American Airlines continued to lose money in the first quarter, with the start of the year affected by the Omicron variant. But demand for travel is solid and following record sales in March, the company expects to be profitable in the second quarter.
ATS
Its action jumped 11% Thursday in electronic trading before the opening of the New York Stock Exchange. Excluding exceptional items, and even with the rise in the price of jet fuel, American posted a profit in March. Its turnover has even risen, for the first time since the start of the pandemic, above the levels of 2019, underlines the company in a press release.
While several companies are currently facing staff shortages, and must therefore cancel certain flights, American assures for its part that it has “taken measures to ensure that it is ready to serve customers during the months of the summer season”. The company has 12,000 more people than last summer.
Even business travel, whose recovery is struggling compared to leisure travel, is starting to really pick up. “Revenues generated by small and medium-sized businesses and customers traveling for both business and leisure remain very strong and are approaching a full return” to before the pandemic, notes American.
The company expects capacity to be 92% to 94% of what it was in the second quarter of 2019 and, with rising airfare prices, revenue to be 6 % to 8% higher. In the first quarter, American lost another $1.6 billion. Reported per share and excluding exceptional items, the loss amounted to 2.32 dollars, which is less important than the 2.4 dollars expected by analysts.
Its revenue reached $8.9 billion, down 16% from the same period in 2019, before the pandemic caused air traffic to plummet. The load factor of its planes was 74%.
afp