American Airlines Rebounds From Fern, But Deep Scars Remain

Unlucky American Airlines seemed on Thursday to have finally recovered from Winter Storm Fern, which CEO Robert Isom has said was “as significant as we’ve ever seen at American.” Before the airlines’ Tuesday morning earnings call, Isom told CNBC “It’s a skating rink at DFW,” the carrier’s largest hub. With both Charlotte and Dallas, its two largest hubs, in Fern’s bullseye, American could barely move its crews, let alone its passengers.

Isom promised recovery within a few days. It came today, but not before hundreds of social media posts by angry passengers stuck in airports, intense frustration by pilots and flight attendants who could not get to airplanes because of non-functioning scheduling systems, and calls for Isom to resign by two American labor unions.

Both the Association of Professional Flight Attendants and the International Association of Machinists posted a letter that said Isom should step down.

Meanwhile, in a letter to pilots on Wednesday afternoon, three top officers of the Allied Pilots Association, led by President Nick Silva, wrote that “The storm this weekend was not unexpected. Unfortunately, neither was the resulting chaos in our operation. Severe winter weather is a known operational challenge, and preparation and staffing are management responsibilities.

The pilot leaders cited recovery problems including ‘multi-hour hold times with crew scheduling and crew tracking” that led to no resolution; two-hour waits to reach operations control pilots “who lacked the authority to resolve the problem at hand;” Six-hour delays between requesting a hotel and having someone even assigned to review the request, and “thousands of phone calls to APA volunteers from pilots “who were lost in the system, unable to reach crew scheduling or crew tracking.

“This is not solely about one weekend,” the pilots wrote. “It reflects an operation built to lag our peers even in ideal conditions — one that continues to prioritize short-term cost savings versus the investment required to function effectively when pressure is applied.”

As for other unions’ demands that Isom step down, APA spokesman Dennis Tajer said, “We understand and respect those stands. We’re interested in finding the path that brings AA back not just to recovery and survival but to success and outperforming competitors. Our leadership is analyzing what our steps should be. The time for excuses is over.”

The letter posted by APFA and the IAM (which along with TWU represents mechanics and fleet service workers) concluded with these sentences: “Employees, passengers, and investors can no longer wait for CEO Robert Isom and the American Airlines board of directors to deliver on their promises. As the industry moves forward and leaves American behind, it is time for new leadership and a new vision for American Airlines.”

That letter, posted Tuesday, cited disappointing earnings, adding, “While we are pleased that American achieved a small profit, the airline continues to lag its competitors by a significant margin. This is no longer an anomaly, but a clear and continuing pattern under the leadership of CEO Robert Isom and the American Airlines board of directors.”

The letter noted that Delta had $5 billion in pre-tax profit, while American and $352 million.

Veteran travel blogger Joe Brancatelli wrote late Wednesday that Fern caused about 23,300 cancellations, including about 10,000 by American. “Every travel crisis has an epically bad performer and this one’s villain is American Airlines,” he said. “The carrier has basically collapsed due to bad luck (AA has hubs in Dallas, Charlotte, Washington and Philadelphia) and its own penny-pinching ways.”

American “lost control of its crew scheduling,” Brancatelli wrote. “That has forced it to cancel flights even when crews and aircraft were available and the weather was good.”

Winter Storm Fern seemed uniquely targeted to obstruct American: Among the major U.S. hubs, Dallas and Charlotte were hit the hardest. With the two hubs down, American couldn’t get crews to other airports, especially when its scheduling systems failed. Many crews timed out or were stranded in the wrong places.

Tajer cited a few incidents where pilots were about to “deadhead” on airplanes that had passengers but no crews. Those pilots offered to operate the aircraft, but crew schedulers said they were unable to alter American’s software systems to allow for different pilots. He added that flight attendants were experiencing that same situation and frustration.

In a letter to American employees on Wednesday night, David Seymour, American chief operating officer, wrote that Fern was “the most disruptive weather-related event in our airline’s history.”

He laid out the bad weather on three disastrous days at Dallas, where “the type of precipitation (sleet, freezing rain and ice pellets) and duration of weather made for extremely difficult operating conditions.” On Saturday, “there were cumulatively more than nine hours in which aircraft could not legally and safely depart due to the type of precipitation that was falling.”

Then, on Sunday, “For a good part of the operating day, the capacity of DFW Airport was reduced to nearly one quarter of a normal operating day due to staffing and field condition challenges.”

And on Monday, Dallas “was still challenged with difficult ramp conditions, gate congestion and road conditions that made it challenging for team members to make it into work. Given its size and importance to our DFW operation, any major impact to it has a ripple effect throughout our network.

“To our customers, know you have our sincere gratitude for your patience and understanding as we’ve managed through the storm’s impacts,” Seymour wrote. “And to the AATeam, thank you for working around the clock, braving the elements to operate flights and working overtime to ensure ramp areas were clear of ice and snow and that our aircraft are ready to go.”