American CEO Parker becomes latest airline chief to exit

By DAVID KOENIG
AP Airlines Writer

DALLAS (AP) — American Airlines CEO Doug Parker will retire next March and be replaced by the airline’s current president, Robert Isom. American said Tuesday that Parker will remain chairman. Isom had been the heir apparent for several years at the airline, which is based in Fort Worth, Texas. Parker has spent two decades as an airline CEO since becoming the head of America West Airlines just days before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. In 2005, Parker engineered a merger with larger US Airways, and he repeated the same strategy in December 2013 with American, which was just emerging from bankruptcy protection.