Earnings call transcript: American Airlines Q2 2025 sees record revenue

American Airlines, with a market capitalization of $8.1 billion, reported its Q2 2025 earnings, highlighting a record revenue of $14.4 billion, which marks a 0.4% increase from the previous year. The company achieved an adjusted pre-tax profit of $869 million and earnings per share of $0.95. In the stock market, American Airlines’ shares rose by 3.79% to close at $11.74, despite a slight dip of 1.11% in premarket trading. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company maintains its position as a prominent player in the Passenger Airlines industry, with 8 additional exclusive insights available to subscribers.

Key Takeaways

• Record revenue of $14.4 billion, up 0.4% year-over-year.
• Adjusted pre-tax profit of $869 million.
• Stock price increased by 3.79% post-earnings announcement.
• Domestic market demand remains uncertain, but recovery is expected.
• Investments in technology and customer experience are ongoing.

Company Performance

American Airlines demonstrated resilience in Q2 2025 with a slight increase in revenue compared to the previous year, achieving a gross profit margin of 24.5% in the last twelve months. Despite ongoing challenges in the domestic market, the airline maintained its position as the third-largest carrier in New York and continued to expand its service offerings. The company also reported improvements in liquidity and a reduction in net debt, reaching its lowest level since Q3 2015. Based on InvestingPro Fair Value analysis, the stock appears to be fairly valued at current levels.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $14.4 billion, a 0.4% increase year-over-year.
• Earnings per share: $0.95.
• EBITDAR margin: 14.2%, a 1.5-point reduction from the previous year.
• Free cash flow: $791 million.
• Total available liquidity: $12 billion.
• Net debt: $29 billion, the lowest since Q3 2015.

Outlook & Guidance

American Airlines is projecting a Q3 capacity increase of 2-3% year-over-year, with revenue guidance ranging from a 2% decline to a 1% increase. For the full year, the EPS forecast ranges from a loss of $0.20 to a profit of $0.80. Analyst consensus shows a mixed outlook, with price targets ranging from $10 to $20, and seven analysts have recently revised their earnings expectations downward for the upcoming period. The company expects positive unit revenue potential in Q4, driven by a recovery in domestic demand and strategic investments.

Executive Commentary

CEO Robert Isom emphasized the company’s commitment to long-term initiatives, stating, "We are confident that we’re delivering on the right long-term initiatives." CFO Devon May expressed optimism about future performance, noting, "We believe the top end of the range is achievable if demand in the domestic market continues to strengthen."

Risks and Challenges

• Domestic market demand uncertainty could impact revenue.
• Increased disruptive operational events pose operational challenges.
• Competitive pressures in key markets like New York.
• Potential macroeconomic pressures affecting travel demand.
• Ongoing investments in technology and customer experience may affect short-term profitability.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts questioned the company’s strategies to address domestic market challenges and operational disruptions. Executives highlighted their focus on technology investments and recovery strategies, as well as their confidence in the potential for domestic demand recovery.

Full transcript - American Airlines Group (AAL) Q2 2025:

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thank you for standing by and welcome to American Airlines Group’s second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press star 11 again. I would now like to hand the call over to Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning everyone and welcome to the American Airlines Group earnings conference call. On the call with prepared remarks, we have our CEO Robert Isom and our CFO Devon May. In addition, we have a number of our senior executives in the room this morning for the Q&A session. Robert will start the call with an overview of our performance.

Devon will follow with details on the quarter in addition to outlining our operating plans and outlook going forward. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call for analyst questions followed by questions from the media. To get in as many questions as possible, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Before we begin today, we must state that today’s call contains forward-looking statements including statements concerning future revenues, costs, forecast of capacity and fleet plans. These statements represent our predictions and expectations of future events, but numerous risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ from those projected. Information about some of these risks and uncertainties can be found in our earnings press release and Form 10-Q that was issued earlier this morning. Unless otherwise specified, all references to earnings per share are on an adjusted and diluted basis.

Additionally, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures which exclude the impact of unusual items. A reconciliation of those numbers to the GAAP financial measures is included in the earnings press release which can be found in the Investors section of our website. A webcast of this call will also be archived on our website. The information we are giving you on the call this morning is as of today’s date and we undertake no obligation to update the information subsequently. Thank you for your interest and for joining us this morning. With that, I’ll turn the call over to our CEO Robert Isom.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Good morning everyone. This morning American reported an adjusted pre-tax profit of $869 million for the second quarter or earnings per share of $0.95, which is toward the high end of the guidance we provided in April. We achieved this in a difficult and evolving operating and demand environment, and we’re proud of our second quarter performance. We remain steadfast in our focus on our 2025 priorities, which will continue to shape the long-term success of American. Executing on these priorities will enable us to grow margins, generate sustainable free cash flow, and further strengthen our balance sheet. Our priorities this year include delivering on our revenue potential, renewing our focus on the customer experience, operating with excellence, and driving efficiencies throughout the airline. We’re pleased with the progress we’ve made on each of these fronts, and we’ll share more on them this morning.

