MW American Airlines' stock rallies after an earnings beat, raised outlook and best load factor in more than 10 years

Shares of American Airlines Group Inc. $(AAL)$ climbed 5.4% toward a five-month high in premarket trading Thursday, after the air carrier reported third-quarter profit that beat expectations and raised its full-year outlook. Net losses for the quarter to Sept. 30 narrowed to $149 million, or 23 cents a share, from $545 million, or 83 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding nonrecurring items, adjusted earnings per share slipped to 30 cents from 38 cents and were well above the FactSet EPS consensus of 16 cents. Revenue grew 1.2% to $13.65 billion, above the FactSet consensus of $13.50 billion. Load factor increased to 86.6% from 84.0%, to reach the highest level in more than 10 years and to beat the FactSet consensus of 84.2%, as traffic increased 7.1% to 43.11 billion revenue passenger miles and capacity was up 3.9% to 50.04 billion available seat miles. Looking ahead, the company raised its guidance range for full-year adjusted EPS to between $1.35 and $1.60 from a previously lowered range of between 70 cents and $1.30. The stock has lost 6.6% year to date through Wednesday, while the U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS) has rallied 19% and the S&P 500 index has climbed 21.5%.

-Tomi Kilgore

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October 24, 2024 07:10 ET (11:10 GMT)

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