American Airlines has posted an $8.9 billion annual loss, its biggest on record as travel restrictions and lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged air travel in 2020.
Despite reducing its operating spending by $7 billion in 2020, mainly by cancelling numerous flights, the airline continued to burn $30 million a day in the fourth quarter, resulting in a net loss of $2.2 billion, or $3.81 per share, over the period as its revenues collapsed by 64%. This compares to a profit of $414 million, or 95 cents per share, in 2019.
Total operating revenue fell to $4.03 billion from $11.31 billion but topped analysts’ expectations of $3.88 billion.
The airline ended the fourth quarter with about $14.3 billion in available liquidity but said liquidity would improve to $15 billion by the end of March 2021.
American Airlines is the world’s largest airline when measured by fleet size, scheduled passengers carried, and revenue passenger mile. Together with its regional partners, American operates an international and domestic network with almost 6,800 flights per day to nearly 350 destinations in more than 50 countries.
American said it was exiting 19 international routes in 2021.
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