Data Shows American Airlines Is Finally Improving — Earnings Show What They Still Need To Fix

American lost $382 million during the first quarter, which they blamed on fuel and weather. The airline’s performance was better than consensus estimates.

They expect second quarter adjusted earnings between a loss of $0.20 and a profit of $0.20 per share, which is worse than analyst expectations. American also cut its full year outlook. At current $4 jet fuel pricing they expect to earn money this year. At fuel prices of a few weeks ago the outlook changes.

Right before the start of this morning’s first quarter earnings call, I was reading Ted Reed flag that American’s customer satisfaction scores were up year-over-year in fact up more than any other U.S. carrier.

Last January, I broke the story that they planned a strategic pivot to offer a more premium product across the board. They’ve made progress with this along several dimensions and that’s beginning to help with customer perception.

American led with a 7% gain, according to the survey by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)…Southwest, which led the survey in 2025, fell to 77, reflecting “some slippage in customers’ assessments of Southwest’s service with ratings for flight crew courtesy, gate staff courtesy and call centers all inching back.” The survey also cited “the reputational hits Southwest took” as it moved to assign seating.

…Overall ranking for the industry was 77. Alaska and United scored 75, while Frontier scored 69 and Spirit scored 66. …Delta finished first with a score of 79, up 3% from 2025, while American finished tied with JetBlue for second with 78.

This matters because, as American’s Senior Vice President Heather Garboden flags, one point of net promoter score improvement yields $50 million to $100 million in revenue. I found it notable that Chief Commercial Officer Nat Pieper took a more active role in this quarter’s Q&A with analysts.

Not everything is positive for customers. CEO Robert Isom, in his prepared remarks, defended adding restrictions to basic economy, and said it’s driving demand for paid extra legroom seats. While he highlighted growth in premium cabin seats, one of American’s biggest seating challenges is lack of extra legroom seats to sell. They have no plans to change this.

But they’re investing in airports, cabin interiors, and lounges and they’ve improved several policies that were real pain points like how difficult it was to stand by for flights. They’ve been ticking through improvements like business class champagne and coffee (though Lavazza pitched me a story on how their coffee was now available across American’s route network, that’s not actually true, they’re still burning down existing stock of the miserable Fresh Brew).

American has a lot of work still to do, to get the business re-oriented to success:

• American has a fleet problem. They retired too many planes during the pandemic and couldn’t bring back flying to all of its hubs. That cost them gates in Chicago O’Hare. They haven’t had enough widebodies to take advantage of transatlantic opportunities. They need a widebody aircraft order.

  

• American has a LOPA problem. They don’t have as many premium seats to sell as they need, or as many extra legroom coach seats as competitors. They have a fare ladder, trying to get passengers to buy up, but they don’t have the product to buy up into in economy.

  

  

• American has a customer service problem. Too many American Airlines employees seem unhappy to be at work. That rubs off on customers. Nine years ago the airline’s pitch to investors was that they would take care of their team, their team would take care of customers, and customers would prefer American. But their strategy for ‘taking care of the team’ was outlined as giving them electronic tools to take advantage of their benefits – not to shed underperformers who bring down morale, tie incentives to outcomes, or inspire employees with a vision for the airline and a sense that something is at stake.

  And they’ve even cut customer service staffing at airports to assist during irregular operations, and American Airlines still has more irregular operations than they should.

  

• There’s more progress needed on the product. American’s new premium business class seat is good. Their new international premium economy seat is good.

  

  Their new lounge aesthetic is good. Food in the lounges needs work, and their wifi quality is falling behind (especially now that it’s free and gets more use). The customer impression of the product doesn’t match Delta or JetBlue without seat back entertainment screens, which have become cheaper to install. Most customers fly coach and there’s still not enough food for sale in back.

  

• American has a coastal problem. American is weak in New York and San Francisco and has lost ground in Los Angeles and Chicago. That matters because these are the most important spend markets in the country, and that drives credit card cobrand performance.

  
  Los Angeles

  
  American Airlines Chicago O’Hare

  Their cobrand has fallen from number one in spend volume a decade ago down to number three. Their JetBlue partnership was a solution to this in New York, but the Biden Department of Justice killed it. Their Alaska partnership could help on the West Coast (but they need to build back San Francisco). And they’ve begun to get more aggressive again in Chicago.

• American has a vision problem. Much of the issues above tie together as a vision problem – what is the airline trying to be, what are they explaining to employees, and how are they rewarding performance. This starts at the top. The strategy has shifted but employees don’t all understand it, understand how it affects them, or what they’re supposed to be delivering. The CEO needs to be out in the operation talking to employees and selling them on a better future that they’re a part of, the way that Oscar Munoz did at United a decade ago.

  
  CEO Robert Isom confronted by flight attendants during contract negotiations

American Airlines is beginning to make progress in the right direction! It’s not enough, and not fast enough. But if they can take advantage of this moment to do deals with Alaska and potentially even with Alaska but their lagging financial performance gives them less of a platform to do more than one.

In response to a question by J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Baker, Robert Isom all but confirmed future plans for greater integration with Alaska Airlines. He reiterated ‘looking forward to doing more’ with Alaska in response to a Reuters question. American could actually learn a lot from Alaska about onboard food – a learning there that dates back over a decade to when the then-CEO used to have weekly senior staff lunches serving onboard meals.

If they can get out into the operation and lay out a clear vision to win, and then execute a plan to get the fleet and seating right, the product right, and a greater presence in key cities, they could really turn around their performance for shareholders, employees, and customers.