American Airlines Group Turns To Loss In Q4 - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - American Airlines Group Inc. or AAG (AAL) on Tuesday swung to a loss in the fourth quarter of 2013.

For the quarter, AAG posted a GAAP net loss of $2.0 billion, including $2.4 billion of net special charges, compared with last year's net profit of $262 million, including $350 million of net special credits in the fourth quarter 2012. The company said its GAAP results include the results for US Airways only for the period from the closing of the merger on December 9, 2013 through December 31, 2013.

Fourth-quarter 2013 combined net profit was $436 million on a non-GAAP basis, excluding net special charges.

Quarterly loss per common share was $8.66, as against a profit of $3.46 reported a year back. Based on a diluted share count of 742 million, fourth-quarter 2013 earnings per share stood at $0.59 on a non-GAAP basis. On average, 10 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings per share of $0.55 for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude one-time items.

Compared with last year, operating revenues advanced by 24.1% to $7.37 billion, from $5.94 billion, whereas nine analysts estimated revenues of $9.90 billion for the quarter.

As the result of the merger that closed on December 9, 2013, US Airways Group became an unit of AMR Corp., which changed its name to American Airlines Group Inc.

The company ended the year with $10.3 billion in total cash and investments. Since the merger, the company has used over $300 million of cash to reduce its diluted shares outstanding by roughly 14 million.