American Airlines parent AMR Corp. yesterday reported a first-quarter net loss of $436 million, narrowed from a $505 million net deficit for the same period last year. First-quarter revenue rose 9.2% year on year to $5.53 billion while expenses heightened 7.4% to $5.77 billion, including a 24.8% surge in fuel costs to $1.84 billion. Operating loss was $232 million, narrowed from an operating loss of $298 million in the 2010 March quarter. Mainline traffic increased 1.6% to 29.17 billion RPMs on a 2.7% lift in capacity to 37.85 billion ASMs, producing a load factor of 77.1%, down 0.8%. Passenger yield rose 6.2% to 14.18 cents as PRASM increased 5% to 10.92 cents and CASM rose 3.8% to 13.4 cents. CASM ex-fuel lowered 1.8% to 8.99 cents.
AA cited high fuel costs but noted that its results were improved. "High fuel prices remain one of the biggest challenges to our industry and our company," Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey said in a statement. "While we clearly must achieve better results as we continue to strengthen our business, we have made some meaningful progress." "We anticipate that our total fuel bill for all of 2011 will increase by $2.1 billion over 2010, and that includes substantial benefits from hedging”.