American Airlines is a lot less optimistic about profits

It has not been an easy year for the aviation industry.

Between tariffs and both domestic and international travel shutdowns, many airlines have found themselves unable to bring in the traffic — and, subsequently, the expected funds — since before President Donald Trump's second term began in the White House.

In April, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian named “broad economic uncertainty” as the reason its annual revenue is now expected to grow by just 2%, instead of the previously predicted 8%.

Budget carrier Frontier Airlines also recently lowered its forecast growth for 2025 from 14% to 5%.

'July's been a tough month': American Airlines CEO

The latest large airline to lower its 2025 forecast is American Airlines . In an updated earnings guidance, the Dallas-based airline said it now expects its full-year earnings to fall somewhere between a 20-cent loss and an 80-cent profit — a sharp decline from the $1.70 to $2.70 a share it predicted back in January.

In the third quarter, American expects an adjusted loss of between 10 and 60 cents per share. LSEG analysts predict a loss of 7% for the full-year numbers.

“July's been a tough month because of the domestic consumer weakness, American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said in an interview for CNBC's ”Squawk Box. July numbers in particular are lower due to a series of summer storms that disrupted travel in multiple parts of the country, as well as a particularly large and sustained drop in corporate travel.

“The company believes the top end of the range is achievable if demand in the domestic market continues to strengthen, and only expects to be at the bottom end of the range if there were to be macro weaknesses that are not seen today,” the carrier said in a statement to investors.

'The big differentiator will be airlines that have healthier balance sheets': airline analyst

Numbers published by American for the quarter ending on June 30 show that revenue per domestic seat mile was down 6% in the second quarter. While it was up by 3% for international travel outside the U.S., there has been an industry-wide drop in international visitors to the country amid amid the Trump administration's anti-immigration focus.

In the same quarter, Americans revenue rose by 0.4% to $14.39 billion — nearly identical to expectations calculated by an average of Wall Street analysts — while net income fell by 16.5% to $599 million.

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Many of the problems that plagued American in the first half of 2025 are identical to what most of its competitors are dealing with: uncertainty due to political fluctuations, the rising cost of gas, and delayed deliveries of certain Boeing aircraft that in turn influence the types of routes the airlines could run.

“The big differentiator will be airlines that have healthier balance sheets overall,” TD Cowen Analyst Tom Fitzgerald told TheStreet at the start of April. “The legacies also have pretty attractive loyalty programs that are generating billions in revenue at very high margins.”