American Airlines' Stock Drops After August Traffic Falls While Capacity Rises

Shares of American Airlines Group Inc. slumped 1.7% in premarket trade Monday, after the air carrier reported a drop in traffic in August, but an increase in capacity. Revenue passenger miles for the month fell 2.8% to 20.4 billion, as declines in domestic, Atlantic and Latin America traffic offset an increase in Pacific traffic. Available seat miles rose 1.4% to 24.7 billion. That pushed passenger load factor down 3.6 percentage points to 82.9%. American said it still expects third-quarter revenue per available seat mile to fall 3.0% to 5.0% from a year ago. The stock had shed 9.1% year to date through Friday, while the NYSE Arca Airline Index had gained 4.8% and the S&P 500 had advanced 4.1%.