By Rajesh Kumar Singh
CHICAGO, Feb 12 (Reuters) - For years, American Airlines has lagged Delta Air Lines and United Airlines on profitability. Now its unions are turning that gap into a governance issue,
pressing directors for accountability at the top.
The escalation has sharpened in recent days, with the pilots' union urging American's board to take "decisive action" and requesting a meeting with the full board, and the flight attendants' union issuing a no-confidence vote in Chief Executive Robert Isom and demanding leadership change.
Public calls by labor groups for leadership change are unusual outside of formal contract talks. The unions have framed their demands as a bid to involve the board directly, linking reliability and financial performance to strategy and execution.
The Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), which represents American's flight attendants, said on Monday its board voted unanimously in what it called a first against an American Airlines CEO.
The union said the airline was falling "dangerously behind" competitors and called for "accountability, improved operational support and leadership change." It now plans to hold a protest outside American's headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday to press those demands.
"At the end of the day, our management team, we feel, has failed us," APFA President Julie Hedrick told Reuters. "We don't want to be left with a company that isn't competitive."
American declined to comment on the union vote, and in response to Reuters' questions pointed to Isom's recent public remarks to investors and employees outlining the turnaround strategy and emphasizing accountability.
On the quarterly earnings call last month, Isom said American's turnaround strategy should start showing results in 2026. He reinforced the message at an internal leadership conference last week. "It starts with us at the top," he said. "2026 can't just feel different. It has to be different."
The unions' push comes as American tries to convince investors that investments in premium products and operational reliability, along with efforts to win back corporate clients and drive loyalty revenue, will help narrow the profit gap with rivals.
Its shares have fallen about 10% over the past year, compared with gains of about 14% for Delta and 12% for United.
PROFIT GAP FUELS PRESSURE
On an adjusted pretax basis in 2025, American generated $352 million, compared with about $5 billion at Delta and $4.6 billion at United, according to company results.
American has blamed the underperformance on exposure to a softer domestic market, broader economic uncertainty and a federal government shutdown that weighed on bookings.
Union officials have tied worker frustration to the gap and smaller profit-sharing payouts. APFA has said some crew members received as little as $150 in profit-sharing for 2025.
Isom told employees at a staff town hall last month that he was disappointed with "meager" profit-sharing, but added, "when you break even, that's the kind of profit sharing you have," according to an audio recording of the meeting reviewed by Reuters.
JPMorgan analysts said American made just under 4% of the combined pretax profits of American, Delta and United in 2025, but the share is expected to rise to about 12% in 2026. Melius Research said the airline has scope to "recapture" earnings in 2026 after a difficult 2025.
American has also said it expects to cut debt to under $35 billion in 2026, a year ahead of its prior target.
PILOTS PUSH FOR BOARD ENGAGEMENT
The no-confidence vote followed a letter last week from the pilot union's board urging American's board to take "decisive action" and warning that the carrier remains on an "underperforming path" marked by persistent operational, cultural and strategic shortcomings.
The union asked that its president, Nick Silva, be allowed to formally present concerns to the full board. Isom told Silva he would meet with the union as soon as possible and that the board had discussed the request, according to a letter reviewed by Reuters.
The union said it had not yet received a reply from directors and that Isom's letter "was not responsive" to its request for a board-level meeting. It said that after multiple meetings with Isom and his executive team over the past year, engagement with the full board is the "necessary next step."
EXECUTION UNDER STRAIN
The latest flare-up follows a late-January winter storm that led to widespread flight cancellations and tested American's recovery system.
Data from aviation analytics firm OAG shows American's reliability lagged key rivals in January. It trailed Southwest, Alaska Airlines, United and Delta in on-time performance and posted the highest cancellation rate among those airlines.
Unions have portrayed the disruption as evidence of deeper weaknesses in preparation and execution.
That framing echoes a broader aviation pattern. Major operational breakdowns at times have drawn scrutiny beyond day-to-day management — from Southwest Airlines' 2022 holiday disruption, which prompted congressional hearings, to airline CEOs seeking meetings with Boeing directors after Alaska Airlines' door-plug incident in January 2024.
Charles Elson, a retired University of Delaware professor and corporate governance specialist, said public calls for a CEO's removal do not guarantee leadership change, but that employee unrest can become a business problem for a customer-facing company — and a warning sign for its board.
"When your employees are unhappy working there, and you're a customer-facing business, you've got a real problem," Elson said.
(Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
