American Airlines Traffic Not Weak Enough to Drive More Selling
American Airlines has released its traffic report for September and total revenue passenger miles slipped as summer travel wound down.
American Airlines Group Inc. (NASDAQ: AAL) has released its traffic report for September. The load factor was down 1.5 points to 80.0%. The total capacity for this month was up 1.6% to 21.1 billion against the previous year. The company reported that the total revenue passenger miles for the month of September was down 0.2% to 16.9 billion from last year’s numbers.
Looking ahead to its third quarter, American Airlines expects that consolidated passenger revenue per available seat mile to be up roughly 0.5% to 1.5%. Also the company expects that the pretax margin excluding special items will be between 10% and 12%. Some of the trends may be down slightly on a relative basis, but the reaction was initially not a negative one.
September is one of those months that still includes some summer traffic but can be a slower time than the prior three months. That leaves the next passenger floodgates out until around Thanksgiving, followed by the holiday season. But for now, the trends in September were lower than the average months of 2014 so far.
As previously mentioned, the load factor fell comparatively on the month, but this is part of a larger trend on the year-to-date where it has fallen to 82.6%, versus 2013 when it read at 83.3%. International travel was the biggest deciding factor in this decline, reading at -5.3%. Both revenue passenger miles and available seat miles were up on their year-to-date numbers.
The good news is that American Airlines shares were indicated up 1% at $34.48 on the news. This stock has a consensus price target of $52.21 and a 52-week trading range of $19.77 to $44.88. Its market cap is $24 billion.
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Chris Lange is a financial and geopolitical writer with more than a decade of experience covering a myriad of topics. He has published thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St., with past coverage focused heavily on stocks, IPOs, healthcare, defense, global affairs, and technology.
His work has been quoted, or referenced by a number of outlets including Business Insider, USA Today, Yahoo Finance, MSN, The Motley Fool, and many other publications. A graduate of Southwestern University, he studied business with a focus on investments and has previous experience in banking and startups.
When not reading or writing the news, he is following his passion for Lacrosse, playing chess, or building solar projects with his dad.