Let’s begin with our performance during the second quarter. In the second quarter, we produced record revenue of $14.4 billion, a testament to the progress we’re making on our commitment to deliver on our revenue potential even in a challenging environment. Our year-over-year passenger unit revenue improvement led our network peers for the fourth straight quarter. Long-haul international PRASM performed in line with our initial expectations, with all entities producing positive year-over-year results driven by continued strength in the premium cabin. Atlantic PRASM was up 5%, and Pacific PRASM was up approximately 1% year-over-year on approximately 17% more capacity. Premium demand and spending from higher income consumers remained resilient in the second quarter. On a year-over-year basis, unit revenue in the premium cabin performed four points better than the main cabin. We’re well positioned to attract premium customers, with plans to expand our premium seating further in the years ahead.

The strength in international premium was offset by domestic leisure weakness. Domestic unit revenue was down approximately 6% year-over-year as softness in the main cabin persisted throughout the second quarter. While domestic unit revenue is expected to remain lower year-over-year in the third quarter, we expect that July will be the low point and that performance will improve sequentially each month in the quarter as industry capacity growth slows and demand strengthens. As shown on slide 4 of the earnings presentation that we published this morning, the efforts of our sales team to recover revenue from indirect channels beat our expectations in the quarter. With our indirect share now down 3% versus historical levels, we saw the greatest sequential improvement in indirect leisure channels, but we continue to make progress in corporate channels.

We remain on track to get back to our historical share of indirect channel revenue as we exit 2025. In the second quarter, we grew our managed business revenue by 10% year over year, outpacing broader industry growth. This result is further confirmation that our sales and distribution efforts are being well received by our customers. Our work to grow the Advantage loyalty program and enhance our partnership with Citi is continuing as we prepare for the start of our new 10-year agreement in January 2026. Slide 5 highlights that active Advantage members have grown 7% year to date with our highest growth in enrollments coming from Chicago, Dallas Fort Worth, and New York. Advantage members are more engaged, generate a higher yield versus non-members, and are a key driver for premium cabin demand, currently accounting for approximately 77% of premium revenue.

Spending on our co-branded credit cards was up 6% year over year for the second quarter as customers continue to favor Advantage Miles as their preferred rewards currency. American Airlines remains committed to offering an industry-leading travel rewards program and we look forward to sharing more exciting updates in the months ahead. The further strengthening of our network remains a key priority for the team. In the second quarter, our growth was focused on Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, three strategic hubs critical to our network and where we continue to see long-term opportunity. We’re encouraged by the early results from this additional capacity with share, unit revenue, and financial results tracking in line with or ahead of expectations. We’ll remain responsive to the demand and competitive environment as we execute our long-term network strategy and we remain focused on deploying capacity that best serves our customers.

Our new customer experience organization is elevating every part of the travel journey. We’ve continued to make meaningful improvements across all phases of the customer experience. We’ve announced several exciting updates to our lounge network, including opening a new Flagship Lounge in Philadelphia. In Miami, we’ve announced plans for a new Flagship Lounge and are expanding the Admirals Club Lounge footprint. American is proud to offer more premium lounges than any other carrier. Later this summer in Charlotte, we’ll open Provisions by Admirals Club, a new unique and additional lounge concept for customers that are seeking a quick refreshment before catching their next flight. The new Flagship Suite on our Boeing 787-9 officially entered service last month on select flights to London. In this winter, this premium offering is expected to expand to Argentina, New Zealand, and Australia, giving more customers the opportunity to enjoy this elevated experience.

Customer response to the new aircraft and Flagship Suite product has been overwhelmingly positive. We want our customers’ experience at the airport to be as easy and as seamless as possible. In May, we implemented TSA Touchless ID, which significantly expedites the security screening process. Additionally, we’re the first airline to test one-stop security for flights into the U.S., starting with American’s flights from London to Dallas Fort Worth, allowing customers to bypass baggage reclaim and TSA re-screening upon arrival. We’re excited to be the first carrier to implement one-stop security, which will greatly enhance the connecting experience and overall journey for our customers traveling internationally. Thank you to the Department of Homeland Security for its continued partnership and commitment.

We’ve also introduced several additional customer enhancements during the quarter, including an option for customers to use miles as a form of payment for upgrades and improvements to our in-flight food and beverage offerings. We’re excited about the momentum we’ve built and we’re just getting started. Our Customer Experience Team is undertaking a comprehensive review of every phase of the travel journey and making investments that will deliver tangible improvements for our customers and our revenue performance. Turning now to our operation, the team has continued to plan, execute, and recover through very difficult operating conditions this summer. Disruptive operating conditions are a reality of our business, and the American team continues to do an excellent job recovering from irregular operations and mitigating the impact to our customers.

In the second quarter, there was significant storm activity at our hubs in Dallas Fort Worth, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and in the Northeast. A 36% increase in disruptive operational events over the same period last year. Thanks to the investments we’ve made in technology and our operation and our team’s continued focus on controlling what we can control, we were able to recover quickly from these disruptions. A big thank you to the entire American Airlines team for continuing to deliver for our customers in the midst of a very challenging operating environment. Finally, I’d like to acknowledge the families and communities affected by the catastrophic flooding in Central Texas. American is a proud Texas-based airline and we’ve joined forces with our disaster response partners, the American Red Cross, Airlink, and Team Rubicon to aid relief efforts and support impacted families.

