American Airlines has reported a pre-tax loss of $2.7 billion for the second quarter of financial 2020.

Coupled with a ‘worst ever’ loss of $1.6 billion reported by United Airlines earlier in the week, the figures illustrate the huge toll the Covid-19 pandemic continues to take on the US aviation sector.

“This was one of the most challenging quarters in American’s history,” said American Airlines, chief executive, Doug Parker.

“COVID-19 and the resulting shutdown of the United States economy have caused severe disruptions to global demand for air travel.”

Excluding net special items, American saw a second-quarter pre-tax loss of $4.3 billion.

However, the carrier boosted available liquidity by a net $3.6 billion in the quarter through offerings of common stock, convertible bonds and secured bonds.

The airline thus ended the second quarter with approximately $10.2 billion of available liquidity.

“We have moved swiftly to improve our liquidity, conserve cash and ensure customers are safe when they travel,” Parker continued.

“There is much uncertainty ahead, but we remain confident we will emerge from this crisis more agile and more efficient than ever before.”

American said passenger demand and load factors have improved since bottoming out in April, but continue to be significantly below 2019 levels.

While May and June revenue trends were encouraging, demand has weakened somewhat during July as Covid-19 cases have increased and new travel restrictions have been put into place, the carrier explained.

The company will continue to match its forward capacity with observed bookings trends and presently expects its third quarter system capacity to be down approximately 60 per cent year-over-year.