American Airlines posts $169 million profit on taxpayer help

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — American Airlines earned $169 million in the third quarter, but the delta variant of COVID-19 slowed down its recovery from the pandemic. The third-quarter profit was possible because American got nearly $1 billion in pandemic relief from the federal government. American said Thursday that revenue in the fourth quarter will be down 20% compared with the same period in 2019. It’s planning to step up its schedule for the winter holidays. American plans to operate more than 6,000 flights a day during peak days in the fourth quarter. That’s more than the average daily flights it ran during the third quarter, which included most of the summer vacation season.