Now I’ll turn the call over to Devon to share more about our second quarter financial results and outlook.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thank you, Robert, and good morning, everyone. Excluding net special items, American reported a second quarter operating margin of approximately 8% and earnings per share of $0.95, both at the high end of our guidance. Our second quarter revenue of $14.4 billion was up 0.4% year over year. Second quarter unit cost excluding fuel and net special items was up 3.4% year over year, over half a point better than the midpoint of our guidance. This is a result of the team’s continued strong execution on our efficiency initiatives and a shift in timing of maintenance events to later in the year. This resulted in an EBITDAR margin of 14.2%, a 1.5 point reduction year over year, which is similar to the year over year margin decline of our network peers.

This is a great result considering the current domestic demand environment and our differentiated position, which includes the relative domestic weighting of our network and paying full market rates for all of our largest labor groups. We are committed to running the airline as reliably and efficiently as possible while continuing to improve our revenue performance and enhance the customer experience. These efficiencies are driven by best-in-class workforce management, efficient asset utilization, and procurement excellence, and are unlocked by investments in technology and process improvements. By year end, we expect to have driven cumulative savings of over $750 million and delivered approximately $600 million of working capital improvements since we launched our re-engineering the business efforts in 2023. During the second quarter, we raised $1 billion through a loyalty term loan financing and used the proceeds to cash settle our billion dollar convertible note earlier this month.

American ended the second quarter with approximately $38 billion of total debt and $29 billion of net debt, our lowest net debt levels since the third quarter of 2015. We ended the second quarter with $12 billion of total available liquidity. In the quarter, we produced $791 million of free cash flow and have now produced $2.5 billion of free cash flow in the first half of the year. We anticipate having positive free cash flow for the full year. With regard to our fleet, we now expect to take delivery of 50 new aircraft this year at the high end of our previous range of 40 to 50 deliveries. This is driven by earlier than planned deliveries of several aircraft that we now expect to receive in the fourth quarter, a few months earlier than our previous expectation of the first quarter of 2026.

Based on these expected deliveries, our 2025 aircraft CapEx, which also includes used aircraft purchases, spare engines, and net PDPs, is now expected to be between $2.5 billion and $3 billion, and our total CapEx is expected to be between $3.5 billion and $4 billion. We continue to expect moderate levels of CapEx in future years with annual aircraft CapEx averaging approximately $3.5 billion for the remainder of the decade. I’d now like to walk you through our outlook for the third quarter. We continue to be mindful of both the demand and competitive environment as we develop our capacity plans for the remainder of the year. For the third quarter, we expect capacity to be up 2% to 3% year over year.

Our year over year domestic capacity is up by approximately 5% during the July peak, but growth will slow to approximately 2% in August and will be down 1% in September. We expect third quarter revenue to be between down 2% and up 1% year over year. We expect July to be one of the year’s weakest year over year RASM performing months, given the higher industry capacity and that the month was largely booked prior to the strengthening demand trends we have seen over the past couple of weeks. We believe the worst is behind us and year over year revenue will sequentially improve each month this quarter. Third quarter non-fuel unit costs are expected to be up 2.5% to 4.5% year over year, driven primarily by the collective bargaining agreements we have ratified over the past two years.

This performance is in line with the second quarter, but on a lower rate of growth. We expect similar performance in the fourth quarter given the shift in maintenance expense from the second quarter to the fourth quarter. Based on our current demand assumptions and fuel price forecast, we expect to produce a third quarter loss per share of between $0.10 and $0.60. Based on recent demand trends, we expect full year earnings per share of between a loss of $0.20 and a profit of $0.80, with the midpoint being a profit of $0.30 per share. We believe the top end of the range is achievable if demand in the domestic market continues to strengthen, and we would only expect to be at the bottom end of the range if there was macro weakness that we don’t see in our recent booking trends.

We are proud to be forecasting a profit in a year where we have faced the challenges of a tragic accident, significant and continued ATC delays, unprecedented weather, the full financial cost of new collective bargaining agreements, and a material drop in demand in the domestic market where we produce over 70% of our revenue. It is a testament to the durability of our business and the resilience of our people. I’ll now turn the call back to Robert for closing remarks.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Thank you, Devon. In closing, we’re pleased with our second quarter results and the hard work of the American Airlines team. This year has been challenging, but our team has skillfully managed through an uncertain demand environment and difficult operating conditions to deliver a safe and reliable operation for our customers. We’re confident that we’re delivering on the right long-term initiatives. With our continued focus on execution, we remain on track to deliver for the long run. We believe American Airlines is uniquely positioned to benefit as domestic demand recovers in the back half of the year. With that, operator, you may now open the line for questions.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press Star 11 on your telephone to remove yourself from the queue. You may press Star 11 again to allow everyone the opportunity to participate. You will be limited to one question and one follow-up. Please stand by while we compile the Q and A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Jamie Baker of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead, Jamie. Thanks and good morning to the team. Robert, you and I had a constructive exchange, in my opinion, back at the March Industrials Conference. I wanted to stick to that theme following some of the more recent away disclosures. What we heard from a competitor when discussing the industry landscape is that several airlines are operating a double-digit % of their flights at a loss. My question for you, Robert, is twofold.

First, can you give us an approximation, maybe on a full-year basis to adjust for seasonality, what overall % of American Airlines flying loses money and how that’s changed and evolved in recent years? And then second.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Is there a path?

