American Airlines earnings rise despite Boeing MAX hit

American Airlines rode strong demand for flying among the travelling public to higher earnings on Thursday despite mounting costs connected to the prolonged grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX.

Shares of the big US carrier -- which vowed to recoup MAX-related losses from Boeing -- rallied after the company announced on a conference call that it expects more shareholder distributions in the next couple of years as it exits a period of heavy capital investment to update its plane fleet.

Fuller flights amid a good consumer environment enabled American's profits to soar 14.2 percent higher in the third quarter to $425 million. Revenues increased three percent to USD 11.9 billion.

Chief Executive Doug Parker said he was pleased with the earnings growth but conceded that "our results should have been better."
Parker said the company intends to recover compensation from Boeing for its growing MAX-related costs and to "ensure that Boeing shareholders bear the cost of Boeing's failure, not American's shareholders."
"We have not reached a settlement with Boeing and no estimated settlement amounts have been included in our third quarter 2019 results."