NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Oct. 19, 2011--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that AMR Corp.'s reported third-quarter 2011 net loss of $162 million, which we expect to be the worst among large U.S. airlines, is generally in line with our expectations and does not affect our ratings or outlook (which we revised to negative on May 19, 2011). Liquidity remains adequate for the near term, with $4.3 billion in unrestricted cash (equal to about 18% of trailing-12-month revenues) as of Sept. 30, 2011. AMR's results were materially worse than the $143 million third-quarter profit of a year earlier, due mostly to higher fuel prices. However, the company's main challenge is an uncompetitive labor cost structure (particularly work rules,