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Towards a more modest % of loss producing flying? How do you accomplish that? What are the upside drivers? Thanks.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Okay, thanks, Jamie. I’ll just start with we don’t run our airline based on other airlines’ perceptions of our business. We run and have a fantastic hub and spoke network system, a great set of partners. We’re really proud of what we do on a system basis. If you take a look at our results today, the primary differentiator between us and some of our competitors is largely two things. One, we’re paying our team members at market wages. Others are benefiting from not doing that. I’m sure that will catch up over the long run. The second thing is we do have a network that we’re proud to say is more oriented to the domestic network. Let’s face it, the domestic network has been under stress because of the uncertainty in the economy and the reluctance of domestic passengers to get in the game.

We think that’s going to change. We think that’s going to be a tailwind for us, especially as demand and capacity come back more into balance. It’s going to fit very well with the things that we’re doing to make American really thrive.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: In the long run.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Delivering on our revenue potential, improving our customer experience, playing into premium, taking advantage of international. We are going to be having some international growth, and it is all based on or all keyed off of an incredible level of efficiency. I feel proud of what we got.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Connor Cunningham of Melius Research. Your question please, Connor. Hi everyone. Two, if I may, you mentioned a sequential improvement in the U.S. domestic market. As you think about through 3Q, there’s obviously been a wider range of outlooks from some of the other players out there. I was hoping you could help frame up what you actually see within your U.S. domestic performance from maybe July to September. Does it just track the capacity plans? The reason why I ask is, obviously things changed in July and you talked about how you were basically fully booked for July. If you could just talk about where you’re booked for the remainder of 3Q and then maybe 4Q, that would be super helpful. Thank you.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Sure. Connor, I can start. I just want to note that our Vice Chair and Chief Strategy Officer, Steve Johnson, is recovering from a case of pneumonia and not with us today. He’s fine, but getting some rest and is on the mend. I’ll start and hand it over to Devon. Look, when we take a look at what we’ve got on the books right now, July has been tough, really hit hard by the uncertainty during the primary booking period for those that wanted to travel in July. As we take a look through the third quarter, we probably have about 65% of revenue on the books. I think that’s probably plus or minus.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Right.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: About 20% on the books for the fourth quarter. There is a lot to go and good reason to have a lot of optimism for some of the trends that we’re seeing going from July into August and September and into the fourth quarter. Also, look, we’ve had a lot of volatility in the business so far and we want to be mindful of that as we forecast as well. Devon?

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Yeah, not much to add. Like Robert said, we will see sequential improvement throughout the quarter. July is going to look a lot like our second quarter results, but as we get into August and September, we’re going to see some nice improving trends there and expect that to continue into Q4. Okay, that’s helpful. Maybe we can ask a little bit about just earnings baselining. Obviously a lot has gone on in the first half of this year and the question that I get is just around what the actual potential of the business is now that you’ve kind of gotten back to a level of demand where I think is sufficient to maybe what you were thinking in January. If you could just talk about what the headwinds that you faced in the first half of this year and what you don’t necessarily expect to repeat next year.

I think that would be helpful as we start to think about 2026 and beyond. Thank you. Yeah, we’re obviously a ways off of run rate earnings right now and we see a lot of potential for margin expansion as we go forward. It’s everything Robert’s talked about and it’s everything we’ve talked about over time. As we look out for the next six months, domestic marketplace is going to improve and that’s a great tailwind for us as we head into next year. We expect that to continue and we’re going to start benefiting from our new credit card agreement with Citi, which we’re incredibly excited about. We continue to invest meaningfully in the customer and the premium experience, which we think is also going to drive nice tailwinds for us. This year, obviously a really tough first half.

We think we’re going to get some nice tailwinds as we head out into the second half and expect expansion as we head into 2026. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Catherine O’Brien of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, Kathryn.

Good morning everyone. Thanks for the time. Two questions. First one, a bit of a follow-up to Conn. Can you just speak on how you’re thinking about capacity and unit costs versus January within the low single-digit and mid single-digit ranges you’re expecting? Have things shifted at all? I know this is early, but this year I think you had a couple points of pressure from new labor contracts. Can you just speak to headwinds and tailwinds we should be thinking about into next year?

Sure. This year is largely unfolding as we expected to start the year. First quarter we had guided to CASM up 8% for a lot of reasons that we had talked about: mainline, regional mix, labor expenses, a reduction in capacity. We came in just inside of that. Second quarter we had guided CASM up 4%. Again, we came in just inside of that number and felt good about it. We’re executing on all of our different cost initiatives. We did benefit in the second quarter with some maintenance expense that pushed out to Q4, and we are going to see a similar unit cost trend to what we saw in the second quarter for both the third and fourth quarter. At the midpoint, unit costs up probably somewhere around 3.5% as we head into 2026. It’s early, it’s going to be somewhat dependent on our capacity production.

I’d just say over the long term I think we’ve done an exceptional job managing costs. We spent the last couple of years really focused on re-engineering the business for efficiency, and that’s across the entirety of our business, and I think we’re doing a really nice job with it. That’s the outlook for this year, and I think in 2026 we’ll continue to perform really well relative to the rest of the industry.

Okay, great. Maybe just one on the indirect revenue share, if I could. I saw that came in better than expected in the second quarter. On an operating margin basis, the gap to peers is about the same this quarter as it was in the second quarter of last year, with indirect revenue much more recovered. Is there an element where revenue share is getting close to historical levels, but it’s more volume driven than it was before the distribution strategy change, and there’s some element of pricing that recovers over time in those contracts? Is the margin pressure coming from the relatively higher domestic exposure and maybe more market labor rates versus one of your peers you spoke about earlier in the call? Just would love to unpack that. Thanks.

