You’ve been waiting for part 2/x of our series at The Air Show podcast on what’s wrong with American… and now it’s here. Today we talk about the brand and product, and it’s not all bad. But also, it’s clearly not all good either. Come and have a listen as I get to serenade my co-hosts once again, this time with the song “Happiness Runs.” If you know why I sang that song, well, you have a good memory. If not, you should listen in to find out.
For many years we’ve heard American talk about how running a good operation is the most important thing it can do, and it’s how it’ll win the day. I don’t believe that personally. I think a good operation is just a basic requirement to play the game, but that’s not the point here. For an airline that has so much strategically invested in running a good operation, you would think it would always make sure that happened. This summer, however, it did not.
American ran a miserable operation this summer with fewer than 70 percent of flights arriving within 14 minutes. I took a look at Anuvu data to see exactly what was going on. This chart tells the tale pretty clearly.
American + Regionals Operations and Arrivals Within 14 Minutes
Data via Anuvu
On June 5, American’s summer schedule went into effect. It remained in place until August 5 with the only real break being on July 4. It can be very clearly seen above that on-time performance dropped dramatically when the operation was increased, and then it returned to better levels in August. That’s not a surprise. Airlines always want to push their operations when demand is highest. But the results aren’t usually this bad.
With July looking to be the depths of the poor operation, I decided to focus on that month to break this down further. July wasn’t great for anyone, but it was certainly worse for American than all but the usual basement-dwellers.
July 2025 Arrivals Within 14 Minutes
Data via Anuvu
As if this wasn’t bad enough, American also finished next to last in completion factor, just barely edging out JetBlue for worst by completing a very low 96.4 percent of flights.
Perhaps more surprising is that Spirit is number one, right? But just remember that Spirit does not have a lot of flights. It is not utilizing its airplanes, so it can run a better operation.
This wasn’t the story of bad weather in one hub or anything like that. Just look:
American July 2025 Arrivals Within 14 Minutes By Hub
Data via Anuvu
Sure, Phoenix and LA did better, but look at the bottom. Yes the Northeast was bad, but so was Chicago. And DFW was awful. You can’t blame weather everywhere… or can you? My understanding from those on the inside is that the weather was a lot worse this summer. Storms at DFW came in unexpectedly and stuck around for longer. Chicago has had its own gate construction and capacity issues. And the Northeast was the Northeast. With less slack in the system, it was harder to recover. The thing is, there are some odd indicators that make you think there’s more to this story.
For example, look at the fleet breakdown.
American July 2025 Arrivals Within 14 Minutes By Aircraft Type
Data via Anuvu
Above you can tell that regionals did not do well, but they sure did better than mainline. When weather is bad, it’s usually the regionals that get hit the hardest, so it’s quite a surprise to see the opposite here.
And in the mainline fleet, it was the B787s that were by far the worst. Widebodies usually do better than narrowbodies. As bad as that looks, it hides the fact that it was the B787-9 that was the worst fleet, not even topping 60 percent — it was at 58.7 percent — while the B787-8 was slightly better.
Remember all those stories about the airline’s newest deliveries having mechanical issues? That could not have helped, but that is a very small subfleet. The B777s look better, but that’s only because the B777-300ERs held up fairly well at 71 percent while the B777-200ER was all the way down at 63 percent. This is more than just a problem with a batch of new B787s.
For its part, American gave me this statement:
We are laser focused on further strengthening our operation for the holidays and next summer — learning from where we fell short and making continued improvements and investments to deliver for our customers. One such improvement we’ve already made was our best-ever baggage handling performance this past summer.
So the lasers are focused on the operation and not pointing at pilots’ eyes, which is a good thing. But as I understand it, American is making adjustments in the new year. It’s increasing block times, and it’s changing bank structures a little to give more breathing room. It’s also rethinking how it serves off-peak days to see if it can use those to help maintenance catch up.
It may not be sitting still, but this isn’t a new story. It feel like Groundhog Day, just the date range and the airline name change. Weather is unquestionably becoming more unpredictable and severe, but American is an airline that has staked its reputation on being reliable. It has to do better than this.
