American Airlines Strengthens Commitment to Safety With 211 Million Passengers Transported in 2023 and Over 510,000 Hours of Safety Training
Originally published in American Airlines' 2023 Sustainability Report
In 2023, American Airlines proudly transported approximately 211 million passengers to more than 350 destinations around the world. On each journey and throughout our operations, we make safety the foundation of everything we do for our customers and team members.
Operating every flight safely and protecting our people is everyone’s responsibility at American, and we aim to foster a culture where all team members feel empowered to make a difference. We encourage every team member to raise safety concerns so that we can take immediate action — up to and including removing an aircraft from service. Our safety reporting programs encourage all team members and contractors to speak up and report safety hazards, concerns and incidents without fear of retaliation. To support our safety efforts, American’s team members participated in more than 510,000 hours of safety training in 2023.
Safety Governance and Management
An uncompromising commitment to safety, security and continuous improvement is a shared responsibility — from our Board of Directors to frontline team members. Our Chief Executive Officer retains ultimate responsibility and authority for safety culture and performance, while the Board’s Safety Committee has formal oversight responsibilities for safety. The Board receives quarterly updates on key safety performance metrics and multiple detailed reviews throughout the year.
As the airline industry is heavily regulated, we interact on a continual basis with numerous regulators both domestically and internationally. Our primary engagements are with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates civil aviation, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which regulates workplace safety and health. The partnerships we have developed with these authorities allow us to collaborate on key safety- and compliance-related matters.
We have continued to reinforce our transparent rapport with our regulators, which promotes the sharing of information that is critical to safety and compliance. We work closely with our FAA Certificate Management Office and openly share the challenges and successes we experience, resulting in better alignment on safety issues.
Our Safety Management System
Our approach to safety is guided by our Safety Management System (SMS), an organization-wide program for identifying and managing risk.1 In 2009, American was the first U.S. airline to implement an SMS. It has since been incorporated into FAA regulations for all carriers.
1 American’s mainline carrier and regional carriers each have their own SMS. The discussion in this report refers specifically to our mainline SMS.
Our SMS emphasizes safety management as a fundamental business process across the enterprise. It involves a full commitment from the most senior leaders through to each frontline team member to integrate safety into how we do our jobs. The SMS promotes a culture in which our team members can identify, report and manage risks. It encourages robust and repeatable processes with local ownership, driven by data to reduce risks and continuously strengthen safety. We collaborate closely with the FAA to maintain operational safety at the highest level possible and actively share best practices with our industry peers, regulators and aerospace manufacturers. The four components of our SMS are noted below.
Our Safety Management System
- Safety Policy
Establishes senior management’s commitment to continually improve safety; defines the methods, processes and organizational structure needed to meet goals - Safety Assurance
Evaluates the continued effectiveness of implemented risk control strategies; supports the identification of new hazards - Safety Risk Management
Determines the need for, and adequacy of, new or revised risk controls, based on the assessment of acceptable risk - Safety Promotion
Includes training, communication and other actions to create a positive safety culture within all levels of the workforce
Safety Policy
Our corporate Safety Policy applies to all team members, business partners, contractors and consultants. It sets American’s safety objectives and standards and assigns responsibilities for safety across our organization. The policy also conveys management’s commitment to safety performance and to improving the level of safety through measurable goals and key performance indicators. Based on an International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit, we updated the policy in July 2023 to reflect our longstanding commitment to security as well.
The Safety Policy helps to create a culture that encourages effective management of risk along with continuous improvement. It complies with all applicable regulatory requirements and laws in the countries where we operate and establishes standards for operational behavior. In addition, our Safety Policy is routinely communicated to all team members and regularly reviewed to promote a culture of health and safety excellence.
Our Emergency Response Manual, which establishes effective and efficient response practices for various types of emergencies, including natural disasters, is an integral part of our SMS. The manual serves as the governing document for the American Airlines Corporate Emergency Response Plan, which also supports our regional carriers. It includes guidelines to prepare for and respond to emergencies, responsibilities for team members and protocols for communicating with internal and external stakeholders.
