American Airlines posts profit thanks to federal aid, revenue improves

American Airlines on Thursday reported a $169m profit for Q3thanks to more than $990m in federal payroll support. Revenue for the quarter totaled $8.97b down about 25% from the same period of 2019 but up from the $3.17b American brought in a year ago. That was ahead of analysts’ expectations of sales of $8.94b. Without one-time items, like government payroll support, American had a loss of 99 cents per share, less than the $1.04 per-share loss analysts expected. “While we don’t like reporting losses, this was our smallest quarterly loss since the pandemic began,” American’s CEO, Doug Parker, and the carrier’s president, Robert Isom, wrote in a note to employees. For Q4, American expects its revenue to fall by about 20% from 2019, when it generated $11.3b. It also said its capacity will be down 11% to 13% compared with two years ago. The airline forecast pretax margins, excluding special items, in Q4 to be between negative 16% and negative 18%.<br/>