Speaking at an employee event last Thursday, American Airlines CEO Robert Isom acknowledged the operational meltdown AA experienced thanks to Winter Storm Fern, but seemed complacent with the fact that so many flight attendants had to sleep on airport floors and argued that they were still better off than United Airlines employees, despite a dismal profit report.
Robert Isom Defends American Airlines After Crew Slept On Airport Floors
Isom and the AA C-Suite spoke to financial analysts during an earnings calls last week to discuss Q4 and full FY 2025 earnings. In them, American Airlines reported a meager profit of $111 million (compared to $5 billion for Delta and $3.4 billion for United), placing the blame on the U.S. government shutdown for its poor showing.
As that call was unfolding, AA was recovering from an operational meltdown from Winter Storm Fern, which led to the cancellation of over 9,000 flights. As other carriers recovered from the storm, the operational spiral got worse at American, with crew scheduling systems essentially losing track of where flight attendants were.
The result did not only adversely impact passengers, it trapped crew members at airports: away from home and without any hotel availability or ability to reach the crew scheduling desk due to multi-hour hold times, many flights attendants were forced to sleep on floor or chairs at U.S. airports.
In a recording reviewed by View From The Wing during a “State of the Airline” meeting with employees after the earnings call, Isom called said it was “unacceptable” that any AA employee had to sleep on the floor. But then he added:
“I also know it comes with the kind of business we run. This isn’t the only storm that we’ve ever had. It’s not going to be the last storm we’ve had.”
That suggests an acceptance and perhaps even a complacency to what happened. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt (storms will happen, but we have to make sure that crew don’t wind up sleeping on floors any longer), it’s reasonable to ask why Delta, United, and others were able to recover so much better from the storm when their hubs were also hit hard.
Isom: You’re Better Off At AA Than At United Airlines
In what I view as an example of “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” Isom argued that even with AA’s tepid profit sharing, unionized United employees still make less:
“Quite frankly, I wouldn’t be out there bragging about profitability in a hub when 80% of your team members make a lot less than the market rate.”
Isom is referring to Chicago O’Hare, with United claiming it made $500 million in profit while AA lost $500 million by trying haphazardly to add capacity.
United has been slow to ratify new labor agreements with its mechanics and flight attendants and there is no doubt that is helping United’s profitability, even as it says that it is taking such expected future labor costs into account (there will be backpay once a deal is reached).
To Isom, do you really want to compare yourself to United here? Say what you will about United (it’s fair to wonder whether United is growing too big too fast such that it will never catch Delta in terms of profitability), but it strikes me as foolish to compare AA to UA, which is a vastly better run airline that has strategically made investments since 2020 that are now paying dividends.
Get your hours in order before condemning others..
CONCLUSION
Once again, I have nothing personal against Isom and I suspect he’s not only a nice guy, but a smart guy. But when I hear him say things like this, it becomes clear to me why employees have lost confidence in him. Here, he seemed to justify crewmembers sleeping on the floor and attacking United just rings hollow here.
What do you think about Isom’s statements?
Well, at least he admits he’s running a bad business. Time to run a better business, or find someone who can.
Winter storm also affected Delta and United’s East coast operation but American Airlines was the air carrier which had trouble recovered in a timely manner. AA senior management should fixed the broken system ASAP, or AA would lose more market share and revenue from highly competitive markets like Chicago and Los Angeles.
UAL has agreed to give flight attendants “retroactive pay” once contract approve. I do not know if UAL already set aside money, accounting wise, for that.
Not that we needed it but we got yet another example of Isom’s ineptitude. So FA’s for other airlines were in a better situation but American is somehow better? Did pilots sleep on the floor too?
He’s just trying to get fired at this point. Right? If he quits he doesn’t get the golden parachute but if he’s fired…
Holy tone-deaf comment, Batman!
The current CEO of American Airlines is certainly a good, clever and extremely lucky person. But does he realize that excessive good luck can’t be relied upon and can run out one day?
This is a fun click bait title, but hardly unique to AA. Delta and Southwest flight crew have been stranded in VERY recent memory with not hotels and sleeping on the floor.
I guess Ed Bastian didn’t get out there and say it’s “just part of the job” but since we’re talking about Ed Bastian… he was probably too busy drinking $500 wines to even know what was going on.
Oh wait. We know what he was doing. He was busy bumping stranded paying passengers in DeltaOne to drink champagne in Paris for the Olympics while his crews slept on the floors of the airport
Tone Deaf by Robert Isom, but no where near as tone deaf as bumping a stranded passenger to drink champagne in Paris like Ed…
My thoughts are as long as the board of directors stands behind Isom nothing will change. It probably goes without saying AA has a employee morale problem that seems to be management vs employee issue instead of a management & employee goal. I could be wrong about my observations & it’s not the first time I have been mistaken, nor will it be the last!!