Safety Assurance
The Safety Assurance component of our SMS stipulates how we use data and conduct quality assurance and internal oversight to validate the effectiveness of risk controls and the performance of the SMS. Composed of several individual programs and initiatives, Safety Assurance verifies that risk controls in our operational processes continue to conform to requirements and remain effective in maintaining risks at acceptable levels.
American’s Senior Leadership Team, which is led by our CEO and includes our Chief Operating Officer (COO), receives regular updates on team member safety and risks across our system. Our CEO receives these updates at least quarterly, while our COO is briefed monthly at a minimum. We focus on injury reduction, evaluation of trends and development of safety enhancement programs. We also closely track aircraft ground damage and on-the-job injuries, both as a part of our safety culture and in an effort to continuously improve in these areas.
Safety reporting
The overall goal of team member reporting is to improve safety awareness and identify operational deficiencies by facilitating an open line of communication between team members and management without fear of reprisal. Potential safety concerns and suggestions identified through our many safety reporting programs are critical to early identification and mitigation of hazards. These reports also allow the company to proactively address potential risks and implement corrective actions to resolve safety and security issues.
When team members identify any safety-related concern, they are encouraged to report the issue. Once the concern is received, skilled safety investigators collaborate with operational partners to review the information provided, assess the hazard and develop corrective actions to address the issue. Operational and safety leaders review these reports as part of the broader SMS to determine if there are system-related risks developing. We follow up with the reporter to communicate what we learned and what steps we are taking to prevent similar concerns from arising again. This follow-through and prompt action helps encourage additional reporting, thus creating a robust safety reporting life cycle.
Our most prominent safety reporting initiatives include the following: Aviation Safety Action Programs, Ground Safety Action Programs, Flight Operations Quality Assurance, the International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit, Line Operations Safety Audits and the Learning and Improvement Team.
Safety Action Programs
Everyone at American has a role to play in ensuring that our people, customers and assets remain safe. Through Aviation Safety Action Programs (ASAPs), we encourage team members to confidentially report potential hazards and errors without concern of fault or fear of punitive action, thus reinforcing a learning culture and improving our operations along the way.
American was the first airline to create an ASAP, and now such programs are commonplace among airlines worldwide. Currently, we have ASAPs for our Flight, Flight Service, Dispatch, Technical Operations, Central Load Planning and Ground (Fleet Service and Cargo) teams, which we believe gives us significantly greater coverage than the industry average.
In 2023, we recorded 15,374 ASAP reports, a 25% increase over 2022. This increase is a welcome trend, providing evidence that our team members are comfortable raising concerns. This provides us with more opportunities to review and resolve them. In addition, these reports are used to analyze trends and proactively identify potential safety hazards.
Flight Operations Quality Assurance
Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) is a voluntary safety program administered jointly by American and the Allied Pilots Association (APA) that uses routinely recorded flight data to proactively identify and correct deficiencies in flight operations. We routinely monitor all our flights and use algorithms to look for potential safety risks and trends. The results allow us to monitor aircraft systems, performance and operational efficiency and help us to better understand pilot performance in the operating environment.
To enhance FOQA’s effectiveness, American has partnered with Collins Aerospace to retrofit our narrowbody aircraft with a wireless data transfer system that improves the speed with which we can retrieve FOQA data. This initiative helps us increase accuracy in monthly reporting, improve aircraft reliability and prepare for future products and capabilities. At the end of 2023, 81% of our fleet was equipped with this tool, and we expect that American’s entire fleet will be outfitted by the end of 2026.
In 2022, American became the first carrier in the United States to adopt CEFA Aviation Mobile Services, a cloud-based application that allows pilots to recreate their flights on their company tablet. This tool improves on the concept of crew postflight debriefing by providing real-time feedback to our pilots, turning each flight into a learning opportunity and ultimately contributing to the Safety Assurance of our SMS. In March 2024, we expanded the use of this application to make it available to all pilots across our mainline fleet.
