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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