FORT WORTH, Texas— american airlines This fall it began serving customers Bollinger Champagne in its upscale lounges and cabins. But at headquarters it’s not time to celebrate yet.

American has fallen behind its main rivals. Delta Airlines and united airlines in the post-Covid luxury travel boom that has taken spa vacations in Seoul and 40th birthday parties abroad out of the chat and armed millions of consumers with high-end rewards. credit cards.

In the first nine months of this year, Delta earned $3.8 billion and United $2.3 billion. The American won 12 million dollars. That means American, which offers more flights than any other airline, according to OAG, accounted for just 2% of the profits the three largest US airlines generated so far in 2025.

American ranked last in JD Power’s customer satisfaction ranking of North American airlines this year. The carrier has also been working to undo damage of a failed business travel sales strategy.

And American, which called itself the “on-time machine” in the 1980s, in the first half of this year ranked ninth among 10 airlines in on-time arrivals, according to the Department of Transportation.

The airline is trying to change all that and improve its brand after strategy mistakes, some nervousness about spending and sometimes being late to capitalize on industry trends, such as those of travelers. willingness to pay sit in larger seats, according to current and former executives and industry observers.

For that to happen, CEO Robert Isom will have to rally American’s more than 130,000 employees around the airline’s plans and win over both customers and investors. American shares are down 20% this year through Friday’s close, compared with the modest gains posted by Delta and United.

Last week, however, some investors noted a change within American, whose fourth quarter earnings forecast exceeded the expectations of Wall Street analysts. Shares rose more than 16%, their biggest weekly percentage gain in nearly a year.

“You’re going to have a three-month period where you’re going to have to be very clear on your story,” said Conor Cunningham, an airline analyst at Melius Research, referring to the airline’s leaders.

The biggest changes will take time and money.

“American has been lacking in customer service for a long time,” said Henry Harteveldt, founder of the travel consulting firm Atmosphere Research Group. “I think it’s the beginning of significant change… but a big airline like American is not going to change overnight.”

American has tasked Heather Garboden, who has worked for more than two decades at American and US Airways, including positions in the cargo and finance departments and is now chief customer officer, with the task of leading a major overhaul of the nearly century-old airline.

“Fifteen years ago, I don’t think there was much belief in the industry that customer experience… really drove differentiation among airlines. I think everyone felt it was price and schedule, and that’s it,” he said in an interview. “That has changed and we understand that.”

American lagged behind both retail rates and technology compared to its big American rivals. At Delta, the most profitable American airline, its executives were early to realize how customers paid for more expensive first-class seats, valuable real estate that it and other airlines used to give away to frequent travelers as free upgrades. Now, offering buyouts is more common among all three, and American is looking for more ways to sell those seats and make sure its planes have enough to offer.

A challenge for American has been that it was the last of the big three airlines to complete a megamerger in 2013, when it merged with US Airways, while Delta and United had years of head start to overcome their integrations and improve their products.

Garboden spent much of his career in finance departments and said it’s difficult to give that team the return on investment of something like Champagne, but it’s still important.

“Customer experience is not just about champagne. It’s not just about a good seat. It’s not just about having the best room,” he said. “It’s a holistic vision from start to finish, [how] “We want to feel it.”

Including new planes, American expects its capital spending to total $3.8 billion this year and increase to about $4.5 billion next year, the airline said Thursday. It said it has nearly $37 billion in total debt and plans to reduce it by about $2 billion by 2028.

An example of how things have changed: American’s management team nearly a decade ago decided to remove screens from the seatbacks of its planes, saving money on the equipment (and the fuel-sucking weight it adds to the plane), because at the time they said customers would likely use their own cell phones, tablets or laptops to watch entertainment.

United, part of whose senior management team, including its chief executive, Scott Kirby, came from the United States, has done the opposite and is in the process of adding thousands of screens to narrow-body aircraft, both new and old, including Bluetooth technology for wireless headphones.

American might be changing its tune. “I think about where the technology was a decade ago and where it may be today, or even a few years from now,” Garboden said. “Hopefully the complexity will be less.”

American is working to improve its website and app, with features like a way to toggle between paying for tickets with cash or miles, Garboden said, among other renovations that executives hope will boost sales and paid upgrades. Another goal: use artificial intelligence and allow customers to search for vacation topics, such as “the best wine tasting in spring” instead of searching for flights between cities, he said.

