American Airlines has reported a third-quarter net profit of $169 million, or $0.25 per diluted share.

However, the figure includes more than $990 million in federal payroll support.

Revenue for the quarter totalled $8.97 billion, down about 25 per cent from the same period of 2019 but up from the $3.17 billion American brought in a year ago.

That was ahead of analysts’ expectations of sales of $8.94 billion.

Without one-time items, like government payroll support, American had a loss of 99 cents per share, less than the $1.04 per-share loss analysts expected.

The carrier ended the third quarter with approximately $18 billion of total available liquidity, after prepayment of $950 million spare parts term loan during the quarter.

The company said it continues to expect robust demand during peak travel periods in the fourth quarter, with more than 6,000 peak day departures.

American hopes to execute on its plan to pay down approximately $15 billion of debt by the end of 2025.

“The American Airlines team continues to demonstrate its resilience and ability to execute, enabling us to deliver our best quarter since the pandemic began as measured by pre-tax financial results,” said American chief executive, Doug Parker.

“While the rise of the Covid-19 Delta variant delayed some of our revenue recovery, it has not stopped our progress.”