American Airlines flight attendants called for the ouster of its CEO in a new letter on Tuesday. The airline’s operations have been melting down for days, with significant consequences to flight attendants. But the union’s focus is on the poor financial performance of the airline – and what that means for profit sharing. They complain about “a pattern of failure under the leadership of CEO Robert Isom” and call for “new leadership.”
Delta Air Lines flight attendants are getting a month’s worth of extra pay as profit sharing. American Airlines flight attendants are getting a 0.3% bonus, which is often $150 – or less. And they have the same profit sharing formula as Delta’s non-union flight attendants under their 2024 contract. Delta is profitable, American Airlines is not.
The union complains that American is falling behind. Strikingly, the letter comes out as American’s operation has been melting down with around 10,000 flight cancellations around the winter storm even as other carrier operations have recovered. It’s a crumbling system now worse than what Delta experienced after the CrowdStrike incident in July 2024 and is now approaching Southwest’s 2022 holiday breakdown.
Flight attendants are sleeping on the floor of airports, as American has lost track of its crews, doesn’t know who’s eligible to fly based on rest times, and front line staff haven’t been able to get hold of the airline. They’ve been waiting on hold for 12 hours – only to get disconnected.
“AA may have its southwest moment soon, Computers are starting to give up/show error messages and crew schedulers are now hand building sequences in IOC.”
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) January 28, 2026
Yet the union’s focus here is only on last quarter’s financial results, and not what its members are currently going through.
While Competitors Surge Ahead,
American Falls Further BehindTuesday, January 27, 2026
Today, American Airlines released its fourth quarter and full-year 2025 earnings—and once again, the results disappointed employees, investors and Wall Street. While we are pleased American achieved a small profit, our airline continues to lag its competitors by a significant margin. This is no longer an anomaly, but rather a pattern of failure under the leadership of CEO Robert Isom and the American Airlines Board of Directors.
American’s workforce is not the problem. Leadership is.
Employees have a vested interest in seeing American succeed. Our jobs and our futures depend on it. Yet while employees deliver every day, American remains a distant third behind Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, and at or near the bottom of the industry.
While Competitors Finances Surge Upward,
American Continues to LagThe contrast is undeniable.
These results reflect priorities—and American’s priorities are being exposed by comparison.
Wall Street Journal 2025 Rankings Show American Airlines at the Bottom
In October of 2025, we communicated concerns about American ranking dead last in overall customer satisfaction in the J.D. Power North America Airline Satisfaction Study and hoped that we would see improvements in all areas. Sadly, that is not the case.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal released its 2025 Best and Worst Airline Rankings for 2025, and American Airlines was once again left behind our competitors in almost every measured category, with performance worsening in many categories year-over-year. For Overall Best Airline, American slipped from fifth place in 2023 to last place in 2025. American ranked in the bottom three for on-time arrivals, mishandled baggage, and involuntary denied boardings. American ranked dead last in canceled flights. (Source: The Wall Street Journal)
It is easy to see why employees, investors, and Wall Street are deeply concerned, and it is no surprise why CEO Robert Isom has ended all Labor-management meetings, employee town halls, Crew News sessions, and, perhaps most telling, the question-and-answer session at today’s State of the Airline.
They don’t have answers, and the excuses have run out.
Employees see the reality every day. Long-overdue upgrades to onboard products are welcomed, but they cannot make up for poor strategic decisions or an uncompetitive hard product. While we are happy to see leadership upgrade our premium cabins, our coach cabins, where many of our most loyal customers are seated, are outdated, uncomfortable, and far from competitive.
Lack of investment in the product has left American years behind its competitors, forcing employees to absorb the consequences and apologize for management’s inaction as leadership delivers the same lackluster results, quarter after quarter.
To management we ask: What is American’s plan to compete? Why are we not hearing from the Board of Directors as American continues to fall further behind?
The status quo is indefensible. The bottom of the rankings, quarter after quarter, is unacceptable. Accountability at the top is long overdue.
American’s hardworking employees want nothing more than to see this airline lead the industry, and we are ready to make that happen. But leadership has failed to clearly define our brand, articulate who we want to be as an airline, or provide the staffing, tools, and resources necessary. Quarter after quarter, executives leave employees to carry the weight of their mismanagement while American falls further behind.
For years, CEO Robert Isom and his team have solely focused on Accountability, Reliability, and Profitability, ignoring investment in our product and the overall customer experience. During that time, our competitors focused on all aspects of their airlines, while American now stumbles to pick up the pieces.
The employees at American Airlines, our passengers and the investors can no longer wait for Robert Isom and the American Airlines Board of Directors to deliver on their empty promises.
As the entire industry leaves American Airlines in the dust, it is time for new leadership and a new vision for American Airlines.
American is a financial laggard in the industry, and seniority rules enforced by union contracts lock flight attendants into the employer they select at the start of their careers. They can’t just go work for another airline, because they’d start at the bottom with lower pay and much worse schedules.
The strategic missteps of management have surrendered positions in markets like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles – which has meant their cobrand credit card has fallen behind Delta and United in spending (and it’s that credit card that’s the driver of profits).
They retired too many planes and walked away from most international flying of their own, preferring to outsource to joint venture partners. And they chased ultra-low cost carriers just as consumer preferences were pivoting away from that model to something more premium – they even took out business class seats to add coach seats, and took out seat back screens.
At the same time, management abdicated its responsibility to lead, offer a vision to employees and demand accountability. I’m told there are ghostriders on Delta over the next 3 weeks auditing flight attendant service standards, and that cabin crew are expected to deliver predeparture beverages from trays rather than hand carrying them from the galley. American Airlines flight attendants aren’t expected to offer predeparture beverages in first class at all. I’ve had jackets proactively hung in Delta first class, and haven’t had that on American in years.
There’s a role that flight attendants play in the service standards at the airline, but management hasn’t insisted on it. An airline that delivered a premium experience, and delivered a product customer want to pay for – driving the profits that would pay flight attendants more – would mean higher service standards for APFA union members. They should be honest about this, including with themselves.
One minor item about the union’s letter. They conclude the airline has ‘no answers’ because Robert Isom didn’t take questions at the quarterly employee meeting that follows the airline’s earnings call, and that senior executives no longer do regular monthly ‘crew news’ employee sessions, recordings of which used to be leaked to me and I’d report on regularly. These were artifacts of former Executive Vice President Elise Eberwein, under CEO Doug Parker. After Eberwein’s departure the line relayed to me was that ‘Gary gets more value of these than employees do.’
Isom would spend a lot of time preparing and practicing his answers. He’s not off the cuff or unrehearsed. As the airline pivots to a premium strategy, we haven’t had senior executives on the front line explaining a new vision to employees and building momentum for everyone to push in the same direction for a vision bigger than themselves – a vision that would make the airline more profitable, and lead to better pay for employees.
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