Fort Worth-based AMR, the parent company of American Airlines, posted a $97 million fourth quarter loss.
While that may sound like a lot, the .29 cents per share loss represents a $247 million improvement over the same period in 2009 when the company lost $344 million.
“2010 has been a year of significant improvement for American Airlines, and I want to thank all of our people for their hard work and dedication,” said Gerard Arpey, AMR’s Chief Executive Officer. “It was a year of major progress, as we have implemented both our domestic cornerstone strategy and our joint trans-Atlantic business with British Airways and Iberia – and we look forward to launching a similar joint business with Japan Airlines across the Pacific in April of this year.”
Without a write-down of some routes, AMR lost 21 cents per share. Analysts, who usually ignore items, expected a loss of 26 cents per share, according to FactSet.
Revenue was better than expected -- $5.59 billion, compared with analysts' forecast of $5.47 billion. Revenue for 2010 was over $22 billion, up 11 percent over 2009.
With the losses, AMR continues to lag other airlines. Delta said Tuesday that it earned $19 million in the fourth quarter, and analysts expect other big U.S. airlines to post profits.
Analysts said they expect American will turn a profit in 2011.
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"What's helping American this coming year is the fact that their alliances have been approved. The alliance with British Airways as well as the one with Japan Airlines for the trans-Pacific, trans-Atlantic routes. That's supposed to bring in more revenue to the airline as well," said Andrea Ahles, Star-Telegram aviation writer.
Meanwhile, American says it's talking with Expedia and Orbitz about getting its flights listed again on the online travel agencies' websites.
On Tuesday, American signed a deal with priceline.com for the tickets site to use American's in-house technology to access its fares.