International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit
As part of our commitment to transparency and monitoring, we are a registered participant in the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) program, an internationally recognized evaluation system designed to assess an airline’s operational management and control systems. An IOSA, which takes place every two years, creates a structured methodology with standardized checklists that are comparable on a worldwide basis, enabling and maximizing the joint use of audit reports.
In April 2023, we successfully completed our IOSA in conformance with all standards and recommended practices. IATA modified its audit methodology in 2023 to be risk based. As part of our efforts to be an industry leader, American volunteered to be the first U.S. carrier to participate under this new approach.
Line Operations Safety Audits
Since launching our continuous Line Operations Safety Audits (LOSA) program for pilots in 2017, we have been sending highly trained pilot observers onto the flight deck to better understand work-as-done versus work-as-imagined. Observing our frontline team members in action and gathering safety-related data on environmental conditions, operational complexities and crew performance in real time provides us with valuable insights for enhancing safety and resilience. In 2023, our pilot LOSA observers conducted 568 flight deck observations that resulted in improvements in our flight manuals and training.
American has expanded LOSA to other workgroups as well. Using the continuous Dispatch LOSA launched in late 2021, we were able to conduct 180 observations in 2023. American is also the only U.S. carrier to operate a continuous Cabin LOSA program, which we launched in October 2023. This program is helping us better understand the challenges facing our flight attendants and the measures we can take to keep the cabin safe for everyone. We will continue to evaluate the feasibility of bringing LOSA to other operational groups.
Learning and Improvement Team
We created the Learning and Improvement Team (LIT) in 2022 to collect and analyze data on what makes our pilots successful in their everyday work. The goal of LIT is to identify specific behaviors that go above and beyond standard operating procedures and to share these and other positive observations in recurrent training and newcaptain classes.
While similar in some ways to LOSA, LIT is unique. It is a Safety-II initiative that has emerged across multiple industries and focuses on what goes well and why. Doing so provides a new safety lens through which to view the operation. Combining LIT data with other SMS data provides American with a broader picture of the system, rather than looking solely at unwanted outcomes.
Protecting team members from extreme heat
Several of our hubs, such as Phoenix and Dallas, are in locations where temperatures can exceed 100°F during the summer months. That can put team members working on the ramp or in other roles with prolonged exposure at risk of dehydration or heatstroke. Among our current safeguards, we reinforce the message that team members should notify their manager if they need a break. American also maintains hydration carts that circle the ramp during daylight hours as well as fixed hydration stations to support team members working outside. We operate multiple temporary cool zones as well — consisting of a shaded area and water station — on the ramp when temperatures are high. We also encourage team members to take breaks indoors. Seasonal safety communication initiatives aim to make team members more aware of seasonal risks and provide tips on how they can best protect themselves.
Exploring new technologies to enhance safety
American continues to leverage technology to improve our safety processes. For example, our narrowbody fleet has completed the transition from paper aircraft maintenance logbooks to an Electronic Aircraft Maintenance Log (eAML) system. Among its benefits, eAML allows the Technical Operations team members the ground to use their tablets to access an aircraft’s maintenance log before it even reaches the gate. That helps us get aircraft back into the air as quickly as possible.
American is also exploring the use of computer vision, a field of artificial intelligence, to improve safety and efficiency during gate turn operations. The arrival and departure of every flight is a process that involves the convergence of aircraft, pilots, fleet service team members, aviation maintenance technicians and multiple vendors. Computer vision involves the installation of video cameras at key locations at the gate and jet bridge to capture the movements of everyone involved in deplaning and getting an aircraft ready to take off again. Using machine learning, the system can gather valuable data and insights from the captured footage to improve workflow and develop strategies for preventing injuries. We recently completed a pilot project that focused on four gates at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, and the early results have shown promise.
