American Airlines’ Kimball Stone, who has been a key leader over pilots for six years, is retiring from the company after a 33-year career, the company confirmed Tuesday.
Stone, the company’s senior vice president of flight operations and the integrated operations center, has decided to retire, and his duties are being broken up and delegated to vice president of flight operations Chip Long and another executive to be named later, according to a memo from American Airlines chief operating officer David Seymour.
“For the past several months, Kimball and I have been discussing his desire to step away from American,” said the memo from Seymour. “While there is never an ideal time for this news, we both agreed the time is now — ahead of this summer — and it is clear that the team we have in place is set up very well for success as we move forward.”
In the job, Stone often acted as the liaison between pilots, its 12,700-member pilots union and management for Fort Worth-based American Airlines.
Stone came to American Airlines in 1988 as a pilot after a seven-year career with the U.S. Army. He’s been certified on five Boeing jet types including the 777, 767, 757, 737 and a few defunct classes, such as the Boeing 727 and the McDonnell Douglas MD-80.
He moved into the flight operations lead in 2016 when chief pilot John Hale went back to flying as a pilot.
Before…