American flies steady through Ch. 11; to close New Delhi, Burbank offices

American Airlines 757. By Rob Finlayson

The first six weeks of American Airlines' (AA) Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization (ATW, Jan. 1) appear to have gone largely as planned, with the Dallas-based carrier and regional affiliate American Eagle operating normally and parent AMR Corp. giving no indication that the company won't be able to meet basic financial obligations.

AMR was delisted by the New York Stock Exchange last week as expected (ATW Daily News, Jan. 4), but the company quickly moved to trading in over-the-counter markets. It is now trading under the symbol "AAMRQ" on the OTCQB marketplace operated by OTC Markets Group.

The airline continues to seek court permission to maintain normal payments on most aircraft and other obligations, and is moving forward with international partnerships. Last week AA and LAN Ecuador received approval from the US Dept. of Transportation and Ecuadorean authorities to begin codesharing on flights from Miami and New York JFK to Ecuador and on LAN Ecuador domestic services.

But the carrier did signal its first concrete job cuts since filing for Chapter 11 when it announced two route closures Monday. AA will stop flying between Chicago O'Hare and New Delhi March 1 and between Dallas/Ft. Worth and Burbank, Calif. Feb. 9. AA told employees this will mean closing its offices in New Delhi and Burbank, leading to about 150 positions cut.  

AA last week released December traffic figures; in its first full month operating in Chapter 11, the carrier saw system RPMs dip 0.9% compared to December 2010 to 10.23 billion on a 1.2% drop in capacity to 12.66 billion ASMs. Load factor for the month was up 0.2 point to 80.8%.

AA's December domestic US capacity was down 4.2% year-over-year while international capacity was up 3.7% including a 4.8% lift on transatlantic flying and an 8.7% increase on transpacific ASMs.