Safety Risk Management
The Safety Risk Management (SRM) element of our SMS provides a decision-making process for identifying hazards and mitigating risk, based on a thorough understanding of our systems and their operating environment. SRM enables us to consider the risks in our operations and reduce them to an acceptable level. We use the SRM process whenever there is a significant change to our operations, such as delivery of a new type of aircraft or the addition of a new airport to our network. We also apply SRM when our Safety Assurance process identifies a new hazard or ineffective control of an existing hazard.
We use several tools to identify hazards and evaluate the need for new or revised risk controls. The process of risk management is the same regardless of the trigger or event, and our SMS looks at multiple factors for risk. While the FAA requirements are geared toward flight safety, our SMS goes further to evaluate a wider range of global risks, including operational disruptions.
Safety Promotion
Safety culture is the foundation of any SMS, with trust at the core. At American, we believe in a Just Culture approach, which encourages each team member to take responsibility and assume accountability for achieving the highest safety standards and results. This approach, which we have championed for more than a decade and which has since become an accepted aviation industry standard, encourages team members to report errors, risky decisions or omissions without fear of punitive actions.
StaySafe and safety engagement
StaySafe is a safety communications campaign implemented across our Airport and Technical Operations teams. It focuses on lessons learned and ways to prevent team member injuries and equipment damage. Bulletins and alerts are available across multiple platforms in order to reach the greatest number of team members affected.
Our safety engagement efforts bring company leadership to the front lines to engage in conversations with team members. Managers can communicate safety expectations, assess risks in the operation and reinforce safe behaviors. Our airport and technical operations teams use a safety engagement application so that any engagements with team members are logged in the system so that we can learn from trends and share best practices.
Recognizing Team Member Contributions to Safety
To showcase the great work our team members do to enhance safety, we launched a Safety Champion program in 2023 that honored 24 individuals. Nominees were selected by other team members based on their efforts to enhance our safety culture, advocate when they have concerns and proactively seek solutions to safety issues. A diverse panel representing workgroups across the company selected the winners, each of whom received a prize equivalent to $1,000 and was recognized at an event with senior leaders. For 2024, up to 40 team members will be selected.
Providing Peer Support for Pilots
Pilots face great responsibilities every time they enter the flight deck, and we continually look for ways to provide them with whatever support they require. Among our longstanding initiatives, Project Wingman offers pilots a safe and confidential place to talk about whatever they may be facing without the pressure to mask or hide sensitive details. American created this program in 2011 through a joint effort with the APA Aeromedical Committee.
Project Wingman’s success is predicated on pilots providing support on a volunteer basis to their fellow aviators in the American pilot community. Nearly 50 American pilots currently participate. In addition to bringing a unique understanding of the challenges their colleagues can face in their professional and personal lives, these volunteers undergo specialized, intensive training. As a result, they are wellpositioned to know when to listen and provide encouragement or recommend other resources if a situation warrants greater intervention.
Awareness of and access to Project Wingman are embedded throughout pilots’ journeys at American. We discuss it on their very first day and review its benefits as a part of their annual training.
Identifying New Opportunities to Enhance Corporate Security
As part of American’s comprehensive global security program, we work closely with law enforcement agencies, regulatory bodies and embassies to protect our team members and customers from potential security risks when they are traveling with us around the world.
Our security team’s efforts are wide-ranging — aimed at enhancing the travel experience for our customers while maintaining a high level of security across the ecosystem. Below are just a few of their activities from 2023:
- Invested significant resources to combat drug smuggling at last-point-of departure stations and strategic hubs
- Deployed a canine unit to detect narcotics at select hub locations
- Received regulatory approval for our industry’s first multimodal (ground to air) transportation network — from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) — meaning American-ticketed passengers boarding a Landline-operated bus in Atlantic City can be screened by TSA and transported directly to a secure gate inside PHL without the need for rescreening
- Conducted annual review of security risks
As part of our commitment to continually improve our approach, American’s Corporate Security team has begun to develop a Security Management System. This multiyear effort should lead to a variety of benefits in a rapidly changing geopolitical climate, including helping us identify the unique risks associated with each of the locations where we operate.
