LONDON – The United States’ largest airline by passengers carried, American Airlines, has reported its financial results for the last calendar year.
By way of comparison to the last year that airlines were unaffected by the pandemic, it turned out to be a year of excellent performance.
Quarter four revenues came in at 13.2 billion dollars, the highest in the companies history, which translates down into a net income of $803 million before excluding net special items.
The record revenues prove to be a 16.6 percent increase compared with the same time in 2019, whilst operating capacity was 6% less than 4 years ago.
Driven on by very strong performance over what proved to be a challenging holiday period, American outperformed the industry during this time.
Full year revenue results brought in $49 billion, which was enough to bring them back to profitability.
“The American Airlines team has produced outstanding results over the past year, we committed to running a reliable operation and returning to profitability, and our team is delivering on both.”
“We’re proud to have led the industry in operational performance over the holidays while producing record full-year and fourth-quarter revenues, resulting in a third consecutive quarterly profit and a profit for the full year.”
“As we turn our attention to 2023, we will continue to prioritize reliability, profitability and debt reduction,” Said American Airlines Chief Executive Officer Robert Isom.
475,00 flights were operated by the airline and its regional partners during the final quarter of the year, and the overall load factor for these journeys was 83.9%. Rankings also show them coming out on top for completion factor amongst its eight biggest rivals.
$539 million was paid in debt and finance lease payments during the final quarter whilst also satisfying a $1.2 billion loan early. The company had $12 billion in total available equity as 2022 drew to a close.
This largely comprises of cash reserves, short term investments and available capacity on their current revolving credit facilities.
One of the airlines top objectives is to reduce its outstanding debt by 15 billion dollars by the end of 2025. It is understandable that the midst of Covid was one of the most difficult times for airlines, so it figures that its peak levels of debt were during the middle months of 2021.
American has decreased its debt by more than 8 billion dollars since this period. Looking forward into the start of 2023, with the squeeze airlines are seeing due to the cost of fuel, they expect their first quarter ‘adjusted earnings per share’ to come in around breakeven.
The carrier still sees huge demand in the current climate, and that momentum has continued over into the new year also.
If the landscape stays the same, with pent up demand for flying in the leisure and tourism sector, and a large amount of business travel getting back up into the skies, 2023 could prove to be a good year for airlines.
