Just taking a look here tonight at a note from Kevin Crissey, analyst with UBS.

It seems that American Airlines tried the old, “issue the news late on Friday and maybe no one will notice ” trick last Friday.

After the close, American issued updated third quarter and full year guidance.

The skinny?

The airline’s revenue performance is looking weak, compared to American’s peers and costs are going up.

Consolidated passenger revenue per available seat mile (RASM) is expected to be up 3.7-4.7% and mainline passenger RASM up 4-5% in Q3. “These figures are in line with our forecast but are disappointing relative to recent competitor results,” Crissey noted.

American management also guided non-fuel unit cost (CASM ex-fuel) upward by roughly 1%. Put this together with a higher fuel cost estimate for Q4 and you get lower Q3 and Q4 EPS estimates.  Crissey said, “Our Q3 EPS falls to $0.78 from $1.03 and Q4 moves to -$0.06 from $0.26.”

Pretty significant drops. And yes, that translates into a loss for the fourth quarter.

What did we say last quarter — that we didn’t think all the negative numbers the airline posted were because of “bad weather?”

Looking more and more like that was the case.

Ticker: (NYSE:AMR)

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