Yeah, thanks. You hit it exactly right at the end. It feels like a pretty incredible result that our margin performance year over year was very much in line with our peers in a quarter where we know the weakest part of the business was the domestic marketplace and we have more exposure to domestic. Like you said, on the cost side, we are faced with the full cost of newly reached collective bargaining agreements. At least one of our peers isn’t in that position yet, but will be eventually. For us to produce the same year over year margin in that environment seems like a really great result. You see it in the unit revenue numbers. We’ve had four straight quarters of relative outperformance on unit revenue. It’s just hard to have that flow through to margin or relative margin when you have these types of differences.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Catherine, I’ll just add one of the other proof points is the corporate managed traffic that’s improved 10% year over year in a relatively flat business market. We’re not done yet, and that’s the point I think is really important. We’ve got a few percentage points more to get back to where we were prior to the sales and distribution strategy change, but we’ve got even more from that because we know that our network and our team is capable of delivering at higher levels. I do believe that the last few percentage points are going to be hard, but also I think that they’re going to be the most profitable points we bring in.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tom Wadowitz of UBS. Please go ahead. Tom.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Good morning, this is Atul Maheshwari and Tom Wadowicz.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thanks a lot for taking our questions. Robert, if I heard you right, did you say that you’re expecting a full recovery in indirect channel market share as you exit 2025? If you could please confirm that. Related to that, are you able to quantify what would be the revenue lift that we should expect for 2026 as you run rate the 2025 exit rate to all of next year?

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: I will start with the first, which is just getting back to our historical share. As we exit 2025, we are on track to restoring our full indirect channel share. What that means is that as we exit the year, it is not embedded in the full year 2025 results. As we move to 2026, I expect to see that come through. We talked last year about that representing $1.5 billion of revenue. There is a good chunk of that going to flow through and we are really pleased with our performance, getting back on track. Okay. As my follow up, just.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Following up on some of the questions that have been asked already.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: If we look at your profit.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Margins relative to your network peers, just it would seem based on the outlooks that all of you provided this year.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: That your margin gap even at the EBITDA level is likely to widen this year.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Really, as you look out over the next few years, what do you think American really needs to do to make progress in bridging this gap? Do you think there are any structural impediments to American actually fully bridging this gap over time?

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: I’ll just start with last year.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: At the end of last year we had a 2% EBITDA margin gap to United, inclusive of Delta’s third party business. We had about a 2% EBITDA margin gap to them as well. That’s a gap that we expect to close over time. This year is an unusual year for all the reasons we discussed. You have to probably dig a level deeper. One, we have a larger domestic exposure than either of our large network competitors. Two, we are just at different cycles with where we are at with collective bargaining agreements. We have all of ours in place. One of our competitors does not. Not everything is going to come through in margin in a linear fashion. We do think over time, yes, we expect we can close that margin gap. We don’t think there’s anything structural.

We had talked about what we think are some of the key reasons around it. Inclusive of your first question, sales and distribution is something that was a headwind last year. It remains a headwind for us this year, but coming into next year, we think it will be a tailwind to margin. We’ve talked about our Citi agreement. There’s been a gap to our peers there. We think we have an incredible partner, an incredible agreement in place and we’re going to close that gap over time as well. We like a lot of the work that we’re doing on the commercial side of the business, including some really nice investments in Premium and Premium Customer, which we think will help as well. There’s a gap today and there will be a gap this year, but we do expect to close it heading into 2026. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Linenberg of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Michael.

Hi, good morning. This is Shannon Dardian for Mike. American recently agreed to drop its lawsuit against Chicago aviation authorities. Where do you guys stand today and what does it mean for your schedule later this year and early next year out of Chicago? Presumably you thought you’d have more slots and not less than what you have now.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Thanks for the question. Regarding Chicago, this is a tremendous opportunity for American. We’ve been slowest to rebuild out of the pandemic our network for a number of reasons, largely because of pilot shortfalls in our regionals. Now that we have full ability to staff, we’re in good shape. You’ll see Chicago hit 485 peak departures and we’re on our way to producing even more than that, over 500 as we take a look into next year. We have the gate capacity we need to fulfill that growth and even more. In terms of the status of the litigation, we feel really good about where we’re at. We worked with the city to design and finance the expansion of Chicago. All we’re asking to do is have them live up to what they said they would do in terms of gate allocation. We’re not concerned.

We’ve got what we need now and we’re going to have what we need going forward.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thanks.

If I may follow up on the Embraer Terrace, we’ve heard that some airlines don’t have to accept delivery of airplanes. Is that going to be the case with you and Embraer, assuming that current share goes through?

