by Donald Wood
Last updated: 1:15 PM ET, Thu January 28, 2021
Several airlines in the United States reported fourth quarter and year-end results, with massive losses due to the impact of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak being felt across the industry.
On Thursday, American Airlines reported a record quarterly loss of $2.2 billion in the fourth quarter, a 64 percent drop to $4.03 billion from the $11.3 billion reported in 2019.
While the carrier exceeded analyst forecasts, American officials have acknowledged the coming months will continue to be difficult as new travel restrictions and a slow rollout of vaccines hinder hopes for a near-term recovery.
The airline expects capacity to be down 45 percent and revenue to dip by 60-65 percent in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the previous year, before COVID-19 ravaged the industry.
Southwest Airlines also reported its first annual loss since 1972 and predicted more of the same to start 2021. The carrier revealed it expects to burn through an estimated $17 million a day in the first quarter due in part to a lack of demand during a notoriously slow period.
Southwest officials forecast a 65-70 percent drop in revenue for January and February.
Last week, United Airlines announced COVID-19 related restrictions and concerns resulted in a loss of $7.1 billion in 2020. The carrier announced during a fourth-quarter and full-year 2020 financial results call that it burned through $33 million in cash per day and lost $1.9 billion in the final three months of last year.
A new study from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) found that just 1.8 billion passengers took flight through 2020 compared with around 4.5 billion in 2019. That resulted in a staggering loss to the airlines of approximately $370 billion.
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