April 2026 Briefing
Welcome to PilotSeniority Intelligence
My goal is to publish a periodic newsletter (after the monthly bid awards are released) that talks about the key stats, trends, and happenings at AA that pilots need to know. I hope you find it useful. Before I start, let me qualify with the fact that all information presented here comes directly from published PDF bidpacks, 3XP lists, and monthly published bid awards.
The List: 16,636 Pilots and Growing
The mid-April 3XP is live on PilotSeniority. As of the middle of this month, and taking into account hires through April 1, 2026, AA's pilot group stands at 16,636 total — 14,879 active and 1,757 non-bidding. The Captain/FO split is 6,807 to 8,156 (~45/55). DFW remains the largest base at 3,588, followed by MIA (2,565) and CLT (2,020).
650 pilots have been added with a 2026 hire date so far, through April 1. As of today, the AA pilot list has grown by 376 pilots in 2026, a 2.3% growth rate.
Departures: 184 retirements so far in 2026, 604 to go
The heavy retirement wave continues: 184 pilots have hit their mandatory retirement date so far in 2026, and 604 pilots will see their mandatory retirement date between today and the end of the year. Just between the March and April 3XP snapshots: 113 pilots departed the list. Notable among them:
- 77 retirements (age 57+) — DFW led with 19, followed by ORD (12), LAX (11), MIA (10).
- 25 recent new hires left (<1 year on property) — mostly 737 FOs at LAX and MIA, hired Aug-Dec 2025. Average time on property: 165 days.
- 11 others — mid-career pilots, ages 33-53, 1+ year on property.
I've had a few people reach out and ask if the site can predict "early" retirements, and the answer is: not precisely, but we can make assumptions. The data shows that just a handful of pilots age 57 and up left between Jan and April 3XP snapshots without hitting their mandatory age 65 retirement date. Some of these were MDSB, LTD, or MGMT. The takeaway from the data that you won't find surprising: a vast majority of AA pilots wait to retire until age 65.
May Awards: 14,971 Awarded Pilots with the Year's Most Flying Yet
May set the 2026 high with 14,971 pilots awarded lines (including reserve) across 60 bid statuses, covering 47,669 sequences. For context: January had 14,557 pilots and 39,604 sequences. That's an 8,000-sequence jump year-to-date. Operating dates/frequency are up 9.3% Year over Year (YOY) from May 2025, and block hours are up 7.4% YOY. Lineholder average number of sequences is up to 4.75 sequences per lineholder — you likely noticed higher LLCW values for May bidding across all bid statuses.
May Bidpack: Summer is here — and Europe is back!
In May, Widebody activity grew 12% from March, which is to be expected for our summer operation. Of note, May 2026 Widebody operating days are up 8.6% over May 2025, while Widebody block hours are up 7.3% YOY.
The big story is where the widebody flying is going. 2 new (post-COVID) European cities go live, while 4 destinations return to the bidpacks for seasonal flying:
Meanwhile, existing European stations are surging: Athens jumped from 62 to 198 op-days (+219%), Milan from 64 to 174 (+172%), Dublin from 155 to 209. Paris, Venice, and Zurich all grew.
On the other side of the coin: Doha is completely gone (93 to 0 op-days) and Tel Aviv is cut (62 to 0). We know this is mostly due to the ongoing events in the Middle East.
No new Narrowbody destinations in May.
XLR Update
LGA 320 INT has been live the past few months and the A321 XLR is heading across the pond, with a daily EDI departure for a total of 62 operating days in May (same as March and April). These 3-day trips pay 15:45 TL and for now, they are all the exact same shape: 1-0-1, depart JFK around 2000, fly 7 hours to EDI, arrive mid-morning, enjoy a 24-hour layover, and then depart the following morning around 1030L for the daytime ~8 hour flight back. Return mid-afternoon back to JFK. See example below:
Worth noting: every single LGA 320 INT XLR trip to EDI for May (62 operating days) was blocked for IOE, so these are not biddable for regular lineholders yet.
Split Duty Trips — Live in May, DFW 737 and CLT 320
May marks the first month of Split Duty sequences in the narrowbody bidpacks, a new provision under CBA Section 15.R.3. These are 2-day, out-and-back trips with a single leg each way and a 4-hour protected rest at the outstation between flights. They credit 5:15 TL toward PROJ and pay the greater of 7:45 or duty period rig. The company is limited to 3% of narrowbody pairings system-wide.
For May, the company placed 27 split duty sequences across 62 operating days, at just two bases:
CLT 320 (14 sequences, 31 op-days):
ROC, DTW, JAX, BUF, CVG, GRR, PIT, GSP, IND, SDF
DFW 737 (13 sequences, 31 op-days):
MFE, MEM, ELP, AUS, OKC, MSY, XNA, BNA
All trips follow the same shape: depart base in the evening, fly a short leg (1:30-2:00 block), rest at the outstation for 4 hours, then fly the return leg back to base arriving early morning. Block times range from 1:53 to 4:07 per trip.
In the awards, 26 lineholders across the four categories were awarded split duty trips; 90% of the 124 total crew slots. The remaining 12 went to open time. Split duty went across the full seniority range at both bases, not just to senior pilots. It will take a couple months of data before we are able to fully identify the trends on these trips. A few pilots got lines built almost entirely of split duty trips (all on the senior side), while most awarded them got 1-3 mixed into a regular line.
That's all for this month. Fly safe out there!
Erik
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Intelligence is published by pilotseniority.com. Independent of, and not affiliated with, American Airlines or the Allied Pilots Association.