[
Dramatic headlines across business publications declare that there is a “civil war” within American Airlines, with union leaders expressing a lack of confidence in the CEO, Robert Isom. Pundits are piling on, with the groupthink of armchair analysts reflexively comparing American’s stock chart to admittedly impressive peers such as Delta and United, without recognizing their differences as compared to American, which flies the world’s largest number of passengers by far.
As Germany’s revered Konrad Adenauer once said, “We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon.”
Indeed, the recent misleading media narrative completely misses the strategic context. The real facts are that Robert Isom is leading American to new heights despite the potshots of misinformed critics and those with their own motivations. Isom’s leadership is a remarkable model of resilience on all dimensions.
Of course, it is impossible to diminish the excellence of Delta and United’s leadership – on all dimensions. There are no better CEOs in the nation than in the airline industry – in operational, financial, strategic domains and their individual characters are sterling. But a superficial comparison between Delta, United, and American across certain headline metrics can be deceiving.
Let’s start with the number everyone loves to cite: American earned $111 million in 2025, while Delta generated $5 billion and United $3.4 billion in pure profits – with United and Delta’s stock outperforming American’s over the last few years. Case closed, right? Not remotely, and for several reasons.
First, of note, American has not produced an annual loss during Isom’s time as CEO. Not even during his first year on the job in 2022, when the pandemic was still having a dramatic impact on the industry and American lost nearly $2 billion in the first quarter of the year. As it relates to 2025, the superficial comparison to peers ignores the most important structural reality in the airline industry today: United currently enjoys a $1 billion-plus annual cost advantage over American because its non-pilot labor groups — flight attendants, mechanics, fleet service workers, and customer service employees — are operating under contracts that dramatically lag market rates. American has contracts in place with all of those groups and its flight attendants are paid roughly 35% more than United’s. Pilots are at parity with identical profit-sharing provisions. When United’s contracts inevitably reset to market — and they will — a massive portion of that margin gap will evaporate overnight.
In other words, Isom has chosen to invest in his people. American has more than 130,000 employees, some 87% of whom are unionized, which is nearly 15x the private sector average for unionized workers in the United States. American has more unionized employees than any airline in the world. Isom paid them fairly, ahead of the competition, because it was the right thing to do. The unions now attacking him represent the best-compensated workforce in the industry. The irony would be amusing if it weren’t so consequential.
We’ve heard grumblings from some that the “no confidence” vote from the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), as well as grumbling from the Allied Pilots Association, reflects inter-union political dynamics. In one case, a rival faction competing for representation rights through posturing and pandering — more than genuine employee dissatisfaction with Isom, who is anecdotally beloved by his employees. Contract ratification votes tell the real story: 87% approval from flight attendants, over 90% from mechanics. His “No Jerks” leadership philosophy is not corporate branding — it is a lived culture that his workforce recognizes even when their union leaders find it expedient to claim otherwise.
Second, that comparison to peers misses the fact that American has the strongest network in the U.S. While United and Delta serve a higher mix of international travelers, American offers the most access to air travel in the country while still offering a fantastic product and experience for international, business, and premium flyers. American will also benefit from its new partnership with Citi, which is on track to bring in $10 billion-plus annually by the end of the decade, a partnership that will put American in a very competitive position with its peers at Delta (American Express) and United (Chase) as it continues to pursue higher-margin growth markets.
Third, that comparison to peers ignores the fact that Isom has had to navigate unique idiosyncratic headwinds that no CEO could have prevented and which none of American’s competitors had to deal with.
American operates the largest fleet in the world and is one of the largest customers of Boeing equipment. When Boeing’s well-documented production and delivery crises cascaded through the industry, no carrier absorbed more disruption than American because of its fleet order book and the timing of aircraft deliveries. Isom deserves credit for trying to mitigate a terrible supply chain and OEM situation as best he could, by optimizing the flight schedule to account for vast equipment shortages and disruptions.
Then there is the weather. Winter Storm Fern in January 2026 was the largest weather-related operational disruption in American’s 100-year history — over 9,000 flights canceled in four days, with an estimated $150 million–$200 million revenue impact. Fern simultaneously paralyzed both DFW and Charlotte, American’s two largest hubs, with ice and freezing rain. In contrast, Delta and United’s primary hubs in Atlanta and O’Hare were barely grazed. Winter Storm Gianna similarly disproportionately hit American’s eastern hubs a few days later.
