Pressure mounts on American Airlines CEO as carrier lags behind rivals

American airlinesThe promised recovery is off to a rocky start this year.

Pilot and flight attendant unions have questioned CEO Robert Isom’s leadership as the airline’s performance has largely lagged behind its rivals, a trend that has translated into lower profit sharing for American’s more than 130,000 employees. Adding to employees’ frustration, the airline has struggled to recover from severe winter storms in recent weeks and crews have been left stranded, some without a place to sleep near the airport.

The pilots’ union wrote to the airline’s board of directors on Friday evening, requesting a meeting to discuss the carrier’s financial and operational challenges.

“Our airline is on an underperforming path and has failed to define an identity or strategy to correct course,” the Allied Pilots Association board wrote. The union called for “leaders willing, equipped and empowered to put the house in order.”

The American earned $111 million last year, an amount dwarfed by the profits of Delta Airlines And United Airlineswhich grossed $5 billion and more than $3.3 billion, respectively, even though American carried a similar capacity in 2025.

“I know it’s a meager profit sharing, a very small profit sharing pool this year. Again, when you break even, that’s the kind of profit sharing you have,” Isom told employees after the results were released on Jan. 27, according to a recording of the event that was reviewed by CNBC. “I’m disappointed in that.”

American is trying to catch up with competitors with premium products that command higher fares, a bright spot in the industry as coach cabin revenue growth is elusive. He also worked to repair the damage caused by the failure of a direct-to-traveler business travel strategy, from which the American architect was ousted in May 2024.

2026 is crucial for the carrier.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based airline issued an optimistic outlook for the year on Jan. 27, and Isom told crews he was optimistic about improvement this year. He also noted that many staff members, like flight attendants, earn more than their counterparts at United, where cabin crew and other employees are in contract negotiations.

Isom is leading what he bills as a major transformation of America. The strategy includes improving customer service, network and revenue management.

This week, he delivered his message to about 6,000 executives at a conference hosted by the airline at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.

“We’ve had conversations as a senior leadership team about how we can’t pass up any opportunity… how we have to hold ourselves accountable,” Isom said at the event, according to a transcript viewed by CNBC. “It starts with us at the top, but it’s all of us here today and how you lead your teams. 2026 can’t just be different. It has to be different.”

American released its 2026 outlook as it juggled the aftermath of a late January winter storm that pummeled much of the U.S. with snow, ice and sleet and prepared for another storm that ended up hitting its main hub of Charlotte, North Carolina, while its competitors dug in faster.

The financial results, coupled with the slow recovery from the storm, have angered union leaders for pilots and flight attendants, who together represent about 40,000 crew members.

This week, two American Airlines flight operations executives met with the union and discussed recent issues, with the union telling its members that “our pilots will no longer accept platitudes, empty words and lack of decisive action.”

Association of Professional Flight Attendants President Julie Hedrick said Jan. 27 that Isom, who became CEO in 2022, “misses the human factor” and that “a lot of us have been here a very long time and we don’t see an end that would put us in a better place.”

Isom acknowledged the problems American crew members faced during the late January storm that paralyzed much of the United States and called the weather “probably the most impactful” in his decades-long tenure at the airline.

American had a particularly difficult 2025, which began with an Army Black Hawk helicopter colliding with one of the carrier’s regional jets arriving at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., killing all 67 people on both flights. The airline and its competitors were also hit by the U.S. government shutdown late last year.

“We got off to a fast start based on the booking trends we saw in January, all-time highs for the first three weeks of the year,” Isom told analysts on the Jan. 27 earnings conference call.

But investors also want the airline to demonstrate its progress.

US stocks are roughly flat this year. Its competitor 20 miles away, in Dallas, Southwest Airlinesis also trying to remake itself, and its stock is up more than 30% in 2026. Shares of United and Delta are up more than 3% and more than 8%, respectively, for the year.

Southwest’s forecast that its profits could quadruple this year sent investors into a bullish frenzy. The carrier recently sealed its biggest transformation in nearly 55 years in business (much to the dismay of some travelers): assigning seats last month for the first time, adding its first-ever baggage fees, and rolling out basic economy tickets and other changes. Investor confidence propelled Southwest’s stock to a near four-year high last month following its earnings release.

All U.S. carriers are investing heavily in premium travel over standard coach, and even Southwest is considering opening its first airport lounge, its CEO told CNBC last year.

Likewise, American is revamping its wide-body jets with larger single business class cabins, installing a three-class cabin on new Airbus narrowbodies and expanding its airport lounges. The airline has also updated its food and beverage options, including offering Lavazza coffee and Bollinger champagne. For its 100th anniversary this spring, it’s also adding caviar and beef Wellington for long-haul premium cabins.

Isom said he expects half of American’s revenue to come from “premium offerings” toward the end of the decade.

One of the major battles for the Americans took place at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, where United CEO Scott Kirby, whom American fired in 2016, has vowed to keep his former employer at bay.

Both carriers will increase their schedules there next summer. Deutsche Bank estimated in a note Monday that United generates about $10 billion in revenue at O’Hare and American generates more than $5 billion.

As American reported earnings, United posted a digital billboard in Chicago that read “More on time, fewer canceled flights. Aadvantage, United,” using the same spelling as American’s AAdvantage loyalty program. Bankrupt Spirit Airlines is also seeking to transfer two departure gates at Chicago O’Hare to United for $30 million, which would give United more land at the airport.

But from Chicago to Charlotte, questions remain for Americans.

“It is unclear whether the current strategy will narrow the margin gap versus peers,” Conor Cunningham, an airline industry analyst at Melius Research, said of American. “This will take a long time to implement. You can’t just generate premium revenue.”

Cunningham added, “It took Delta more than a decade to cultivate a premium image,” pointing to the transformation of America’s profit-making executives.