Former American Airlines CEO Doug Parker, who led the company through the merger that brought together American Airlines and US Airways to form the world’s largest carrier, is stepping down as the company’s chairman at the end of April, the company said Thursday.
Parker, 61, led the company from 2013 to March 2021, when he handed the reins to Robert Isom, the company’s longtime president and a business partner since they worked together at America West. In all, Parker spent more than two decades as CEO of major U.S. airlines, an unceasingly chaotic role he held through three recessions and an era of consolidation.
Parker then moved into the role of chairman but has not had an executive position at the company since he stepped down as CEO, unlike his counterpart at Southwest Airlines, Gary Kelly, who took an executive chairman role at that airline and remains an active lobbyist and adviser with an office near that of CEO Robert Jordan.
