American Airlines Is Spending Billions To Go Premium, But Flight Attendants Still Aren’t On Board

American Airlines has been pivoting to premium over the past year and a half. They are investing in lounges, food, coffee, champagne and finally wine.

They’re expected to buy new widebody aircraft and to fix broken seats on existing planes.

That’s because for years the airline’s management got the vision wrong – they saw themselves competing against Spirit Airlines and Frontier for low fares, precisely when customers were willing to pay more for a better product. As a result they’ve been a financial underperformer in the industry as Delta and United earned record profits.

However, the biggest gap in their strategy remains with front-line employees.

• The CEO hasn’t been out selling the change. Employees need to know what’s expected of them, how they’re on a mission to transform the company, and how this will translate into greater profit-sharing.

• And customer-facing service continues to lag at American Airlines. They’re spending billions of dollars on the product, but the last mile of service delivery undercuts the investment.

An FBI special agent working an American Airlines hub, not steeped in the industry, shared their comparative experiences with different carriers, telling me that Southwest employees are generally happy; Delta employees come off as professional; United employees want to keep law enforcement off their planes (a legacy of the April 2018 David Dao passenger dragging incident) and American Airlines employees seem unhappy with their jobs.

This is a generalization based on repeated interactions over a long period at one of the country’s major airports, but it seems to hold. And it helps explain why turning around American Airlines is so hard – and why management isn’t doing enough beyond writing checks.

A couple of commonplace stories from Sunday stood out to me online.

• In a since deleted tweet, motivational speaker Chris Widener called out the crew of his American Airlines flight, complaining that in the gate area prior to boarding flight attendants were talking about skipping service, and asking the pilots to make an announcement about bad weather as an excuse not to bring out the galley carts and offer drinks or snacks.

  We heard them agree that they would blame it on the weather. The flight attendants even asked if the pilots would announce it so they didn’t get the blowback. The pilots agreed to do it. Sure enough before we ever took off they announced it being because of the weather

  — Chris Widener (@ChrisWidener) June 7, 2026

  You should call the cockpit and tell them the ruse is up and to do their job.

  — Chris Widener (@ChrisWidener) June 7, 2026

  Interesting, that they are up serving first class after announcing they can’t get out of their seats because of “weather.” Smooth sailing up here by the way.

  — Chris Widener (@ChrisWidener) June 7, 2026

• Complaints about American Airlines service are something I see regularly, including by the airline’s premium customers. While Delta onboard service hasn’t been as strong as it used to be (compared to before the pandemic, likely because of significant turnover), their flight attendants remain proud of their product. There are great American crews, but I also see this too frequently:

  Hey @AmericanAir, is it customary when seated in first to go have to ask your flight attendant for a drink or a snack? The drawn curtain and them on their phone really sends a clear “please go pound sand” vibe

  — @saifsrathore (@saifsrathore) June 7, 2026

Leadership needs to sell a premium vision, and explain the role that employees across the company play in its success going forward – getting the front line on board to deliver an elevated experience. The airline is actually improving in a lot of ways, but employees don’t realize it.

The messaging also needs to reach down to middle management, where employees haven’t been incentivized to sweat the details of product. Getting the details right across the board is how you get the most out of each dollar of investment.