American Airlines’ labor groups have moved beyond traditional contract disputes to press governance-level accountability as the carrier continues to underperform rival network carriers on profitability and operational reliability. In recent days the pilots’ union urged the airline’s board to take "decisive action" and requested a full-board meeting, while the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) issued a no-confidence vote in Chief Executive Robert Isom and called for leadership change.
The APFA said its board voted unanimously in what the union described as a first against an American Airlines CEO, asserting the airline is falling "dangerously behind" competitors. The union framed its action as a demand for "accountability, improved operational support and leadership change," and announced plans for 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." The union also linked employee frustration to the airline’s poorer financial results and smaller profit-sharing payouts to frontline crew.
American declined to comment directly on the union vote and instead pointed to recent public remarks by Isom to both investors and employees, in which he outlined the airline’s turnaround strategy and emphasized accountability at the leadership level. On the company’s quarterly earnings call last month, Isom said the turnaround should start showing results in 2026. He reiterated that message at an internal leadership conference, stating "it starts with us at the top" and adding "2026 can’t just feel different. It has to be different."
The unions’ push for board-level involvement is notable because public calls by labor groups for leadership change are uncommon outside formal contract negotiations. The labor complaints link operational performance and financial outcomes to strategic decisions and execution, putting governance under scrutiny as the carrier attempts to persuade investors the company’s plan will close the gap with peers.
On underlying financials, the gap is stark. On an adjusted pretax basis for 2025, American generated $352 million, while Delta reported about $5 billion and United $4.6 billion, according to company results. Share-price moves have reflected that divergence: American’s shares have fallen about 10% over the past year, compared with gains of roughly 14% for Delta and 12% for United.
Union leaders have singled out this profit gap as a source of worker frustration and diminished profit-sharing. APFA has stated that some crew members received as little as $150 in profit-sharing for 2025. At an employee town hall last month, Isom acknowledged being disappointed by what he called "meager" profit-sharing and noted, according to an audio recording reviewed by Reuters, that "when you break even, that’s the kind of profit sharing you have."
Analysts and research firms cited in company discussions provide differing near-term expectations. JPMorgan analysts said American accounted for just under 4% of the combined pretax profits of American, Delta and United in 2025, with that share expected to rise to about 12% in 2026. Melius Research has said the airline has scope to "recapture" earnings in 2026 after a difficult 2025. Separately, American has said it expects to reduce debt to under $35 billion in 2026, a year earlier than previously targeted.
The pilots’ union followed with its own escalation. Its board sent a letter urging the airline’s directors to take "decisive action," warning that American remains on an "underperforming path" marked by persistent operational, cultural and strategic shortcomings. The union requested that its president, Nick Silva, be permitted to present those 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 pilots’ union said it had not yet received a substantive reply from the board and deemed Isom’s response "not responsive" to the specific request for a board-level meeting. After multiple engagements with Isom and his executive team over the past year, the pilots’ union said engagement with the full board is the "necessary next step."
The immediate flashpoint for both unions was a late-January winter storm that led to widespread cancellations and subjected American’s recovery systems to a severe test. Data from aviation analytics firm OAG show American lagged key rivals in January on reliability metrics: it trailed Southwest, Alaska Airlines, United and Delta in on-time performance and recorded the highest cancellation rate among those carriers.
Unions have used that operational disruption to argue that weaknesses extend beyond episodic failures and point to broader deficiencies in preparation and execution. The unions’ framing echoes prior episodes in the industry where major operational breakdowns elevated scrutiny beyond day-to-day managers - including high-profile incidents that prompted congressional attention and executive-level engagement with suppliers and partners.
Corporate governance experts say that public employee unrest can become a material business issue for customer-facing firms, and that such unrest may serve as an early warning for boards. Charles Elson, a retired University of Delaware corporate governance professor, said public calls for a CEO’s removal do not guarantee change, but they do highlight a risk when frontline employees are openly dissatisfied.
For now, American is attempting to balance its narrative to investors - pitching investments in premium products, improved operational reliability, renewed efforts to regain corporate clients and strategies to increase loyalty revenue - with the unions’ push for immediate accountability at the top. Management’s stated timeline for visible progress is 2026, while labor groups are seeking more direct oversight and quicker remedies to the operational and financial shortfalls they say are harming competitiveness and employee payouts.
Contextual note - The dynamics between unions and management at a major network carrier are affecting not only internal morale and governance discussions but also investor perceptions and near-term financial expectations. The potential for increased board involvement underscores the intersection of operational performance, employee compensation, and corporate strategy in an airline whose 2025 results lagged peers significantly.