American Airlines Left Hundreds of Flight Attendants Sleeping In Airports During Storm Fern — Union Minutes Show Sympathy for Management

During late January’s winter storm Fern, American Airlines melted down and cancelled nearly 10,000 flights. Crews couldn’t get through to the airline, and didn’t know where they were supposed to sleep.

The airline didn’t know when they made it to hotels, so they didn’t know when they’d met rest requirements set out by the government – so even the next day they’d be delaying and cancelling flights after passengers had boarded, because flight attendants and sometimes pilots turned out not to be eligible to work.

Flight attendants made profit sharing a key priority in their recent contract negotiations, winning the same profit sharing formula that Delta gives to its cabin crew. But whereas Delta winds up distributing about a month’s pay, American flight attendants may have received $150.

The operational meltdown combined with American’s poor financial performance in 2025 led the flight attendants union to call for leadership change at the airline. The pilots union then sought a meeting with the Board of Directors to discuss steps needed to return to meaningful profitability. (They did not get this meeting.)

We now know a bit more about what actually happened – with the actual volume of flight attendants who were stranded by the airline, and what the union has discussed doing about it – thanks to internal union materials reviewed by View From The Wing.

At the Executive Committee meeting of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants last month, union President Julie Hedrick reported that the number of flight attendants who did not get hotel rooms “far exceeded” the 200 that happened during the May 2025 storm. However, she suggested that American was withholding the full total.

She laid out to board members that the airline’s in-flight was not prepared, the service center could not book hotel rooms, the Crew Recovery Tool failed, and American was the only airline that did not handle the storm well.

She first spoke about the system’s biggest meltdown during the recent weather event in DFW, Storm Fern.

She believes the number of flight attendants who did not get hotel rooms far exceeded the 200 from May 2025. She did not feel that the actual number would be given to the APFA. A lot of work was done after the May 2025 storm, meeting with IOC and In-Flight to formulate a plan for these IROPs. Sequence repair is a major problem with flight attendants stuck without a hotel. There supposedly was a plan, but In-Flight was not prepared for the plan. The service center where flight aHendants were being sent did not have the ability to book hotel rooms.

What struck me, though, is that Hedrick seemed to make excuses for the airline rather than demanding make-goods. She says that management felt bad about it, and blamed technology (which managemnet was responsible for!).

National President Hedrick felt that not only were the flight attendants frustrated, but management personnel as well, because they were unable to help them.

The “Crew Recovery Tool” did not work as agreed by both the Union and the Company. It could not repair the huge number of sequences involved. American was the only airline that did not handle this storm well.

She considers the call for leadership change at the airline to have been “a successful media campaign.” The union then discussed the possibility of obtaining “a seat on the American Airlines Board of
Directors.” However, “[t]he Unions on the AA property have had discussions previously
about this issue and how to obtain a seat, which is highly unlikely.”

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom acknowledged flight attendants sleeping on floors during the recent weather disruption, but in a leaked employee meeting called it unacceptable but shrugged it off as something that “comes with the business.”

Meanwhile, Chief Operating Officer David Seymour publicly denied it ever happened despite first-hand testimonials, the claim by his boss, and the union’s internal report that there were over 200 instances of it.

The idea that the President of the union empathizes with management being frustrated over her members being stuck sleeping in airports is almost surreal, but this is the same union president who didn’t publicly object when the airline furloughed more flight attendants than any other in history in 2020 – even as neither Southwest nor Delta furloughed a single one – calling for government subsidies instead. (In fact, she signed onto the statement that airlines had no choice but to furlough.)

It’s somewhat ironic that the union is now calling for the CEO’s ouster, since he likely wouldn’t have his job had the union itself not not supported the US Airways takeover of American in the first place.