American Airlines (AA, Dallas / Fort Worth) continues to invest in its hubs and plans to bring back thousands of employees and hire thousands more as the airline recovers from its COVID-19 dive in tourist traffic.
In response to rising travel demand, the airline expects to open three new gates in Charlotte Int’l before the end of the year, in addition to the four it opened there in February 2020 just before the airport pandemic by 94, the airport reports Charlotte Observer. American also recently opened four new gates at its largest and most profitable hub in Dallas / Fort Worth and expects to operate a larger domestic network from there this month than in August 2019. It also opened a new hangar in Washington National, which allowed it to expand the hub to include larger aircraft.
In a recent conference call with financial analysts, CEO Doug Parker said that American served 44 million passengers on nearly 470,000 flights in the second quarter of 2021 – more than five times the number of passengers and more than two and a half. half times as many flights as were carried out in the same quarter in 2020.
“Recovery is taking place,” said President Robert Islom. “This quarter we converted operations from flight to pandemic level and effectively added an airline the size of the old US Airways within a few months.”
He said American will bring 3,000 employees back from vacation and hire nearly 3,500 new employees, including 350 pilots this year and more than 1,000 pilots and 800 flight attendants next year.
Still, the airline reported a net loss of $ 1.1 billion for the second quarter of 2021, but Parker noted that it was the smallest since the pandemic began as demand for air travel continued to improve. “Our sales for the quarter were 87% higher than last quarter. The important thing is that while we are getting industry-leading volumes, we are also controlling our costs. We expect our losses to decrease further in the third quarter as we continue to return to sustainable profitability, ”he said.
In addition, according to Parker, American started the second quarter with more than $ 21 billion in available liquidity, the highest in its history. “In the quarter we generated a cash build for the first time since the pandemic. With this record liquidity and our confidence in the future, we started deleveraging on American’s balance sheet. ”He said the airline has already prepaid the entire $ 950 million temporary parts loan due in April 2023 should be for years to come, ”he concluded.
Robert Isom, president of American Airlines Group and American Airlines, said AA’s passenger revenue more than doubled sequentially to $ 6.5 billion in the second quarter as demand increased. The demand for leisure time continued to develop above average and exceeded the level of 2019 in many areas. As vaccinations have increased, business travel has also begun, and onward bookings in key business markets were seen prior to 2019.
Long-distance international traffic was still expected to recover more slowly as travel restrictions and quarantine regulations remained in place in many countries, Isom said. However, with the reopening of the European Union, the demand for trips to Europe has increased significantly in recent weeks, he noted.
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