American CEO Robert Isom’s Turnaround Plan Is To Keep Doing More Of The Same

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom is under a lot of scrutiny right now. American’s 2025 financial results paled in comparison to the results of Delta and United, and many employee work groups received 0.3% profit sharing, given the lack of profits to share.

American’s flight attendant union has issued a vote of no confidence in Isom, the first time in history that the union has done such a thing. Meanwhile American’s pilot union has also called on “decisive action” from management, demanding to speak with the board.

Given all the pressure, Isom has just issued a direct message to employees, laying out his vision for the company, and how things will improve… but it doesn’t seem like there’s all that much to it?

Robert Isom lays out plans to improve profitability

JonNYC shares how Robert Isom has recorded a video message for employees, regarding plans to improve financial and operational performance in 2026. We only have a transcript of the audio, but one person opines that “he sounds kind of nervous and not very confident,” and “the speech is kind of milquetoast as well.”

Here’s the message, with some possible transcription errors:

Good afternoon, everyone. Given all that’s going on with our airline right now, I wanted to share more about where we’re heading in 2026. Last year was a tough year, no doubt about it. And I know some of you are still recovering from the winter storms just a couple of weeks ago.

As we look forward to 2026, it’s with a lot of excitement and confidence. I know we’re going to do better financially and operationally. We have a plan to be solidly profitable this year, which will mean good things for our customers, our shareholders, and all of you, especially in regard to future profit sharing to go along with our industry-leading contracts. We will reclaim American’s reputation as the world’s premium global airline. And we shared how we’ll do that with our 6,000 frontline leaders last week at our Journey Leadership Conference.

It’s a strategy that our board is behind, and our senior leadership team is committed to and accountable for. And we look forward to working with all of you to make it happen. Thanks to your efforts, we’ve laid the foundation for all of this over the last few years. And in 2026, these efforts will produce meaningful results. Here’s what we’re doing.

First, we’ll continue to improve the customer experience. We’re following through on this commitment with free Wi-Fi, new lounges, better food and beverage offerings, and even more advanced technology to help our customers along their journeys, especially when it comes to recovering from disruptions. On top of this, we’re making significant investment in facilities at several of our hubs, including DFW, Los Angeles, and Miami. Customers are noticing, and their approval is showing up in our net promoter scores. We need to execute on these improvements every day, and we are.

Second, in 2026, we have a plan to maximize the power of our network and our fleet. The US is the most important aviation market in the world, and no one serves it better than American. This year, we’re excited to grow the airline at its fastest rate in years. You’ll see this in Philadelphia, Miami, Phoenix, and of course Chicago, and throughout the rest of the system.

And you’ve heard about some of the new routes that we’ve announced for the summer and beyond. We’ve added thousands of frontline team members over the past few years to support this growth, including more than 7,500 flight attendants and more than 5,000 pilots and thousands of airport and tech ops team members. All of this is great news for our team.

And to further support all this, we’ve taken delivery of hundreds of new aircraft over the past few years, with another 55 expected to join our fleet this year, including the premium Boeing 787-9 and Airbus A321XLR, both of which include our Flagship Suites. We’re also retrofitting hundreds of additional aircraft across our existing widebody and narrowbody fleets. And all of this is the culmination of work that began years ago.

Third, our AAdvantage program, the first and still the largest airline loyalty program, offers tremendous opportunities to strengthen ties with our customers and our partners. We invented airline loyalty, and AAdvantage is the best and most valuable loyalty program in the industry. Our new card partnership with Citi, which started in January, is key to unlocking future growth and revenue, and that’s a big deal.

Finally, we’re doing a much better job of selling our product, and we must do more. We’ve regained our share of corporate revenue, and the next step is to push it even further. We’ve brought on resources and tools to make sure our products are easier and more accessible for customers, and I know that will make all of our products, especially our premium products, more appealing to our customers and ultimately drive more revenue.

Now, we all know that to accomplish these goals and take care of our customers, we need to run a fantastic operation, much better than our customers experienced over the last year. Disruptions are going to happen, and I commit to you that we will do everything possible to make recovery go more smoothly and painlessly for you and for our customers. You’ll notice that we’re rebanking DFW beginning in April to pull down peaks. And in addition, we’ve buffered the system with spare resources, including people and time.

Just know this: we’re committed to setting up our team for success, no matter the conditions they face, to meet the needs of our customers. And that’s why we’re in this business — to care for people on life’s journey. The better we take care of our customers and team, the better off our company will be. To accomplish all this, it’ll take all of us working as one team.

And please know this: I’m always open to meeting with our union partners. And to you, as you know, I always look forward to our interactions, whether it’s at the gate, on the flight deck, in the cabin, in your break rooms, or here at the Skyview campus. Leading American is a privilege and a great responsibility. I’m proud to work with all of you, and I’m more confident than ever in our future and what we’ll accomplish this year. It starts with leadership at the top, with me. And it’ll take all of us focused on our future. And I know we can do it together. Thank you for everything you do.

Isom seems to think the status quo is great, no?

With many American employees frustrated, I can’t imagine that this message will do much to make them feel better about the company’s direction.

If you ask me (well, or virtually anyone following the airline closely), American needs a turnaround with a new vision. One of the key aspects of that needs to be rallying employees and getting them excited, since there’s no denying that American employees just don’t have much faith in the company, and aren’t very motivated. Happy and motivated employees make for happy customers, and I don’t think that generally describes the current state of American.

The issue with Isom’s message is that he’s basically saying “everything is fine, 2025 was just a fluke, and things will magically get better in 2026.” But how, exactly? American’s Chief Customer Officer, Heather Garboden, has talked about how operational reliability is “table stakes” nowadays, and the focus needs to be on premium.

I agree, but I’ll take it a step further. I sort of think that premium is “table stakes” at this point. American has to play a huge amount of catch-up with Delta and United in order to be at all competitive. Free Wi-Fi is great. Investing in lounges is great. Investing in technology is great. But Delta and United are doing that as well, so how exactly are those things going to allow American to “reclaim” its “reputation as the world’s premium global airline?”

Isom says that the board is behind his vision, and that 2026 will be better. But I’m not sure what exactly will make the year better. American will increasingly be going head-to-head against United in Chicago, and that growth is expected to be unprofitable, at least in the near term.

I suppose American does have the new credit card deal with Citi, but is there any other good news that I’m missing, that will actually allow American to make up ground compared to Delta and United, which are also doing all the same things American is doing, but are further along?

The biggest failure with this vision is just that it does nothing to excite employees, and that’s an area where American would find huge upside, if it could get people motivated. The airline offers “industry-leading contracts,” but has little to show for it.

Bottom line

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom has been under major pressure from work groups and investors, given the company’s lack of profits, plus operational issues. While unions have called on a management change, the board seems to be happy with Isom’s performance.

Given the pressure, Isom has issued a message directly to employees, promising that 2026 will be a better year. The issue is that he doesn’t actually lay out much of a vision for why that will be the case, other than things like free Wi-Fi, better lounges, etc.

American’s management team doesn’t seem to realize that they’d achieve the biggest upside if they acknowledged things were kind of broken, and could then get employees onboard with a new plan, so that they’d actually be motivated, rather than frustrated.

What do you make of Isom’s message to employees?