✈️ $AAL Earnings Incoming: Fare Turbulence, Domestic Drag & a Credit Card Bailout 🧾📉

American Airlines reports Thursday. The numbers look grounded, but management’s still optimistic about... co-branded plastic.

American Airlines ($AAL) is flying into earnings season with a mixed flight log.

📉 EPS is set to dive nearly 30% YoY.
📉 Revenue? Basically flat.
🧳 U.S. leisure demand is soft.
💳 And somehow, the biggest “growth catalyst” right now is... a credit card deal.

Yet $AAL stock is up 18% this month, thanks to better-than-expected earnings from $DAL and some blind hope that domestic demand isn’t completely falling apart.

Let’s break it down before Thursday’s report 👇

🧾 Earnings Snapshot

What To Expect From The Report
💵 EPS: $0.79 expected (↓28% YoY)
📉 Revenue: $14.29B (basically flat)
🧳 Domestic Passenger Revenue: $9.25B (↓1%)
🌍 Total International Passenger Revenue: $3.84B (↓0.7%)
🧭 Latin America Revenue: $1.63B (↑4.5%)
🌏 Pacific Region Revenue: $336M (↑20.4%)
📦 Cargo Revenue: $201M (↑3.2%)
🧮 Passenger Load Factor: 84.8% (↓ from 86.6%)
📉 EPS Revisions: Slashed -48% in last 30 days 👀

Translation? Wall Street just lowered the bar so far, AAL might trip over it and still “beat.”

🚨 Why This Matters for Markets

Airlines are a frontline read on the consumer — and right now, the signal isn’t great.

💸 Discretionary spending is cooling
🧳 Leisure travel demand is fading
🛢️ Jet fuel prices still elevated
📉 Guidance cuts expected

$AAL is the most domestically exposed major airline — and that’s a liability right now. If their Q3 guidance is weak (as expected), it could ripple across travel stocks and hit broader consumer sentiment names.

In a market priced for perfection (S&P 500 at ATHs, $SPY +20% YTD), a miss from a key consumer-facing sector? Not bullish.