American Airlines pilots are seeking a meeting with the board over the carrier’s financial underperformance. And here’s what everyone gets wrong about it. It’s reported as though it’s another one of many problems for the airline, that failed to make money in 2025 and whose operations melted down in recent weeks leading to cancellation of nearly 10,000 flights.
Flight attendants were sleeping in the airport as the airline lost track of crews. Pilots were also without hotel rooms. CEO Robert Isom said such things come with the business while the airline’s Chief Operating Officer contradicted his boss, denying it even happened.
Here’s the letter. It’s also a video on Instagram (HT: JonNYC)
AA Pilot Union (2nd email to pilots of the night I gather) pic.twitter.com/TDIWsaR2i0
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) February 7, 2026
The pilots union held its annual meeting in Dallas this past week. They were considering a vote of no confidence in the airline CEO, and calling for his resignation. They did not do this and instead compromised, settling on asking the board for a meeting to talk about why the airline isn’t making money, which means there’s no profit for profit sharing payouts to pilots. That’s ultimately weak sauce.
Pilots ultimately played a role in forcing out CEO Tom Horton, and pushing for a merger inside of bankruptcy with US Airways, when they slowed down the operation. They made a categorical error in concluding that Doug Parker would be better for labor than previous management, even though under his leadership pilots could never successfully integrate into a single seniority list at US Airways and America West and could never get a new contract done to pay them more. America West pilots even had to pay a monthly fee to access the airline’s scheduling system.
They’re right that the airline faces challenges from an accumulation of bad decisions over more than a dozen years:
- retiring too many widebody aircraft
- deciding to focus on competing with ultra-low cost carriers with a downmarket product and fewer premium seats right as the consumer was shifting to paying for better experiences
- levering up the balance sheet to fund over $12 billion in stock buybacks creating the legacy of debt the airline faces today
- Choosing not to compete in New York and Los Angeles, walking away from credit card spending and cobrand revenue in those markets (and failing to rebuild their operation in Chicago until now, which is linked to retiring too many planes during the pandemic)
However, they do not offer a single recommendation for improving the business. And American has actually started offering a rallying cry to employees to turn this around even if it’s not yet specific enough about what needs to be done and not yet articulated by the CEO himself.
American is starting to realize they focused on costs to the exclusion of revenue. And they’re making moves to address this but they need to move faster, bigger, and articulated a bold vision that employees and customers alike can use to understand the smaller changes along the way.
The pilots were expected to call for the dismissal of the airlines CEO – as flight attendants have done, with less significance – but they blinked. And they haven’t articulated anything the airline should be doing differently anyway, other than ‘earning more money so they can pay pilots more’.
I personally think the pilots and the union should not compromise here, but, it’s their call.
There’s a real reason “the airline isn’t making money” and it’s an accounting trick; there’s plenty of money to go around, and the profits are purposely siloed in the loyalty program, cards, points.
Management and shareholders are not going to ‘do the right thing’ here; they’re going to abuse workers and consumers until we regulate otherwise.
To those who inevitably will bootlick on here, you’re not in the club, so, enjoy doing that for free. Yum. Yum. Yum. So tasty.
The downfall of American Airlines started with the of Parker. Robert Isom had his chance to turn AA around to the great airline it once was before Parker’s arrival. Time for a complete management change.
I personally think the pilots and other union members have sacrificed long enough. They should demand immediate 100% pay raises retroactive to Parker becoming CEO
@Joe T — How much time do people need, though? In March, it’ll have been 4 years as CEO; and he was President before (2016-2022). So, like, how can you absolve Isom and just blame Parker? Not to mention, Parker received on-average $10 million compensation each year between 2014-2021. Meanwhile, Isom got $31.4 in 2023 and $15.6 in 2024, all while things supposedly weren’t going well. Make that make sense. It seems the incentives are off. It seems like those at the top are enriching themselves while everyone else suffers, needlessly. It’s not just an AAL problem.
Nice photo of the broken tray table. Can you say Third World? So let’s hope what’s under the hood gets better attention.
@Joanie Adams — Turns out, we were the ‘s-hole country’ all-along.
Another hit piece by Gary. From the APA letter, “Our members have been clear and consistent in their expectations regarding these issues and have LOST CONFIDENCE in management’s ability to correct course. ”
Writers should also be able to read.
Pilots backing down = they deserve whatever they get from AA. If you are not going to fight for yourselves why should anyone else fight for you?
The pilot and FA unions squeeze the airline to the brink with bloated contracts and endless demands, then act shocked that management is “incompetent” because there’s no money left to hire or retain anyone competent. Shocking!
When you drain the company dry, you don’t get A-players. You get whoever couldn’t land a job in tech, consulting, private equity or other leading industries and settle for airline corporate until they can find something better.
This letter is basically that meme: shoot the guy in the chair… then turn to the camera and ask, “Who did this?”
@Ray Towers – the letter is weak sauce. It doesn’t call for Isom to step down. It’s mealy mouthed.
Parker had nothing no role in the pilots seniority list integration, by law. That was between the pilot groups.