How American Airlines is reacting to ‘uncertainty’ over economy, including jobs
American Airlines withdrew its 2025 earnings forecast on Thursday, citing growing economic uncertainty.
Government business has dropped significantly and demand for main cabin seats on domestic flights is “weak,” executives of the Fort Worth-based airline said during the company’s quarterly earnings call. Major carriers are facing multiple challenges including federal government cuts on spending, declining consumer confidence and market turmoil.
“You go into the first quarter, January kind of came in where we anticipated, February looked kind of solid, but really March and then continued into April changed considerably,” American Airlines’ CEO Robert Isom said on Thursday’s call.
Isom said American is in “great shape” to weather shifting economic headwinds. Business travel and premium seat sales remain solid. The carrier is also seeing strong bookings for international travel through the end of the summer.
American Airlines is one of the region’s largest employers, with about 35,000 workers in the Metroplex. The carrier, which has a major presence at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, is now taking a cautious approach to growth.
“It means that we don’t hire as much. It means that we don’t bring on as many planes, potentially. It means, you know, a reduction in overall economic activity,” Isom said.
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American’s revenue was $12.6 billion for the first quarter of 2025, up slightly from the first quarter of 2024. The company reported a net loss of $473 million for the first quarter of this year.
“Uncertainty is what we’re living with now,” Isom said. “It is something I know that the country wants to move beyond, and I know that everybody is working to that end.”
Dallas-based Southwest Airlines pulled its full year earning forecasts for 2025 and 2026 on Wednesday, also because of economic uncertainty.
Headquartered at Dallas’s Love Field, Southwest began reducing 15% of its corporate workforce on Tuesday, the first layoffs in Southwest’s history.
Delta Air Lines and Frontier withdrew their full year earnings forecasts earlier this month, while United Airlines released two forecasts, saying the economy is “impossible to predict.”
Southwest, Delta and United plan to reduce their domestic flight schedules in the second half of the year.
This story was originally published April 24, 2025 at 1:10 PM.
