american airlines group inc promised a return to profitability later this year as it sounded optimistic about leisure travel and tweaked capacity further than wall street expected american aal earlier thursday reported a narrowerthanexpected fourthquarter loss and sales that were above expectations the stock turned lower midsession however with shares of united airlines holdings inc ual also down following that carrier’s late wednesday results see also united airlines delays adding more flights sees capacity lower than in 2019 american airlines’ executives said in a postresults call that they have started to see travel that combines leisure and business people may find a tourism destination and travel there to stay and work remotely for weeks blurring the lines between business and leisure travel domestic flights “remained the relative source of strength for the airline” jefferies analyst sheila kahyaoglu said in a note thursday passenger revenues fell 13 as compared with 2019 with domestic leisure travel down about 6 and domestic business down 31 as compared with a 37 drop for international travel she said american’s fullyear 2022 outlook pointing to capacity down 5 versus 2019 was below jefferies’ estimate of a 3 decline she said the results were a “mild fourthquarter beat overshadowed by what appears to be price weakness and higherthanexpected firstquarter costs” citi analyst stephen trent said in his note american’s earnings follows delta’s last week with delta dal reporting betterthanexpected fourthquarter results but also sounding cautious on firstquarter prospects due to the impact of omicron on air travel us airlines have had a rough start of the year with the emergence of omicron spooking wouldbe air travelers and laying up employees with the variant and winter weather leading to thousands of cancelled flights in late december and early january the sector has kept its underperformance in relation to the broader index with the us global jets etf jets down nearly 5 in the past 12 months contrasting with gains of around 18 for the sp 500 index spx