Northwest Airlines reports fourth-quarter loss of $256 million

EAGAN, Minn. - The drop in air travel after the Sept. 11 attacks hurt earnings of Northwest Airlines Corp., which reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $256 million Thursday, excluding a federal airline bailout grant and other nonrecurring items. <br> <br> The loss amounted to $3.02 per common share, 16 cents better than the consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call of a $3.18 loss per share for the quarter. <br> <br> That compares with a fourth-quarter 2000 net profit of $31 million, or 34 cents per share, also excluding nonrecurring charges. The quarter ended Dec. 31. <br> <br> &#34;Northwest Airlines fourth-quarter and full-year performance, while disappointing, was to be expected, considering the unprecedented decline in business travel due to the economic slowdown in the United States and the reduced demand resulting from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,&#34; said Richard Anderson, chief executive officer. <br> <br> Revenues for the fourth quarter were $1.99 billion, down 27 percent from $2.70 billion in the last quarter of 2000. <br> <br> The excluded items include a $212 million grant from the federal government under the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act. Northwest also took $149 million in one-time charges principally related to aircraft write-downs and retirements. <br> <br> Including those two items, the airline posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $216 million, or $2.55 per share, compared with a net loss of $69 million, or 84 cents per share, in the same quarter a year earlier. <br> <br> For the full year, Northwest reported a net loss of $423 million, or $5.03 a share, compared with a net profit of $256 million, or $2.77 per share, for the year before. Full-year revenues were $9.91 billion, down 12 percent from $11.24 billion in 2000. <br>