Cargo revenues continue to surge at American in Q1

American Airlines saw its cargo revenues increase again in the first quarter of the year after a record performance in 2021.

The Dallas Fort Worth-hubbed carrier reported cargo revenues of $364m in the first quarter, an increase of 15.4% compared with a year earlier on the back of improved yields.

The increase comes as the airline registered record cargo revenues of $1.3bn last year, beating the previous high of just over $1bn in 2018.

American’s cargo revenues now represent around 4% of total revenues compared with 2% pre-pandemic.

First quarter cargo volumes, meanwhile, increased by 0.7% year on year to 536m ton miles and yields per ton mile were up by 14.6% to 67.81 cents.

However, the overall airline still reported a loss of $1.6bn as it continues to recover from the pandemic.

It was a similar story at United, which saw first-quarter cargo revenues reach $627m, an improvement of 26% year on year and up by 119% compared with the same period in 2019.

Cargo revenues now represent 8.3% of total revenues, compared with 3% in 2019.

First-quarter volumes increased 3.4% year on year to 791m cargo revenue ton miles, although this is down on 2019 by 1.7%.

Despite continuing improvement in cargo performance, the carrier posted a loss for the period of $1.4bn.