American CEO Tells Employees His Deal Strategy: United No, Alaska Yes, Spirit Assets Maybe

At the quarterly internal ‘State of the Airline’ employee meeting held right after their earnings call on Thursday (a recording of which was reviewed by View From The Wing), American CEO Robert Isom addressed potential mergers with United Airlines, Alaska Airlines and Spirit.

• Merging with United is a non-starter. It would never be allowed, and it’s so anticompetitive consumers would lose.
• They’re looking to deepen their partnership with Alaska.
• They’re not buying Spirit, they are just too incompatible. But they will help stranded passengers if Spirit folds.

Isom addressed these as a “few elephants in the room.” They’re the kind of things employees talk about at the water cooler, like they were earlier in the year speculating that Isom would be fired by the board after poor 2025 financial performance and an operational meltdown at the airline that had flight attendants sleeping in airports (and senior executives disagreeing with each other whether it happened, and whether it was okay). So it was important for Isom to address head-on:

Isom attacked United’s efforts to acquire them as a “distraction” meant to make American less competitive:

You might have read that there was some news about one of our competitors wanting to merge with us. I think it is tied to one of our competitors and what they were interested in doing in Chicago. We all know the motivation in Chicago: to try to run us out of town. They were very vocal about it.

Fortunately, from a Chicago perspective, I believe we are in a really good position. Nat will talk more about this, but nobody is going to run us out of town. We are going to be able to fly our schedule. I think this idea of merging is probably the same thing: create a distraction and knock American off its game a little bit.

He said that there’s no way American Airlines and United would be allowed to merger, and this would be bad for customers and “for the industry and bad for us.”

But the idea of the world’s two largest airlines getting together and merging is going to be viewed by everybody as anti-competitive. It is not going to be viewed as good for customers. Ultimately, that is bad for the industry and bad for us. What you need to know about the idea of merging with United is that it is a nonstarter. It is not going to happen, and there is absolutely no support for it. We are focused on our business.

Alaska, though, is a “fantastic partner.” The airline reportedly explored a merger with Alaska but has been focusing on a revenue-sharing joint venture. Isom said that working with Alaska is “very positive for our customers and our companies.” Comments like that suggest a confidence that something will come to fruition.

The second item that has come up is the nature of our relationship with Alaska Airlines. I will reiterate what I have said: Alaska has been a fantastic partner. You need partners in this world to do things you cannot do alone and to provide more customer benefit together. We have had a long relationship. I was part of the discussions with Ben Minicucci from Alaska to bring Alaska into the oneworld partnership. We established the West Coast International Alliance. That has been very positive for our customers and our companies. We are always looking at ways to expand relationships and do more. That will continue.

On the other hand Spirit Airlines isn’t something they would buy outright – “We are a global premium airline; Spirit is an ultra-low-cost airline.” That’s just not a fit (Spirit loses too much money, their assets in New York aren’t worth enough to American, and they’d never be allowed to buy Spirit’s Fort Lauderdale hub given their own dominance in Miami).

The last point is that there has been some discussion about Spirit. It is a tough business right now. It is very hard in the airline business when oil prices have run up, and even harder when you are in bankruptcy and oil prices have run up. I want people to know that our business models are not compatible. We are a global premium airline; Spirit is an ultra-low-cost airline.

American would buy Spirit assets – I broke the news in the fall that they were acquiring two Spirit gates at O’Hare – and they have committed to passenger assistance of some kind if Spirit goes under.

If there were ever an ask for help, of course we would be interested in assets if they were helpful to our system. I have also made it known to the administration that if passengers were ever stranded and needed help, we would be willing to help. Given our hiring needs in the future, if there were ever a need to look at helping employees, we would do that too.

Bottom-line, Robert Isom addressed the airline deal rumors employees were already talking about internally: United, Alaska and Spirit. United is a hard no, Alaska is the partnership American wants to expand, and Spirit is not a fit — though American would consider assets and stranded passengers.

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