American is also in the midst of an effort to renew many of its premium long-haul cabins and announced Thursday that it will renew its boeing 777-200 aircraft with a new business class, which adds to a improvementfirst introduced three years ago, of its largest Boeing 777-300 aircraft.

“That’s a big deal for us because extending the life of these and putting them into service really gives us a capital spending holiday in terms of fleet replacement,” Isom said on an earnings conference call with analysts Thursday. “So it’s a win-win for our customers, for our company and certainly for our investors.”

Those plans are made years in advance, and high demand, supply chain issues and long wait times for certification have delayed the most luxurious cabins. annoying airline executives.

On Thursday, American’s first Airbus A321 XLR, a long-range narrowbody that plans to fly across the country and eventually to Europe, landed at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. In all three types of aircraft, first class will be dispensed with in favor of a more spacious business class. For flights over the Atlantic, it can cost $600 behind and more than $6,000 up front.

He new suites which feature sliding doors, larger screens and a palette of dark browns, navy and tan, began flying this year on some of American’s Boeing 787 Dreamliners, subassembly P, for “premium.”

Meanwhile, the union representing American attendants is pressuring the airline to add more crew on board to staff the larger business class cabins.

“Equip your aircraft as a world-class airline should, and deliver a competitive inflight experience in every cabin,” the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, the pilots’ union and the airline’s unions said in a message Friday that was sent to staff but addressed to the airline, pointing to the airline’s poor performance compared to its rivals.

American’s updates even make you rethink drinks throughout the plane. The airline recently signed a coffee supply deal with Italy’s Lavazza, and to test the beers, it brought airplane water to its headquarters in Fort Worth so staff could evaluate how it would taste if brewed on board. Lavazza made the cut.

The airline named Thursday Nat Pieper as is commercial directora nearly three-decade airline veteran who worked at Alaska Airlines and Delta and whom Isom described as “exactly the kind of leader we want at American.” American fired its former CCO, Vasu Raja, last year after its business travel strategy failed and sparked outrage from travel agencies.

There are signs of progress.

“By the end of this year, we expect to have fully regained the revenue share we lost from our previous sales and distribution strategy,” Isom said Thursday.

American also just signed a new credit card agreement with Citi and last week it said it would introduce a new mid-tier card, with a $350 annual fee.

American Airlines was an industry leader for decades. It was the first to launch a frequent flyer program, AAdvantage. Loyalty programs, which largely make money by selling frequent flyer miles to banks, have now become the lifeblood of many airlines.

The airline announced new measures this year to improve reliability. One change: five additional minutes of boarding time. A U.S. spokesperson said that helps avoid bottlenecks and last-minute checked bags, which she said are down 25% since May 1.

Some of America’s challenges are quite recent. A federal judge in 2023 blocked The regional alliance of the United States with JetBlue Airwaysleaving it without a partner in rich, key markets like Boston and New York, where United and Delta had made inroads.

United this year got a association with JetBlue allowing customers to earn and burn miles on every other airline, but stops short of coordinating schedules or routes. It took effect Thursday, as American reported its third-quarter results.

American dominates its profitable hubs in Dallas and Charlotte, North Carolina, although it has fallen behind in the Northeast. Other companies have looked towards the sun belt to grow as the population grew.

United and Delta executives have attributed some of their success to having many flights in large coastal hubs with wealthy travelers, although United has also increased its flights in key markets such as Denver, Houston and Chicago.

While American has been reluctant to make big investments, United CEO Kirby told investors earlier this month that the airline is investing more than $1 billion a year to improve the customer experience.

United recently began flying planes with free Wi-Fi provided by SpaceX’s Starlink, following Delta and JetBlue in making the service free. American plans to implement Free Wi-Fi next year for most of its fleet.

United said such investments take years.

“We’ve built generational leadership on this front,” United Chief Commercial Officer Andrew Nocella said in an interview, adding that new products will arrive in the coming years. (He declined to provide details.) “We think it’s substantial, and I don’t want to give up one bit of that ground, no matter what our competitors do to innovate over the next decade.”

Some customers, however, continue to value the convenience that American offers and have remained loyal.

Todd Bryan, 41, who has Executive Platinum status on American, said he chooses the airline largely because it has the most frequencies outside of where he lives, in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

The 41-year-old sales account manager who works in the consumer packaged goods industry said he gets upgrades on most of his flights, but has noticed that American has been more aggressive in offering cash or miles purchases.

Although it’s usually at the top of the list, now consider accepting the offer rather than betting on a free personal ride upgrade if it “feels cheap enough to assume someone else would buy it too.”