DALLAS - American Airlines says it could cut 900 flight attendant jobs as it reduces flights to cope with record high fuel costs. The Fort Worth airline expects to reduce jobs for pilots and mechanics, too, but it hasn't released numbers yet.

American, the nation's largest carrier, said Wednesday that job cuts were necessary "to overcome near-term challenges and secure our company's long-term future."

American parent AMR Corp. said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that it will take a charge of $70 million to cover severance costs for reducing its work force of 82,000, including the flight attendant jobs. It also reported in the filing that reduced flying and other cutbacks will lead the company to take a noncash accounting charge of about $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion for the just-concluded second quarter.

In May, American announced it would cut domestic capacity 11 percent to 12 percent later this year, retire some planes and cut an unspecified number of jobs. Officials said they would try to reduce layoffs through attrition or by employees voluntarily taking leaves of absence or sharing jobs. American has about 18,000 active flight attendants, so 900 jobs represents 5 percent of the ranks.

"We've all been sitting on the edge of our seats waiting for a number," said Frank Bastien, a spokesman for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants. "Most of us were pretty pleased it wasn't higher."