Investors have spent much of the past year and a half panicking about American Airlines '(NASDAQ: AAL) unit revenue trajectory, amid rising competition from ultra-low-cost carriers. Unit revenue is gradually starting to recover due to slowing industry capacity growth and improving conditions in Brazil -- although the impact of Brexit is still to be seen. American Airlines needs to fix this soon In the past few years, the legacy carriers have frequently stated that they want to keep non-fuel unit cost growth at or below the rate of inflation -- which they usually estimate at 2%.