American Airlines Makes 2016 Net Profit Of USD$2.7 Bln

American Airlines reported fourth quarter and 2016 full year results on Friday showing a USD$2.7 billion net profit for the year.

Fourth quarter net income was $289 million, down from the same period in 2015’s $3.28 billion. The prior quarter’s headline profit was due to a one-off tax benefit. For comparison, income before tax for Q4 was $500 million in 2016, against $244 million in 2015.

Operating revenue for the quarter to end December 2016 was $9.79 billion, up 1.7 percent from the prior year’s $9.63 billion, but expenses hit $9.02 billion from $8.56 billion in 2015, a rise of 5.4 percent.

For the full year 2016, American made a $2.68 billion net profit on income of $40.18 billion. Expenses for the year were $34.9 billion, a 0.3 percent increase.

The mainline cost per available seat mile (CASM) in 2016 was down 0.8 percent on a 1.0 percent capacity increase in available seat mile (ASM) terms. Mainline passenger load factor dropped one percentage point to 82.3 percent.

American said it added 55 new mainline and 42 new regional aircraft to its fleet during the year at a cost of $4.4 billion.