© Reuters. American Airlines (AAL) Gains as Preliminary Fourth Quarter Results Crush Consensus and Guidance
By Senad Karaahmetovic
Shares of American Airlines (NASDAQ:) are trading around 3.5% higher in premarket on Thursday after the company reported preliminary fourth-quarter earnings that crushed analyst expectations.
American expects to report adjusted EPS of $1.12 to $1.17, beating consensus earnings of $0.60 per share and its previous guidance of $0.50-0.70. Revenues are expected to grow 16-17% compared to the fourth quarter of 2014, exceeding the company’s previous forecast of 11-13%.
AAL also said it flew 66 billion available seat miles in total. This represents a 6.1% decrease compared to the fourth quarter of 2019 and is in line with the 5-7% decrease that American was expecting. Total revenue per available seat mile (TRASM) is expected to increase approximately 24% relative to the fourth quarter of 2019, higher than previous guidance of an increase of 18% to 20%.
“The Company expects to end the fourth quarter with approximately $12 billion in total available liquidity, comprised of cash and short-term investments plus unused capacity under revolving and other credit facilities,” American added in a business update.
Ultimately, the company said it achieved more than half of its goal of reducing total debt by $15 billion by the end of 2025, with total debt reduction of more than $7.5 billion in the first 18 months of the program. .