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Embraer is a terrific partner. You know, the E175s are just an exceptional aircraft with soon to be satellite-based Wi-Fi and full first class cabin, and it fits really well. We’re proud to be the operator of the world’s largest fleet of Embraer aircraft, and that’s unique to American. We’re working with Embraer on deliveries, but we don’t anticipate any long-term issues. As a matter of fact, we know that the Brazilian government’s working with the administration and Embraer as well. Over the long run, we know what’s best. There’s a tremendous amount of U.S.-based content on those Embraer aircraft, and there’s a lot that goes into negotiating trade deals. We stand by ready to help anyway, and we’ve made sure that the administration and Embraer know our interest, and we’re confident we’ll be taken care of.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Dodora of Bank of America. Please go ahead, Andrew. Hi. Good morning everybody.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Robert, you’ve been speaking a lot.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: About your revenue sharing indirect channels. When I think about share more broadly, your capacity growth has been trailing your network peers for the past six or so quarters. I guess as we move forward from here, are you content with growing less than your peers and driving that RASM outperformance that you’ve been getting, or does there come a time when share matters and you need to maybe at least grow in line with some of your primary competition?

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Any thoughts around that? Oh, sure. It’s always a balance, and it’s something that we’re going to make sure that we have a network that takes care of our customers in a way that we need to serve them and that we can do so profitably over the long run. We’re super pleased with the hub network that we’re fortunate to have. Our hubs are based in the metro areas that are growing the fastest in the United States. You’ve seen from some of our recent announcements about the new terminal fiscal in Dallas Fort Worth. It’s going to allow Dallas Fort Worth to be the world’s largest hub. We’re confident that our hubs will support more growth. Specifically, as we look into 2026, you’re going to see us make sure that we restore our share in Chicago.

You’re going to see us continue to build Philadelphia, which has been really a bright spot. You’ll also see us continue to invest in Miami. All that goes with a tremendous domestic network that is ultimately the anchor to help support international growth. Our fleet is going to allow for more of that. I like the opportunity we have to play both in the international market and premium space as well. Good things on the horizon. From that perspective, we’re going to take care of our customers.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Got it. Thank you for that.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: My second question here.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: I know you’ve spoken about kind of your corporate revenues growing 10% in a flattish market. Can you more quantify the demand improvement you’ve seen of late? That just gives you the confidence to speak to the accelerating revenue growth despite the tougher comps as we head into the back half of the year.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Yeah, it’s just booking trends, and it’s especially what we see coming from June moving into July, and then as you move into August and September. We feel really confident in terms of an improving capacity and supply environment, and American benefits. We should benefit more than others given our exposure.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Vernon of Bernstein. Your question please, David.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Hey, good morning guys and thanks for taking the question. Robert, I wanted to ask you a little bit about the investment in sort of the customer experience. I want to ask it in kind of two ways. First, as you look at yourself relative to your peers, where are the big opportunities for you to improve the customer experience? As you talk to investors about this, how are you thinking about measuring this? Is it Net Promoter Scores?

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: How are you going to kind of

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Judge the performance on improving the overall customer experience? Obviously, it will eventually show up in the bottom line, but I’m just wondering how are you thinking about talking about your progress on this journey to improve with investors and analysts?

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thanks.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Thanks, David. Appreciate the question. First off, we’re going to measure this by our customers’ perception and by revenue performance. We’re going to evaluate our net promoter scores. That will be a huge driver. In terms of revenue performance, this is going to be, we’re doing this to improve premium revenues and revenue overall. Unit revenues will be the metric that we take a look at. In terms of where we’re at, we’ve had a long history of firsts in terms of customer experience enhancements and improvements, and we’re building on that. Whether it’s the new Flagship Suite on our Boeing 787-9s, which we’ll soon be on, our A321XLRs, which then will also be on our 777-300s that are being reconfigured, that all plays into that. Our premium lounge network, which is larger than anyone else, you heard our Philadelphia announcement, Miami, and there will be more on that.

A lot of that is built into the capital spending that we’ve already planned. I would suggest that there’s not a lot of catch up on that front. You will see us invest in our food and in-flight amenities, and again, you will see us continue to invest in the premium experience. Where I look at opportunities going forward, it really is the ability to serve that premium customer, especially internationally as well. We have a fleet that is ideally suited to do that. Those adjustments that I described, they’re all going to result in the ability to serve almost 50% more premium customers and premium seating as we move out into 2030. From an international perspective, our fleet is going to allow us to serve more, actually improve flying by almost 50% or more than 50% as we move out into 2030.

Thanks for that.

As you think about where you guys stand relative to peers in terms of net promoter, do you guys.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Do you guys benchmark that at all?

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Oh, we do, and we think it’s a great opportunity. It’s something, again, that is on a front that we take very seriously. It starts with running an exceptional operation, and we’ve been hit with our share of challenging operating conditions this summer, certainly in June and July. No place has been hit, no airline has been hit as hard as American Airlines. It starts with running a reliable operation. We’re making sure that we can recover as quickly as possible, investing in technology on that front and then moving from there. It really is making sure that we have the basics and those things that are just essential for competition. There are some things that you’re going to see us play in that we’ll look to, you know, even outpace the competition. On that front, it’s all designed to improve our customer experience and revenue performance.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Duane Finnegworth of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead, Duane. Hey, thanks. Good morning. Depending upon how we interpret the guide for 3Q, maybe there’s slightly sequential improvement in RASM depending upon how the quarter plays out. I wonder, how would you rank your enthusiasm for sequential improvement by entity? Maybe domestic versus Atlantic versus Latin. Do you see a path back to positive RASM for domestic this year? Hey, Duane, I’ll just say this about the environment right now. In Q3 versus Q2 in the third quarter, domestic is going to be better, but it starts with a month of July that’s going to look very similar to what we had in the second quarter. We do expect improvement beyond that point and that’s actually the entity where we expect to see the most improvement.

