American Airlines previously reached a new contract agreement with flight attendants in July of 2024, after a long negotiation process beginning in 2019.
FORT WORTH, Texas — The Association of Professional Flight Attendants has issued a no-confidence vote against American Airlines CEO Robert Isom.
The board of directors, which represents American Airlines flight attendants, announced the unanimous vote in a first for the Union’s history against an American Airline’s CEO.
According to the AFPA, American’s management has made decisions resulting in the airline falling significantly behind its competitors.
Last week, the Allied Pilots Association, which represents 16,000 American Airlines pilots, said it may call its own vote of no-confidence in Robert Isom. In a letter sent to the American Airlines board of directors, the union asked for a meeting between the two boards.
The union’s board of directors wants to meet with the American Airlines board to address the airline’s struggle to compete with other airlines.
“These failures have negatively impacted the financial performance of our company and frustrated all stakeholders, including shareholders, for far too long,” the letter reads. “While our premium competitors’ market capitalization has soared, American’s has soured.”
The flight attendants’ union, which represents 28,000 flight attendants, is also demanding accountability from Isom and American, including improved operational support and leadership changes, according to the release.
“Plainly put, I mean, this is about our careers, our livelihoods. It’s our health insurance,” APFA Treasurer Erik Harris told WFAA on Monday. “It’s our pay, how we feed our families. So when we see our company not performing well, we all get concerned.”
In a letter to union members today, the APFA detailed the reasons behind their unanimous no-confidence vote, including post-pandemic performance concerns that went unsolved, executive compensation remains high while management’s financial results deteriorated, a failed corporate sales strategy alienated business customers and contributed to a sharp decline in rankings, and operational challenges abound while Unions call for better management.
“Management’s repeated failures are dragging this airline down and leaving frontline Workers to pay the price, including losing out on meaningful profit sharing at a company that should be thriving,” said Julie Hedrick, President of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants. “When the recent winter storm hamstrung our operations to the point where Flight Attendants were sleeping on airport floors, Robert Isom’s response was that it was just ‘part of our job.’ His tone-deaf leadership shows a complete disregard for the human element and is actively harming both American Airlines and the people who keep it running every day.”
“We see our competitors, blazing ahead of us with innovation, and product offerings, whether it’s premium seats or, customer experience. And we should be,” Harris added. “We’re the largest carrier. We should be leading that as well. We should be leading it.”
Henry H. Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst with the Atmosphere Research Group, said American Airlines used to set the pace other airlines measured themselves by.
“As both as an analyst and as an American Airlines passenger, I’d like to see American return to that level of reliability and quality,” Harteveldt said. “But nothing, absolutely nothing matters more to an improving American right now than improving its on-time performance. That’s job number one.”
The pilots union voiced its displeasure too.
In a lengthy letter last week to the American Airlines Board of Directors, the Allied Pilots Association (APA) wrote “to address the current operational environment, leadership approach, and long-term strategic direction of American Airlines. Our airline is on an underperforming path and has failed to define an identity or a strategy to correct course.”
The union did not issue a no confidence vote as the flight attendants union did. They did, however, ask that APA President Nick Silva be afforded the opportunity to formally present our concerns to the AA Board of Directors.
For a response, American Airlines directed WFAA to comments made by the airline CEO during its investor conference call on Jan. 27.
“I’m excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for American as we begin to see the benefits of our work in 2026,” Isom said in that conference call. “Our strategy to deliver on American’s revenue potential centers on four key areas: delivering a consistent, elevated customer experience, maximizing the power of our network and fleet, building partnerships that deepen loyalty and lifetime value, and continuing to advance our sales, distribution, and revenue management efforts. While this has been a multi-year effort, 2026 will be the year these efforts start to bear fruit. We’re off to a fast start based on the booking trends we’ve observed in January, all-time records for the first three weeks of the year.”
“I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I’m incredibly excited about what lies ahead for American,” Isom said.
American Airlines previously reached a new contract agreement with flight attendants in July of 2024, after a long negotiation process beginning in 2019.