Doug Parker, architect of the merger that brought together American Airlines and US Airways to form the world’s largest carrier, will retire from the CEO position at the end of March, the company announced Tuesday morning. He will hand over the job to longtime president Robert Isom
Parker, who has been CEO of Fort Worth-based American Airlines since 2013, leaves a legacy of cobbling together struggling airlines and merging them to become what American is today, leading not only American and US Airways but America West as well.
Parker will stay on as chairman, and Isom will take the CEO job on March 31, a succession plan that has been apparent since at least 2016.
“This transition is the result of a thoughtful and well-planned multiyear process overseen by our board, dating back to Robert’s elevation to president in 2016,” Parker said in a letter to employees Tuesday. “In fact, it likely would have happened sooner, but the global pandemic — and the devastating impact it had on our industry — delayed those plans.”
In an interview with The Dallas Morning News Tuesday, Parker said he didn’t want to step back until the final lingering integration issues dating back to the American Airlines-US Airways merger were solved. That last piece was a contract with mechanics from the two airlines, and the sides ratified a contract in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was turning the air travel industry upside down.
Isom will take over at American just two months after Dallas-based Southwest Airlines transitions into a new leadership team itself, with CEO Gary Kelly retiring on Feb. 1 to make way for executive vice president of corporate services Robert Jordan as the company’s new CEO.
Parker, 60, started his career at American Airlines in 1986 in the finance…