Losses keep mounting at American Airlines

The parent company of American Airlines told a bankruptcy court that it lost $619 million (Dh2 billion) in February as revenue declined from January and failed to offset costs including fuel and labour. Since filing for bankruptcy in late November, AMR Corp has lost $1.76 billion including $663 million in expenses related to the Chapter 11 reorganisation. That's more than the $1.08 billion that the company lost in the first 11 months of last year. AMR disclosed the February numbers in a filing on Thursday in US bankruptcy court in New York. The February loss included $375 million in bankruptcy-reorganisation costs. Most of that came from rejecting leases on aircraft and debt related to airport bond issues. The company said that excluding costs related to bankruptcy and other special items, its operating loss was $186 million. AMR had operating losses of $5 million in January and $728 million in December. Its net losses, including all items, were $234 million in January and $904 million in December. February revenue was $1.81 billion. The company didn't give a comparable figure for February 2011, but revenue declined 10.8 per cent from $2.03 billion in January of this year, as passengers on American and American Eagle flew 8.2 per cent fewer miles. Fuel continued to be AMR's biggest expense, at $682 million in February, followed by labour at $584 million. Last week AMR asked the bankruptcy court to throw out American's contracts with unions for pilots, flight attendants and ground workers and to impose the company's pay and work demands. From gulfnews