Major U.S. airlines were wracked by Winter Storm Fern over the weekend, causing thousands of cancellations as snow, ice, and freezing temperatures immobilized airports across the eastern half of the country. By Wednesday, most carriers were back on track and flying on time.
And then there's American Airlines, which isn't just on the brink of a full-blown meltdown – it's underway.
On Tuesday, American canceled nearly 1,400 flights – more than the rest of the entire U.S. airline industry combined, according to FlightAware data. And Wednesday may not be much better: The airline had scrapped more than 460 flights by midday… plus hundreds more when counting regional partner carriers and another 500-plus delays.
All told, American has canceled roughly 10,000 flights and counting since last weekend. That's nearing Southwest's historic meltdown from Christmas 2022.
And it's no sure thing that the disruptions will end anytime soon. While discussing the airline's lackluster 2025 profits with investors on Tuesday, CEO Robert Isom said the airline expects “at least two more days of elevated cancellations before returning to normal operations later this week.”
“The impact of the storm is as significant as we've ever seen at American,” Isom said, adding later that it was “the largest weather-related operational disruption in our history.”
To be fair, the winter storms last weekend hit American Airlines harder than most. Near-blizzard conditions struck several of its biggest hubs, including Philadelphia (PHL), Charlotte (CLT), and especially its Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) megahub, which was practically frozen over for days.
But this goes beyond bad weather now.
Day after day of hundreds (if not thousands) of delays and cancellations leave planes and crews alike in the wrong place, unable to catch up and get the next flights out on schedule. And American is scrambling to rightsize its operations, with reports of pilots struggling to pick up shifts and cabin crew sleeping in airports. American is offering exorbitant overtime pay to get things back on track, according to ABC News.
It's a real-time snowball effect, and American is clearly struggling to reset.
Combined with the carrier's years-long struggle to catch up to Delta and United, American Airlines' flight attendants' union hit a breaking point. In an open letter published Tuesday, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants called for Isom, American's CEO, to go.
“This is no longer an anomaly, but rather a pattern of failure under the leadership of CEO Robert Isom and the American Airlines Board of Directors,” the letter reads. “American’s workforce is not the problem. Leadership is.”
Bottom Line
American Airlines is in the midst of a meltdown, canceling 10,000 flights since the weekend and counting. And while its CEO says the carrier could be back on track within the next day or two, that's no sure thing.
