American Airlines got its corporate travel strategy badly wrong after the pandemic—and it’s still paying the price. As business travel recovered, the carrier tried to push customers toward booking on its website and app in a bid to reduce travel agency commissions and the millions of dollar spent offering companies perks to discount for being their carrier of choice The airline began removing some fares from its corporate booking channels to encourage customers to book directly with American,

American Airlines forecast 2025 profit below Wall Street expectations on Thursday, hurt by an uptick in jet fuel prices and efforts to fix a sales-strategy misstep that drove away corporate travelers.

American Airlines last year said it would reverse a business-travel sales strategy that backfired. The airline signed a new credit card deal with Citi late last year. American Airlines reported a jump in fourth-quarter profits with results coming in ahead of analysts' expectations,