Vasu Raja: Yes. And to GOL, the simple answer to your question, Helane, is it doesn’t. We are the best in Latin America. We have the best network advantage. Greatest advantage is in domestic, it’s even greater. In any country, in South America, we will always have the best network for our customers and the best rewards program there. And we’re encouraged by it because we’ve been doing this for a long time down there. Changes in calamities come and go, the one constant is American Airlines.
Robert Isom: And Helane, just to add to this, just, look, we’ve built a great relationship with GOL. And my hope is they’re able to restructure in a fashion that benefits them and I know that they really appreciate the revenue we put on their aircraft as well. So my guess is that GOL will be something that is involved with American as we look forward to.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Duane Pfennigwerth of Evercore ISI. Your question please, Duane.
Duane Pfennigwerth: Just a couple of quick ones and Vasu recognizing you’ve had quite a work out here this morning already. Sorry for going back to the well, but…
Vasu Raja: It’s not that I’m not used to…
Duane Pfennigwerth: Just with respect to Sunbelt hubs and the concept that a lot of your geography was sort of reopened earlier had a faster unit revenue recovery. And to the extent that you have a window into kind of coastal markets, urban markets that are maybe recovering more vigorously right now. I wonder if you could just comment on that.
Do you think American maybe has less exposure at the margin to coastal markets that are having a more vigorous RASM growth right now?
Vasu Raja: Yes, we definitely have less exposure to coastal market. I mean you can see that in just the ASM mix, not just currently, but certainly over time. But the long-term trends are the long-term trends. The GDP of the country is growing, but it’s driven by so many markets that uniquely are created by our hub network. Furthermore, spending is up, it’s up even higher in those markets.
So we’re in a place where industry capacity has been high in a lot of the domestic system. That starts to change. But very importantly, here at American we have a lot that we can go do. We’re hungry to go do it. Now it’s just a matter like Robert said, of executing. And we see it for our customers, and you clearly see in our forecast for the full year.
Duane Pfennigwerth: And then just for my follow-up, any update on the NEA appeal?
Robert Isom: Really no update. We’re pursuing that, and we’re confident that we’ll be able to make our case and the facts will prevail. And for us, it’s more about making sure that we just have the right precedent that’s set out there. At some point in time, we may want to entertain something again. But right now, it’s really just to make sure that we have our interests protected.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Stathoulopoulos of Susquehanna Financial Group. Your question please, Christopher.
Anthony Berni: This is Anthony on for Chris. You’ve been very clear that your debt reduction goal of $15 billion from the peak is your top priority in the near term. Assuming you hit that by the end of next year as you plan, do we consider capital returns to the 2026 story? Or do you expect that reduction to remain a focus even beyond that $15 billion target?
Robert Isom: Consistent with what we’ve been saying, we are focused on the debt reduction target. We’re looking forward to talking about other opportunities beyond that point. But right now, we want to get through our $15 billion hit that number and then we will talk more about capital allocation as we get beyond 2025.
Anthony Berni: Great. And then can you talk a little bit about what your macroeconomic assumptions you have for the second half are. You mentioned that you expect RASM to inflect positively in 3Q. Do you assume any acceleration or slowdown in the second half versus first half from like a macro perspective?
Vasu Raja: No. We go off of sort of Fed-published GDP rates, and we see exactly the same demand backdrop that everyone else sees. A healthy U.S. economy, which is so key to us, strength coming from the Sun Belt and growing spending on experiences over other forms of merchandise or goods.
Robert Isom: One of the things that we mentioned at our Investor Day, though, as well that against that backdrop of the projected financial growth of the country, we continue to see a lot of constraints that are going to continue to hit the industry. And so we built into our forecast, what we know so far and haven’t gone really any farther than that. But when you take into account the issues with aircraft delivery delays, other supply chain issues, even air traffic control issues.
I really think it’s going to be a challenge to produce a lot of capacity. And for that reason, I think that American is we distinguish ourselves. We have the vast majority of the capacity that the resources that we need to fly the capacity that we have out there. And while ours in the back half of the year actually moderates as well, I think we’re going to be in better shape than the rest of our competitors.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Michael Linenberg of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open, Michael.
Michael Linenberg: I guess I got 2 here. Robert, any sort of quick takeaways from this rule from the DOT on refunds? Any potential and intended consequences. And maybe is this a solution looking for a problem? Because I thought you were doing a lot already of what is spelled out in that role.
