American Airlines January Traffic Declines, Raises Fuel Price Outlook

American Airlines' stock dropped 1.9% in premarket trade Monday, after the air carrier reported a decline in January traffic and raised its first-quarter outlook for fuel prices. The company said traffic declined 2.8% from a year ago to 16.8 billion revenue passenger miles, while capacity fell 0.2% to 21.5 billion available seat miles. Load factor declined 2.1 percentage points to 78.2%. Given the recent jump in oil and fuel prices, the company said it raised its first-quarter estimate for fuel costs per gallon to range of $1.81 to $1.86 from $1.71 to $1.76. As a result, the company cut its adjusted margin estimate to 12% to 14% from 13% to 15%. The stock has run up 11% over the past three months through Friday, while the S&P 500 has gained 1.2%. Crude oil prices surged 7.2% last week.