American Airlines parent AMR Corp. reports fourth-quarter loss

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Sometimes when you lose, you actually win.

That is the way the parent company of American Airlines is portraying its loss of $69 million, or 29 cents a share, for the last three months of 2010.

AMR Corp. noted that it lost much more -- $344 million -- in the same period in 2009.

Overall, the Fort Worth-based airline company lost $471 million, or $1.41 a share, in 2010, compared with a loss of $1.5 billion, or $4.99, in 2009.

‘We are optimistic about the trajectory we are on,’ AMR Chief Executive Gerard Arpey said during a conference call with financial analysts Wednesday.

Analysts have predicted that every major network airline company except AMR will report profits for the fourth quarter.

Delta Air Lines on Tuesday reported a $19-million profit for the quarter, compared with a loss of $25 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

American Airlines said its revenue rose 10% in the fourth quarter compared with the same period in 2009 to $5.6 billion. But the airline ended up in the red partly because it spent $850 million more for fuel in 2010 over the previous year and contributed about $600 million to its employee pension plan.

-- Hugo Martin