American Airlines shares fell as much as 11% Thursday after the biggest US carrier cut its estimate for a closely watched measure of performance, raising concerns that slowing global economic growth is hurting business travel. The losses in American’s shares also weighed on the broader airlines sector as slowdown fears were exacerbated by lower fuel prices, which typically lead to competitive discounting. Shares of Delta fell as much as 5.5%, United Continental Holdings 7.6% and Southwest 4.4% by midday. “Legacies in particular have a clear risk ahead on unit revenues, and that includes American Airlines with everything from corporate, international to shutdown exposure,” Morgan Stanley analyst Rajeev Lalwani said. “It’s happening a little earlier than anticipated per the American and Delta unit revenue guide downs in the fourth quarter, which is concerning.”<br/>
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An American Airlines flight crew fell ill on a flight to Florida Thursday and asked to be taken to the hospital as a precaution. Two pilots and three flight attendants on American Flight 1897, from Philadelphia to Fort Lauderdale, complained of an odour shortly before landing, according to an American Airlines statement. The plane, an Airbus A320 with 137 passengers, landed at 11 a.m. local time. "No passengers requested medical attention," American's statement said. "The aircraft is being evaluated by our maintenance team.” An American spokeswoman said late Thursday afternoon that the crew was not admitted to hospital. The cause remains under investigation.<br/>
The Spanish government is confident national flag carrier Iberia will be able to fly across Europe in the event of a disorderly Brexit, even though the airline is majority-owned by Britain-based Anglo-Spanish group IAG. Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29 but has yet to seal a withdrawal agreement, posing a potential risk to airlines that don’t meet EU rules requiring European carriers to be majority-owned and operated in the bloc. “From the public works ministry’s point of view, we’re convinced that Iberia is a Spanish company,” a spokesman for the ministry said. “We are also convinced that, if necessary, the company will make the necessary adjustments to make sure it complies with European regulations,” he said. IAG, which also owns British Airways, is registered in Spain but headquartered in Britain and has shareholders from around the world. Iberia has a Spanish shareholder with just over 50% of voting rights via a complex ownership scheme. “We are confident that we will comply with the EU and the UK ownership and control rules post-Brexit,” IAG said, adding that IAG was a Spanish company.<br/>
Latin American operator LATAM Airlines Group has converted another four A350-1000s to the -900, continuing its migration away from the larger A350 variant. LATAM had originally ordered 27 A350-900s and its Brazilian division TAM received its first in 2015. Around the time of this initial delivery, the company opted to convert part of the order to the A350-1000. LATAM continued scaling up batches of A350-900s until it had 14 of the -1000 on order. But towards the end of 2017 it began to reverse this strategy, cutting the complement of -1000s by converting them back to -900s. Airbus’s latest backlog revision shows that LATAM has switched another four -1000s, reducing the number on order to eight. <br/>