American Airlines had yet another difficult quarter, not unexpected in what has become an incredibly deep travel slump. The carrier's parent company, AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR), reported a third quarter loss of $359 million, largely because there aren't as many business travelers taking to the skies. Corporate travel budgets in all industries are having an effect on all airlines, including AMR.
Revenue plunged 20.2% year-over-year for the third quarter for the nation's second airline. The loss comes after a $31 million gain last year. This quarter's losses would have been slightly better if write-downs for sold or grounded aircraft were excluded -- the loss would have been $265 million (93 cents a share) on revenue of $5.09 billion. With the write-downs, revenue clocked in at $5.13 billion. Cheaper fuel made the quarter a little easier for AMR to bear, as well, with this expense down 47% year-over-year.
The silver lining in AMR's Q3 report is that analysts are pretty confident the airline won't go bust this winter. AMR raised more than $4 billion in cash last quarter, giving it a cushion for what has traditionally been a slow quarter.
Meanwhile, AirTran (NYSE: AAI) picked up a Q3 profit of $10.4 million on declining revenues of 11% (from $673.3 million to $597.4 million). This is a hell of a lot better than last year's $94.6 million loss. The airline has now posted three consecutive quarters of profits, a rarity in the airline business. And, it's bucking the industry trend by planning to increase capacity by 2% to 4% in 2010 (a positive change from March).
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