In early 2025, Isom also had to navigate the tragedy of Flight 5342 — the devastating midair collision at Reagan National caused by a wayward military helicopter, through no fault of American’s. Isom’s response was universally praised: immediate, compassionate, and accountable. He was on the ground at DCA within hours. The lingering DCA flight restrictions that followed have imposed ongoing revenue and operational consequences unique to American, but there are times when a CEO has to prioritize more than just exclusively the bottom line, and Isom deserves credit for navigating through this tragedy showing that doing well is not antithetical to doing good.
Beyond the Boeing crisis and domestic revenue exposure, historic weather targeting American’s key hubs, the Flight 5342 tragedy, and a structural labor cost disadvantage that is actually a virtue disguised as a weakness, there was also of course the post-“Liberation Day” three-month consumer spending collapse that disproportionately hit domestic leisure demand for air travel. This is the full context for why, despite the slings and arrows of critics, Isom deserves credit for navigating a uniquely challenging situation with aplomb.
All the while, consider the positive accomplishments for which Isom receives little to no credit. Isom has paid down debt well ahead of schedule, deleveraging the balance sheet to the tune of $17 billion since mid-2021, a pace that would have seemed improbable a few years ago when many creditors believed American’s bankruptcy might be imminent. He ordered 260 new aircraft in 2024, the second-largest fleet investment in American’s history, with options for 193 more. He is also rolling out free high-speed satellite Wi-Fi across the entire fleet, including regional jets — which means American has free high-speed Wi-Fi on more aircraft than any other carrier in the U.S.
He has introduced new technology that lets passengers instantly self-rebook disrupted flights, an innovation that no other major carrier has deployed at scale. He expanded biometric screening, deployed next-generation kiosks, and built a connection-risk prediction tool operating across seven hubs that flags at-risk passengers and recommends departure holds in real time. American reached its 1,000th mainline aircraft milestone in August 2025, giving it not only the largest but also the youngest fleet among U.S. network carriers. And he placed the largest-ever conditional order for hydrogen-electric engines in aviation history, positioning American at the frontier of zero-emission flight. He also has expertise in partnerships – growing relationships with key international partners, expanding the oneworld alliance, and pursuing a creative partnership with JetBlue that was working well before it was struck down because of the regulatory environment at the time.
Importantly, he has also taken on a leadership role in advocating for reforming air traffic control in the U.S. and working across government and industry to make the aviation system even safer. And he is the driving force behind billions of dollars of investments at major hub airports in the U.S., including the new regional concourse at Reagan National and a critical $5 billion project to expand and upgrade Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. And sellside equity analysts across Wall Street remain overwhelmingly positive.
These unheralded accomplishments reflect why Robert Isom was picked as the successor to his legendary predecessor, Doug Parker, in the first place. The architect of the modern U.S. airline industry, Parker navigated mergers and restructurings to build American Airlines into the world’s largest airline, working alongside flight attendants and pilots in rescuing the industry through challenges ranging from 9/11, to the Great Recession to the COVID pandemic. The seamless succession from Parker to Isom reflected a textbook leadership handoff, with Isom building on Parker’s successes in playing to American’s strengths – even if those strengths are sometimes underappreciated by business media.
The aviation industry is just one to two generations away from flamboyant founders like Juan Trippe, Eddie Rickenbacker, Lamar Muse, Herb Kelleher, Ed Beauvais, and their charismatic disciples Bob Crandall, Ed Colodny, Al Casey, Frank Borman, Frank Lorenzo, and Gordon Bethune. Isom, like his predecessor Doug Parker, is not a showman like the flyboys of past generations. In this era of CEO-as-celebrities, some analysts don’t puzzle out the story beneath the surface. Unlike others, Isom does not court glory for himself while delegating the heavy lifting. Rather, he rolls up his sleeves and takes challenges head on, rallying leaders and frontline teams with a focus on getting work done instead of seeking adulation and attention. The underlying facts tell a remarkable story of how Isom is leading American brilliantly and boldly.
Pan Am’s Juan Trippe was the CEO who transported nautical language like “boarding, captain, first officer, cabin, galley, port/starboard, deck, autopilot, and logbook” to air travel. Isom reminds us of one more maritime expression pundits need to consider, that is he is the epitome of “still waters run deep.”
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
https://fortune.com/img-assets/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/GettyImages-2250480274-e1771182963837.jpg?resize=1200,600
https://fortune.com/2026/02/16/american-airlines-ceo-robert-isom-misunderstood/
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Steven Tian