Transatlantic, we had outstanding performance in the second quarter as the Iran conflict was heating up. That was during a period with a pretty decent booking window for Q3. We do expect a little bit softer performance in the transatlantic in July and August, but by September we think it’s going to be performing really nicely again. The rest of the network, I think there’s probably some pressure in short haul Latin. Long haul Latin and Trans Pacific will probably perform pretty similarly to what we saw in Q2. When we look at it in totality, we really like the environment that we’re in now versus where we were a couple of months ago. Especially as we get to the back end of this quarter, we think there’s some really nice potential for positive unit revenue ahead. That’s not baked into the guide.

Obviously we’re going to have negative unit revenue this quarter at the midpoint, but we do think as we head out to the fourth quarter there is potential for positive unit revenue performance. Thanks for that. I may have missed it, apologies if I did. You guys have been pretty good at keeping your capacity in kind of this 3% range basically for all the quarters of this year. You made some comments about early deliveries. Does that change the trajectory for the fourth quarter or do you lean harder on retirements or is it just a rounding error? Thank you. There may be a little bit more capacity that comes in in the fourth quarter with deliveries. It’s not going to be a huge amount though, just on retirements.

I think you may be aware we don’t have any aircraft retirements there necessarily between now and the end of the decade. For us, when we’re managing capacity, it’s really just being tight around utilization during the off peak periods. I think we were pretty quick to react here in the third quarter, at least for these periods like August and September, which are traditionally lower demand periods. As we head into the fourth quarter, we like the demand trends we’re seeing. I think we’re going to put the right amount of supply in the market to meet that. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Savvy Syth of Raymond James, please. Your line is open.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Savvy.

Thanks. Just a clarification there. Sorry. On the domestic capacity side, with the declines, is that solely related to just taking off the capacity out? As you get into the fourth quarter, you’ll see that step up again? Is that how you’re thinking?

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Fourth quarter capacity isn’t finalized yet, but yeah, in the third quarter like we would in a normal year, we pull capacity down in August and September. This year, just given the trends we had been seeing in demand as we went into the second quarter, we pulled August and September down more than we normally would. Some of that capacity would naturally come back in the fourth quarter, which is traditional seasonality, and that’s what I would expect again this year.

Makes sense. On the operations front, it seemed like that was one area that you had really improved versus where you were maybe pre-pandemic over the last few years. This year, clearly more issues. I wonder if you can, is it really down to Washington, D.C. and weather? If that’s the case, I mean, weather might not change. How do you manage through this? It seems like the metrics have gotten worse at American Airlines versus peers, even though you are recovering better.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Oh, thanks, Tavi. Look, I think American runs the most reliable, safe operation possible at all times. I’m really proud of our team and the way they’ve been able to recover. Let’s just go through some of the things that we’ve dealt with. First off, June saw regular operations up 35% plus over the prior couple of years. Just go ahead and multiply that by two or three times. As we moved into July, I said earlier today on another call that we’ve had almost 800 diversion events and 5,500 plus weather cancellations just in the first three weeks of July. That is not something that will continue along into the future. It’s an anomaly. We’ve seen that now that heat has kind of come back into the summer and we’re more in a normal cycle.

We’re going to make sure that we do the things that make American as resilient as possible, whether that’s investing a little bit in the schedule to create some redundancy, extra resources, technology. We’re putting AI to use to make sure that we have the best recovery plans and options for our customers out there. I feel good about our ability to manage through. We do need investment in air traffic control. One of the issues that we’re facing today that is unique to us is a slowdown out of DCA. We had the aircraft incident earlier in the year, but I fully expect that we will recover from that and that will no longer be an impediment. Over the long run, I think that weather normalizes for everyone.

I think that American, because of what we do and how we’ve operated during a really difficult environment, is going to shine over the long run and I feel really good about that. A couple other proof points. One is that even with these irregular operations, our mishandled baggage rates are improving very, very, very much. I know that we’re doing a great job in getting customers back online when operational events create problems. There you have it.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tom Fitzgerald of TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Tom, hi, thanks so much for the time.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Most might have already been answered.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: I’m curious as to how you’re thinking.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: About the New York market organically now that seemingly a lot of the inorganic growth options there have been closed off.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Thanks, Tom. We have a great franchise in New York. We’re the third largest carrier with over 260 peak day departures across all three airports. Our largest operation is at the preferred New York airport, LaGuardia, and we have 150 departures there. The new terminal is great. It does come at significant expense, but we’re optimizing our network to adjust to make sure we can take New Yorkers to where they want to go and customers that want to go to New York. We’re making sure that we have the ability to do that based on what we’re doing. We’re seeing margin expansion year over year. Our oneworld hub at JFK Terminal 8, which I think is really unique to American Airlines, we offer a seamless experience with 125 peak day departures across American Airlines and our partners. We’ve got a great product, especially from a transcon perspective.

