Airline

American warns on transatlantic routes

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American warns on transatlantic routes

American Airlines Group has warned that it expects its European routes to suffer from overcapacity, economic weakness and terrorism fears in the coming months. However, president Scott Kirby is confident that the UK’s vote to leave the European Union will not impact business confidence to such an extend that it will lead to tightening of corporate travel budgets in the short term. Until the UK actually exits, he said, “there will be a lot more lawyers and bankers flying back and forth, figuring out what to do.”

His comments came as the airline, the nation’s largest airline by traffic, met Wall Street estimates on its second-quarter results and gave better-than-expected unit-revenue guidance for next quarter.
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American reported earnings of $950 million, or $1.68 a share, in the June quarter, compared with $1.7 billion, or $2.41 a share a year ago, with revenue dipping by 4.3% to $10.4 billion.

The company also disclosed that it had reached an agreement with Airbus to defer the start of delivery of 22 A350 XWBs to late 2018 that were planned to arrive during spring of 2017. The airline has paid no penalties for the deferral.