Weighted down by revenue losses due to the recession, American Airlines today reported a net loss of $344 million for the fourth quarter and a $1.5 billon loss for all of 2009.
American reported consolidated revenue of about $5.1 billion in the fourth quarter, a decrease of 7.4% from a year earlier, largely because of reduced capacity and reduced demand resulting from the global economic downturn, the airline said.
For all of 2009, American reported about $20 billion in revenue, a 16.2% decrease from the prior year.
Like other airlines, American cut capacity throughout the year as the recession dampened demand for air travel.
"The fuel crisis of 2008 was replaced by the worst recession in decades, which hurt travel demand severely, and tight capital markets," Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey said in a statement. "Yet, we took steps to address those challenges by bolstering our liquidity and financial flexibility and remaining disciplined with capacity.
"At the same time, we strengthened our global network, reinvested in our fleet and products, and made strides to improve our dependability and our customers' experience."
In a letter to employees today, Arpey said, "While we have been able to keep our planes full -- in fact, our load factor for the quarter was a record -- heavy discounting throughout the industry and a steep decline in business travel prevented us from charging fares sufficient to earn a profit.
American’s fourth-quarter yield (representing average fares) was down 7.6% compared with a year earlier.
One bright spot for the airline was the revenue increases it reported for ancillary charges.
Revenue from sources such as confirmed flight changes, purchased upgrades, buy-onboard food and checked-bag fees grew 6.8%, to $582 million, in the fourth quarter.
For all of 2009, ancillary revenue increased 5.4%, to $2.3 billion, compared with 2008.
