American Airlines spent roughly a dozen years making nearly every wrong decision a big airline could make: ripping seatback screens out of planes, skimping on premium seating, and letting its loyalty programme lose value. Now, according to longtime industry observer View from the Wing, it's scrambling to undo the damage — and doing a surprisingly decent job of it. The question is whether investors will let the turnaround play out.
The catch-up list is long. American has committed to restoring seatback entertainment screens (from 2028), adding more premium seats, improving food for sale in coach, upgrading its Flagship lounges, and even swapping its coffee to Lavazza. The writer's verdict: the product is no longer a reason to avoid American. But parity isn't the same as a reason to choose it.
Look at what its rivals actually compete on. Delta built its reputation on reliability, consistent seatback screens and employees who seemed genuinely proud of the brand — helped by heavy internal marketing and memorable touches like the red dress uniform. United, the most-improved US carrier of the past decade, has three standout hooks: Starlink Wi-Fi that genuinely outperforms home internet, arguably the best airline mobile app in the world, and an adventurous route network — the Honolulu-to-Guam island hopper, Newark to Nuuk in Greenland, Narita to Ulaanbaatar, plus fringe-of-Europe routes to Madeira, the Azores and Santiago de Compostela.
American, by contrast, has no clear differentiator yet. Its main claim, the AAdvantage programme, has actually weakened: partners like Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Qatar, British Airways, Finnair and Etihad now reserve their best award seats for their own members, so American miles buy less than they used to. And unlike Delta and United, the airline hasn't told its story — no strong brand advertising, no rallying of its own staff.
The financial backdrop makes all this urgent. American entered the pandemic heavily indebted after spending over $12 billion on stock buybacks, its revenue has lagged rivals, and fuel prices elevated by the Middle East conflict plus recession risk mean Wall Street's patience could run out before customer habits change. The writer's analogy: like the all-business-class startups that flew the US–London route and failed, being as good as the incumbents isn't enough — you need a reason travellers pick you even 1% of the time.
For passengers, the practical takeaway is simple: American is no longer the airline to reflexively avoid, and its improvements should accelerate. But Delta and United still have the clearer stories — whether that's United's connectivity and far-flung network or Delta's dependability — and that's still shaping where loyalty (and corporate contracts) land.