London Heathrow to New York, the biggest business market in the world. Our New York is more specialized given our network and complements where we’re strong in so many other places. We have the ability to grow as well and that growth can be through upgauging, and we’re always making sure that we’re flying to the right places.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Okay, thanks very much, that’s really helpful. Just as a follow up, I don’t know if you’re able to give us any sizing or in terms.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Of points of RASM, but how are.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: You thinking about, I guess, headwinds from the Wi-Fi for next year.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Tailwinds from the improving mix as you.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Take on more, more premium-heavy fleet. Thanks again for the time.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Okay, so I’ll start with that and Devon, you can pitch in. Hey, regarding satellite Wi-Fi, it’s going to be fantastic. American will be the first carrier to really offer satellite-based Wi-Fi across its entire mainline fleet and everything but our 50-seaters from a regional basis. Those installations are going on and doing very well. We have a wonderful partnership with our satellite Wi-Fi being sponsored by AT&T that offers a tremendous opportunity for both companies to take care of our customers in the way that they want and find ways to serve them even better. From that perspective, I believe that based on our partnerships and what we think in terms of consumer sentiment and also usage of the service, I think that we’re going to do pretty well. You won’t see much of an impact in terms of the P&L.

I spoke earlier about the work that we’re doing from a premium product perspective. We’ve got a fantastic foundation and whether it’s our facilities, our lounges, the aircraft that are coming in that are already built into our capital plan, we’re going to augment that a little bit with amenities and service and we’ll do that. That won’t have a material impact either.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thank you. At this time, the Q&A queue is open to media questions. Please press star one one to queue up for media questions. To allow everyone the opportunity to participate, you will be limited to one question and one follow-up. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Alison Sider of Wall Street Journal. Please go ahead.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Alison, hi, thanks so much.

I guess on New York, I was curious what you all made of the United JetBlue arrangements. How compelling do you think that will be, and how much of a step back is it that American wasn’t able to come to some other agreement with JetBlue?

Thanks, Allie. Look, we had a creative relationship with JetBlue for a number of years that really benefited customers. Unfortunately, we couldn’t maintain that long into the future. We haven’t had the benefit of that for a couple of years now. As I mentioned before, we like our New York franchise. It’s specialized, but it’s centered on those things that really I think are most meaningful not only to our network, but our customers, transcons and international service, and really taking New Yorkers where they want to go and making sure that we have a great schedule from all of our hubs into the New York region as well. New York is one of the places that we’ve grown our Advantage loyalty program enrollments actually even at a faster clip than we have in the last couple of years.

We know that we have a fantastic customer base there and we’ll look for ways to serve them. We have the ability to do some growth ourselves through upgaging. We’ve got our partner network in our oneworld hub in JFK T8. I feel really confident about how we’re set up and where we’re headed going forward.

Okay, thanks.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Leslie Josephs of CNBC. Your line is open. Leslie.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Just curious if you could talk a little bit more about this weakness you’ve been seeing with the consumer. Robert, I know that you mentioned the uncertainty going into July. What is that exactly, and what are the signs of that? Just because it differs a bit from what we heard from Delta and United.

Thanks.

Sorry. Delta and United.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: I think that differs from what we’ve said as well. The uncertainty that is in July is really due to bookings that were made in the second quarter. As we move from June into July, we’re seeing the same uptick in bookings that anybody else is seeing. It’s been remarkable, and it’s something that gives us great confidence as we look into August and September in the third quarter and the early bookings. We only have 20% of the revenue on the books for the fourth quarter, but as we look out into the fourth quarter, it all looks very promising. That benefits us because it’s largely domestic rebound. Given our exposure domestically, I think that bodes very well now in terms of the drivers of the reduction in uncertainty. I think that comes from more stability. Tax bill.

I think it comes from tariff deals being done with the UK, recently announced Japan, hopefully something with the EU soon. All of that bodes well for the consumer. Joblessness is trending in the right direction. While GDP has been pulled down a little bit, it’s still positive for the back half of the year. I think that all lends to a customer that’s more willing to get out there and spend, travel, and do some things that they want to do.

Okay, thanks. Just one follow up. One of your competitors was talking about using AI more for pricing. How do you think about that? Is that something that you’re considering or already experimenting with?

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thanks.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Oh, thanks. I appreciate the question because I quite frankly think that some of the things I’ve heard are just not good for American. We will use AI to improve our ability to operate the airline. We’re going to be more efficient because of it. We’re going to be able to, you know, our team members are going to have an easier time of doing their jobs for our customers. It’s going to improve their customer experience. We’re going to be able to give them the ability to see more of the amenities that we can offer, that we’re going to be able to serve them in a way that when they do run into difficulties, they can recover faster. We have projects underway now that are all aligned in that fashion. We talked about operational difficulties.

One of the big AI investments we made is in a project that we call HEAT that allows us to rebuild the operation as quickly as possible going forward. For us, of course, we’re going to find ways to get our product in front of consumers. Consumers need to know that they can trust American. This is not about bait and switch. This is not about tricking. Others that talk about using AI in that way, I don’t think it’s appropriate. Certainly from American, it’s not something we will do.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: Thank you. This concludes the Q&A portion of the call. I would now like to turn the conference back to Robert Isom for closing remarks.

Robert Isom, CEO, American Airlines: Thanks, Latifah. Thank you to everybody on the call today. We remain confident that the actions that we’ve taken to deliver on a revenue potential, strengthen our network, operate with excellence, and find ways to drive efficiencies throughout the airline position us well for the long term. I want to thank you for joining us and thank you for your support and interest. Have a great day.

Neil Russell, Vice President of Investor Relations, American Airlines: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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