American Airlines expects its total cost for the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max to be about US$540m in pre-tax earnings in 2019, up from a previous estimate of $400m. The airline took a $140m hit in Q3 alone for the grounding of its fleet of 24 Max aircraft, the company says in its quarterly investor update Thursday. CE Doug Parker says that the airline expects compensation from Boeing for the losses it has incurred, and “wants to make sure that Boeing’s shareholders share the cost of Boeing’s failures, not American’s shareholders.” Negotiations on this compensation are “underway, early, productive,” Parker adds. “There is still no real clarity at this point, but we are highly confident that the losses that AA incurred will not be incurred by AA shareholders.” <br/>
oneworld
American Airlines Group and Spirit Airlines executives said Thursday they were working with Airbus to mitigate the impact of US tariffs on European-made aircraft, including having more planes delivered from Mobile, Alabama. Airbus' US plant is not subject to a 10% tariff recently announced by Washington following a long-running trade dispute. "We'll do everything we can to talk to Airbus to try to get them out of Mobile...instead of Hamburg," American CFO Derek Kerr said. American, one of the largest customers of the A320 family, expects 21 deliveries over the next 2 years, with 9 already scheduled out of Airbus' plant in Mobile. But 6 orders are due to come from Hamburg and the origin of another 6 have yet to be determined, Kerr said. <br/>