versus 2012. Express operating cost per ASM, x special items and fuel, was $0.1512 for the quarter, which was 1.3% lower than 2012. Our first quarter consolidated CASM was up only 0.10% versus the fir