Shares of American Airlines Group Inc. soared 10.1% in premarket trading Thursday, after the air carrier reported a narrower-than-expected first-quarter loss and revenue that more than doubled to beat forecasts, and provided an upbeat sales outlook. The net widened to $1.64 billion, or $2.52 a share, from $1.25 billion, or $1.97 a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding nonrecurring items, the adjusted per-share loss of $2.32 beat the FactSet loss consensus of $2.39. Revenue grew 122.0% to $8.90 billion, above the FactSet consensus of $8.79 billion, and up to 84% of revenue in the same period in pre-pandemic 2019. Record revenue in March marked the first time post-pandemic that revenue was above 2019 levels. Load factor improved to 74.4% from 59.5%, as traffic jumped 97.2% to 44.29 billion revenue passenger miles and capacity increased 57.6% to 59.53 billion available seat miles. For the second quarter, the company expects capacity to be 92% to 94% of 2019 levels, and expects revenue to be 6% to 8% higher than 2019 levels. The stock has climbed 8.5% year to date through Wednesday, while the U.S. Global Jets ETF has gained 5.2% and the S&P 500 has lost 6.4%.
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