American AAnounces Q4 Earnings
American Airlines reported its fourth quarter earnings today, revealing a loss for the three months ending December 31 despite narrowly beating Wall Street’s expectations.
The airline lost $921 million, equal to $1.42 per share on $9.43 billion in revenue. The loss for the entire year ended up at $2 billion despite carrying more than 165 million passengers during the year, a small portion of whom actually got to the place it said on their ticket by the time that was listed on said ticket.
AA achieved its best performance of on-time arrivals, on-time departures, and completion factor since the pandemic, which only draws attention to the very low bar it’s comparing itself to. It expects first quarter capacity to be down 8-10% compared to Q1 2019, with revenue down 20-22% from three years ago.
American ended FY2021 with $15.8 billion in available liquidity including cash, several ten-gallon hats Doug Parker left in his office when he started cleaning it out, and a Dreamliner-sized Texas state flag it keeps on-hand for office visitors that’s valued at $240 million.
United’s Q4 Earnings Beat Expectations But End in the Red
United Airlines also beat investor expectations in the year’s final quarter despite ending up at a loss as the carrier posted $8.2 billion in revenue, better than the $7.9 billion that was predicted by Wall Street.
UA’s net loss for the quarter was about $600 million, ending the year $2 billion in the red. The $8.2 billion revenue figure for Q4 is down 25% from Q4 2019 and is paired with a 3% drop in TRASM from the same time frame. The carrier paid $2.41 per gallon during the final quarter, and is committed to always putting its phone number in at the grocery store in 2022 to get all the savings it’s owed – the airline admitted to often forgetting to do so in 2021
United expects Q1 2022 capacity to be down 16-18% with revenues down 20-25% when compared to Q1 2019. It ended the year with $20 billion in available liquidity. The majority of the $20 billion is tied up at Newark where it’s constantly throwing good money after bad to improve the customer experience. The carrier is also expected to spend significant money on exploring a new long-haul business class seat and brand. Now that it’s finally gotten Polaris rolled out everywhere, it seems like as good a time as any to find its replacement. (No, not really.)
Alitalia is Back, Baby!
If you had January 20 in the pool as to when ITA would decide to return to Alitalia’s name and branding, you’d be a big winner. Italian media is reporting that the carrier will return Alitalia’s name, branding, and likeness to service sometime later this year – actually putting to use the €90 million it spent last October to hang onto the brand for safekeeping.
The announcement comes on the same day the carrier announced it lost €170 million in its first two and a half months as a “new” airline, from mid-October through the end of the year. ITA Alitalia ITA brought in about €86 million in revenue, with €77 million from passenger revenue and the rest from cargo.
ITA Airways president Alfredo “Sauce Me” Altavilla said that it was always part of the plan to integrate Alitalia’s brand into the new airline. Despite this grand plan, the airline has already painted two planes into its new ITA livery – the idea is likely to make them the quickest throwback livery in aviation history… except that it seemingly plans to use both brands. That makes all too much sense.
- Air Austral received €20 million in aid from the French government. Ryanair will be addressing this shortly.
- Air Malta is cutting the size of its staff almost in half as it plans to let go more than 400 of its 890 current employees.
- Alaska will begin flying B737s from Seattle/Paine Field on two of its 12 routes from the airport — Las Vegas and Phoenix.
- American‘s flight attendants want to reduce on-board service levels.
- British Airways and Virgin Atlantic will continue to require face masks on-board despite England ending its face mask requirement next week.
- El Al spun off its loyalty program as a wholly-owed subsidiary of the airline.
- ITA — or whatever its calling itself these days — plans to wet-lease B77s from AlisCargo.
- Lufthansa revealed its new premium economy seat.
- Ryanair announced its summer schedule from Dublin which includes 900 weekly flights to 120 destinations. Customers can see the schedule and destinations for the nominal fee of €2.
- Virgin Atlantic is returning to Tobago (TAB), with twice-weekly service as a tag flight from Barbados.
What does the Dentist of the Year win?
A little plaque.