American Airlines stock was down more than 9% in late-day trading Wednesday following the filing of a financial update.
The stock plunge notwithstanding, the filing painted a generally acceptable picture of American's first-quarter results.
The airline now projects that its adjusted operating margin for its first quarter will be 3.5%, which is in the middle of the 2.5%-to-4.5% margin guidance American provided in January. American also expects its total revenue per available seat mile and its cost per available seat mile, both key industry metrics, to fall in the center of its January guidance: Total revenue per available seat mile will be approximately 25.5% up from last year's omicron-addled first quarter, while cost per available seat mile will be down approximately 1.5%.
An updated Q1 capacity projection also fell in the middle of its January guidance.
Investors, however, reacted negatively to the filing's projection on first-quarter earnings per share.
American's latest guidance of earnings of $.01 to $.05 per share is actually up from the January guidance of flat. However, the projection was below Wall Street estimates of $.04 per share, wrote the investment website Seeking Alpha.
Other airline stocks also struggled Wednesday. United stock was down nearly 7% in late-afternoon trading, while JetBlue stock was down close to 5%.
The Jets ETF fund, which is a composite of U.S. airline stocks, was down more than 3%.