Last weekend severe winter weather blanketed much of the southern and eastern parts of the United States. This lead to widespread flight cancellations as airports from Texas to Maine were impacted by snow, ice, and freezing rain. With things thawing out and operations returning to normal, one airline is having trouble getting its planes and crew into position.
American Claims ‘Largest Weather-Related Disruption’ in Company History
While winter weather covered a large position of the United States, American Airlines was the most impacted. The airline’s two largest hubs, Dallas Ft. Worth (DFW) and Charlotte (CLT) were both in the path of the storm.
Other hub operations were also affected including in New York and Washington D.C. where we saw complete closures of LaGuardia Airport (LGA) and Ronald Reagan Washing National Airport (DCA) as a result of severe weather.
The issues facing American are most obvious in Dallas, where the carrier operates its largest hub at Dallas Ft. Worth International Airport (DFW). According to data from FlightAware, DFW leads the country in cancellations on Wednesday and topped the list on Tuesday as well.
These cancellations and delays have affected hundreds of thousands of travelers across the country and the company’s frontline staff have been putting in long hours in an effort to re-accommodate travelers.
With long lines of stranded passengers and limited hotel availability due to the storm, many passengers have been forced to sleep in the airport while they wait for a way out.
American Has Lost Track of Its Crews
At this point, things can’t just be attributed to weather. Like with Delta’s operational meltdown after a Crowdstrike outage in 2024, American seems to have lost track of its crews and is struggling to find staffing for its flights. This is evidenced by the fact that all of the top five and nine of the top ten airports reporting cancellations today are American hubs.
For those that may be thinking the issues aren’t just isolated to American but rather are weather based, Dallas Love Field (DAL), which is located a few miles from DFW, reported one cancellation yesterday and currently has none today at the time of publication.
If American can’t get the operation back on track today, it is likely looking at having to do a hard reset to get things moving again. That would entail shutting down the operation and determining what planes and crews are where, and then rebuilding the schedule in order to get moving.
To add insult to injury on this for all of American’s employees, the carrier reported its 2025 financials and they were abysmal. American leadership delivered the message on Tuesday in the middle of the recovery effort, reporting an 87% decline in profits for 2025.
Those employees that are busting it to try and get things back up and running are set to receive a 0.3% profit share bonus while the carrier’s CEO is scheduled to haul in eight figures. So, if you find your self flying on, or attempting to fly on, American this week, remember that these crews have been through the gauntlet and the end may not be in sight just yet.
Have you traveled, or attempted to travel, with American this week? If so, what was your experience?
Summary
American Airlines is struggling to recover after a winter storm slammed the southern and eastern United States. While other carriers are essentially back to normal, American continues to cancel a large number of flights as it struggles to piece together its operation.
Planes, crews, and passengers have been stranded around the country and the airline may need to “reset” operations in order to get things back on track.