Maintaining American's operational momentum in September

We've officially closed the books on September, another strong operational month for our airline. Here's a note I shared with our #AATeam earlier today, recapping those results.

Fellow team members,

That’s a wrap on September! With the summer peak behind us, last month gave us a bit more breathing room in our operation. We did an excellent job taking advantage of that, while also continuing our sharp focus on the customer and running a safe and reliable operation. Of course, Mother Nature continued throwing us curve balls, particularly in places like the Northeast, MIA and ORD — and we’re responding and recovering better than ever.

To share a recent example, let’s talk about the flooding that impacted our operation around New York City Sept. 29. Our JFK hub was inundated with nearly 9 inches of rainfall, while the LGA hub recorded nearly 5 inches — all in a relatively short period of time. That storm required us to make some mainline and regional schedule adjustments; 162 flights in total were canceled that day. But thanks to the hard work we did to plan, execute and recover, things were back to normal by the next day — and we even notched a combined zero-cancel day that day to close out September.

Here's a look at how we did last month:

• Minimizing cancellations: Last month was our best-ever September for combined completion factor (CF) at 98.9% and controllable completion factor at 99.9%. Our CF was 0.5 points better than September 2022, and we led our major network competitors. We ended the month with six mainline, seven regional and four combined zero-cancel days.
• Operating on time: We maintained our year-to-date first-place standing in on-time departures, and placed second in that metric for the month.
• Continued focus on bags: Our mishandled bag rate (MBR) in September improved by 4% year-over-year. A shoutout to our DFW team, which had their best September MBR since 2017, with a 26% year-over-year improvement. DFW enplaned an average of nearly 60,000 checked bags per day.

October should finally bring some relief in temperatures for team members based in warmer climates. It’s also another month when we have a good opportunity to deliver on our promise to customers and keep up the strong operational momentum. Before we know it, we’ll be talking about our holiday season rush.

Thank you for all you do — and stay safe!

David Seymour