American Airlines Announced A Major Management Shakeup — But The Real Changes Are Hidden In The Fine Print

American Airlines announced a shakeup of its management team on Wednesday. It was framed internally as closing the “meaningful gap” in performance between the airline and its competitors. And nearly all of the coverage that follows frames it that way. And that’s weird, because most of the changes are completely unreleated to the areas where American Airlines has a meaningful gap with competitors. And there’s very little change in those areas that do! But the pieces below the top could matter a lot. Here’s What’s Changing in American Airlines Management There are three major new departures, and four executives being added to American’s senior leadership team. Only one is a new external hire, from Spirit Airlines. The rest of the changes are internal promotions or expanded portfolios. Departures and retirements Nate Gatten, Executive Vice President of American Eagle, corporate real estate and government affairs, actually appears to just be leaving to run government affairs at Apple. That’s a better opportunitiy, and Gatten is universally well-regarded (even if I haven’t liked some of the things he’s advocated for at American). Ron DeFeo, Executive Vice President of communications and marketing and chief communications officer leaves at the end of March 2027 after assisting with the transition. Employee communications falls under his purview, and that’s a gap, but the fundamental challenge with employee communication has been vision and leadership more than comms. Kevin Brickner, Senior Vice President of tech ops, retires after 30 years. Separately, Vice Chair and Chief Strategy Officer Steve Johnson had already announced his retirement for year-end 2026. That’s notable, because it’s another major leadership shift occurring at the same time. Commercial Organization Chief Commercial Officer Nat Pieper adds marketing, brand, advertising and partnerships to his portfolio. American will search for a new marketing leader reporting within Pieper’s organization. Chief Customer Officer Heather Garboden will report solely to Pieper, eliminating her split reporting arrangement with Operations. I suggested a year and a half ago that reporting also to Chief Operating Officer David Seymour could present challenges, while also having to convince CFO Devon May to make investments. Garboden adds reservations, contact centers, service recovery and catering to her portfolio. Her area of responsibility has performed well over the last 21 months. Operations JC Gulbranson joins the senior leadership team but continues to report to COO David Seymour. He adds airports (he was formerly Senior VP of airports) and operations planning to his existing responsibilities for flight operations, inflight and the Integrated Operations Center. American Eagle regional operations, led by Brandon Kahle, moves under Seymour. Former Spirit Chief Operating Officer John Bendoraitis joins American to lead technical operations, succeeding Brickner. Communications, government affairs and employee functions Caroline Clayton who has been Vice President in comms already takes responsibility for corporate communications and joins the senior leadership team. Steve Neuman will report directly to Robert Isom and oversee government affairs, sustainability and the Office of Continued Care and Outreach and joins the senior leadership team. Chief People Officer Cole Brown’s HR organization adds employee recognition and engagement. This is a flag that they see a need to better communicate with employees and try to turn around internal sentiment and motivate staff towards a new focus (on premium customers). The broader Global Engagement organization, which included communications and had reported up to DeFeo, is being dismantled. Components get redistributed to Commercial, People and other operating areas. Finance and Real Estate CFO Devon May adds corporate real estate to his portfolio, picked up from Nate Gatten. Most Of This Doesn’t Do Anything To “Close The Gap” Nate Gatten was clearly poached. He starts August 31 as Apple’s vice president of government affairs, working closely with Tim Cook. It’s a bigger role that will involve greater comp. This isn’t American holding him accountable, nor has his organization failed in any meaningful sense. The news gets packed with other departures, but there’s nothing about it that helps American close a gap with competitors. American then divided Gatten’s responsibilities among their natural homes – government affairs to the existing deputy, corporate real estate goes to the CFO, and American Eagle underneath the COO. That’s basically housekeeping triggered by Gatten leaving. Meanwhile, Global Engagement is being broken up. It included communications, marketing, sponsorships, leadership development, employee recognition, community affairs, events and campus programming. That probably didn’t make sense. It’s also not the reason for American’s underperformance, though employee engagement is something American needs to do better but to do it better they need the CEO to engage more with employees. No communications executive can manufacture employee buy-in for a strategy that Isom isn’t traveling to stations himself selling. Meanwhile, putting marketing, brand and advertising under the commercial organization makes much better sense. Here’s DeFeo’s departure note. There’s No ‘Accountability’ In These Changes The biggest mistakes at American have been at the vision level. Really until the start of last year they were focused primarily on costs rather than revenue, whether ‘never spending a dollar they don’t have to’ or chasing Spirit and Frontier rather than Delta and United. As they’ve pivoted to focus more on revenue, they’ve actually made progress, but the biggest gap remains with frontline employees who actually interact with customers – and the CEO hasn’t been out selling this vision. And the airline’s operations have been mid at best. It’s not just that they haven’t been at the top of on-time performance. They’ve lagged for years in mishandled bags, involuntary denied boardings, and mishandled wheelchairs. But there’s nothing here that holds the Chief Operating Officer accountable for the operation. So it’s a big oversell to frame this, as Isom does in his memo to the company, as addressing “a meaningful gap between where we are today and where we know American can — and should — be.” Where These Changes Actually Matter The operations are being reorganized so that JC Gulbranson gains day to day responsibility beneath Seymour. And with Garboden taking reservations, contact centers and service recovery and reporting only to Pieper, those leave Seymour’s control. Those are both good moves. This quietly reduces Seymour’s direct span and may establish Gulbranson as a potential successor. He’s certainly part of the existing team, that’s not an accountability move, but it was smarter to send him to talk to pilots – who were poised to call for Isom’s head – about American’s failures after Winter Storm Fern. Meanwhile, adding former Spirit COO John Bendoraitis probably helps the operation. Spirit jokes aside, they’d become a reliable carrier! The biggest boost is in commercial. When Garboden became chief customer officer in February 2025, she reported to both Steve Johnson and David Seymour. But when Pieper arrived in November 2025, American said Pieper would co-lead Customer Experience with Seymour. Now she’ll report only to Pieper. That eliminates the weird dual reporting that the customer organization had to operations It puts Pieper and Garboden in control over more of the customer experience And marketing, advertising and brand partnerships goes there too. Coffee, champagne and even free wi-fi along with other customer improvements have involved brand partnerships. So ultimately American used one poaching, two retirements and the dismantling of ‘global engagement’ to do a lot of rationalizing of reporting lines, do internal promotions and give Pieper and Garboden more authority. These seem like good moves, but they’re not anything like the narrative being reported of a shakeup to improve performance. Topics on this page