American Airlines CEO Doug Parker is stepping down next year after two decades running airlines and will be succeeded by the carrier’s president, Robert Isom, on March 31, the company announced Tuesday. Parker’s retirement as CEO of the largest US airline is the latest in a wave of leadership changes at the country’s big carriers, and the new executives are tasked with driving their recovery from the Covid pandemic. Southwest CEO Gary Kelly will step down in February, handing the reins to another longtime executive, Bob Jordan, in February. Scott Kirby, who was fired as president of American in 2016, jumped to United Airlines and became that carrier’s CEO in May 2020. Isom, who took Kirby’s job in 2016, has been Parker’s heir apparent since then. Parker, 60, will continue as chairman of American’s board. “It likely would have happened sooner, but the global pandemic — and the devastating impact it had on our industry — delayed those plans,” Parker said in a note to staff Tuesday. Parker’s career as an airline CEO spans 20 years, bookended by two crises: 9/11 and the Covid pandemic. In the latter, Parker helped win $54b in federal aid to cover payroll expenses, with thousands of jobs at risk during the depths of the pandemic. “No other CEO worked as hard, spent as much time with Congress or the administration, or felt the urgency of keeping people connected to our jobs — not once, but three times,” wrote Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, the largest union of cabin crew members, who pushed for the aid package, working closely with airline CEOs, including Parker. “The industry is standing today and able to lift us out of the biggest crisis in aviation history.”<br/>
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Finnair is to open a new US gateway by operating services to Seattle from next year. The airline is to fly from its Helsinki base three-times weekly with the transatlantic route commencing on 1 June. Finnair says it will use Airbus A330s for the Seattle service. The airline’s US network already includes Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Dallas. Finnair will also maintain US services from Stockholm Arlanda, with flights to New York and Los Angeles continuing to run in summer 2022. The airline will use A350-900 twinjets on the Stockholm routes. Finnair will increase the frequency of these services from May next year, operating daily to New York and four-times weekly to Los Angeles.<br/>