American Airlines trails its main rivals in Q3

Despite record-high Q3 revenues, American Airlines reported the lowest net profit for the quarter compared to its main rivals, United and Delta. AA produced an adjusted net profit of $263 million, which turns into a half-a-billion dollar non-adjusted net loss if one-off charges are included. Demand has been strong, but record-high revenues were not enough to compensate for rising operational and non-operational expenses. For Q4, American has lowered its guidance.

American reported a $-545 million net loss compared to a $483 million profit in Q3 last year, with an operating margin of -1.7 percent. It recognized $808 million in special items, including $983 million in one-off charges related to the new collective labor agreements with the mainline pilots, plus $101 million in non-operating special items. Excluding these special items, the non-GAAP/net profit was $263 million at a 5.4 percent margin, which is better than analysts anticipated. But it is lower than the $1.108 billion net profit of Delta and $1.138 billion of United.