AA’s Close to 2025 Could Have Been Worse, but Not by Much

American’s Q4 and 2025 earnings were released this week and the airline skated by with a razor thin profit of $99 million for the year, down from $590 million in 2024. CEO Robert Isom admitted the 4th quarter was especially bad for AA, claiming the government shutdown hit his airline worse than others, which while probably true thanks to the Washington/National hub, feels very Crowdstrike-y in its tone.

Its gross revenue figures were good, setting records for both Q4 ($14 billion) and 2025 ($54.6 billion), but that only tells part of the story. The airline reduced its debt by $2.1 billion during the year, which is something. It predicts Q1 earnings will be up 7-10% over Q1 last year, but that’s before taking into account American’s disastrous operation after last weekend’s winter storm. It says 2026 will be better, but really that’s the only thing you can say after the 2025 AA had, unless your airline’s name rhymes with “schmirit.”

Perhaps the biggest blow to frontline workers from this earnings report comes in the form of this year’s profit-sharing figures. Based on the minimal profit the carrier earned, AA staff will receive just 0.3% of their eligible pay as a profit sharing bonus. For someone who makes $75,000 per year, that comes out to just $225 — before taxes. Don’t spend it all in one place. And whatever you do, don’t ask your friend who works at Delta what their profit-sharing cut was because it’ll just make you mAAd.

American United Takes Direct Aim at United American

One thing we can say about American and United is they make it easy to recycle headlines, as last week’s top story is the same this week, just in reverse.

As the two airlines continue their fight to the death over Chicago, it was United’s turn this week to add to its Chicago/ORD operation by adding five new cities and pushing its daily peak to 750 departures this summer. Of those ~750 daily departures, 20 will come from the five new cities United added this week, all of which will operate 4x daily from ORD:

• Bloomington/Normal (BMI)
• Champaign/Urbana (CMI)
• Kalamazoo (AZO)
• La Crosse (LSE)
• Lansing (LAN)

AA already operates to all five cities from ORD, but only 2x or 3x daily, so United will be ahead on daily frequency (for now). How this will end, nobody knows, but we imagine there will be a lot of crying and red ink. For more on United’s latest move in Chicago and to see the dwindling list of cities AA flies from ORD that UA does not please visit Monday’s post on crankyflier.com.

Southwest Airlines Open Seating (1971-2026)

Southwest Airlines Open Seating policy died Tuesday morning at 4:55 a.m. PT when WN1791 from Honolulu landed in Los Angeles. The cause of death officially was stated as a “response to Customer demand for more options,” but unofficially is known to many as a “cash grab from Elliott Investment Management.”

Open Seating was born on June 18, 1971 when Southwest Airlines began flying a three-city network between Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Open seating policy persevered through several hurdles, including deregulation, the Wright Amendment, airline consolidation, and the launch of international service for Southwest. While it was a divisive policy that not everyone enjoyed, there’s no doubt that it made Southwest unique and provided a differentiator for it in an industry where homogeneity is the favored, safe choice.

Its successor, assigned seats, was forced into service Tuesday morning with two flights serving as the “first” flight including WN3575 from San Juan to Orlando and WN4974 from Manchester to Chicago/Midway.

Open Seating is survived by Amtrak regional service, city bus systems, subways, and some movie theatres. It was preceded in death by bags fly free and flight attendants in hot pants. Its cousin, EarlyBird Check-in also died Tuesday. It was 16. Southwest asks that in lieu of flowers you take your LUV vouchers and throw them in the nearest fountain to never be redeemed.

Breeze Adds Four Cities, 14 Routes

Breeze Airways announced a significant expansion this week, as it adds three new cities to its route map and returns one shuttered destination. The carrier will begin serving Atlantic City, Brownsville, and Nassau this year, while it also returns to San Antonio, an airport it last served in the halcyon days of 2022.

In Atlantic City, Breeze will be the 3rd airline to serve the airport — or 4th if you count AA’s Landline bus service to Philadelphia. It’ll be the 4th carrier in Brownsville, joining American, United, and Mexican carrier Aerus.

From ACY, Breeze will fly 2x weekly to both Charleston and Raleigh/Durham, while Brownsville will operate 2x weekly to Orlando, Nassau will also be 2x weekly but to Tampa, while San Antonio will receive 2x weekly flights to three destinations: Memphis, Pensacola, and Raleigh/Durham.

The entirety of the 14 new flights for Breeze are those above and:

• Columbus: Greenville/Spartanburg
• Fort Lauderdale: Huntsville, Pensacola
• Louisville: Hartford, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh
• Raleigh/Durham: Madison

JetBlue Ends ’25 with a Loss, Southwest a Small Profit

JetBlue and Southwest also posted their Q4 and full-year earnings this week, and despite ending on opposite sides of profitability, both had a better year in ’25 than ’24 with hope for an even better ’26.

JetBlue ended the year with a loss of $602 million, a 24% improvement from its $795 million loss a year ago. Overall revenue took a 2% dip for the carrier to just over $9 billion with operating expenses also improving, at the rate of about 5%. Of greater concern for JetBlue was its underwhelming Q4 for which it cited the same factors as everyone else, led by the government shutdown. But it expects to be in a better spot moving forward, predicting it would breakeven in 2026 while growing capacity between 2.5 and 4.5%.

Meanwhile, Southwest finished $441 million ahead for the year, thanks to a Q4 in which it saw profit jump 24% to $323 million. The carrier predicted a banner 2026, forecasting its profits to quadruple. The carrier expects to earn as much as $4 per share this year, far above the $3.19 analysts expected. Wall Street responded well to the earnings report, as its stock rose nearly 20%, its largest one-day percentage gain since Jimmy Carter was in the White House.

• Air Antilles is entering judicial administration.
• Air Canada is adding Quito to its route map from both Montréal and Toronto while also beefing up its service to Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, and Lima.
• Air Montenegro now has a codeshare agreement with Turkish.
• Air Sierra Leone is adding a 1x weekly flight next month between Banjul in The Gambia and London/Gatwick.
• airBaltic might be for sale soon.
• American is planning to resume service to Venezuela. We’re hoping it’s 8x daily service from Chicago/ORD.
• Breeze is adding two Learjets, but not to fly passengers.
• Delta is committing $250 million to improving the airport in Austin.
• Emirates doesn’t want Allegiant to be the only airline to open a resort this century. We’ll see if this one lasts longer.
• Etihad‘s newest destination will be Calgary which will allow the airline to set some kind of record for largest change in temperature from origin to destination.
• Korean Air and its Hanjin Group airlines have banned in-flight use of power banks.
• LAM is more than $90 million in debt.
• Lufthansa Cargo is adding new routes.
• Porter added three: Toronto/YTZ to Nashville, Toronto/YYZ and Montréal to Boston.
• SAS is providing BRA with much needed support through a $5.6 million loan.
• Starlux will debut its A350-1000 next month.
• t’way air is still p’reparing for an IPO in 2027.
• Wizz Air plans to retire its A321ceo fleet by the start of 2029.

I started my new job at the broth factory yesterday. It came with great stock options.