American Airlines widens net loss to half billion

AMR Corp posted its third worst first quarter loss in its history, losing more than half a billion dollars, topping the two post-911 years when its lost over a USD1 billion in each of those years. American cited rising fuel costs for the widening of its net loss in the first quarter from the USD375 million lost in 1Q-2009 to USD505 million lost in the 2010 first quarter, a 34.6% increase. As with Delta, it took a USD53 million hit on the Venezuelan currency in Jan-2010; were it not for that, its net loss would have been USD452 million.