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American Airlines is offering up to 1,205 flight attendants the option of taking September off without pay, as the carrier moves into a fall schedule that begins earlier than in previous years. The unpaid leave offer will target all ten of the airline’s crew bases and amounts to roughly 4% of its flight attendant workforce.
The Voluntary Leave of Absence (VLOA) program opened for bidding on Monday, with American’s 
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) hub seeing the highest number of offers at over 300. The move follows a smaller round of unpaid leave offers for August and comes as American reduces flying in response to higher jet fuel costs.
American Airlines Offers 4% Of Flight Attendants Unpaid Leave In September
As first reported by View From The Wing, September’s leave offering is 36% higher than in the same month in 2025, reflecting the airline’s earlier fall season transition and a cabin crew workforce that has grown faster than the schedule it now plans to fly. Under the flight attendant contract, a VLOA is unpaid and lasts for a single month — leaves are awarded by seniority, first going to lineholders and then to reserves, and crew on leave cannot pick up trips, but do retain other perks of the job, such as non-revenue travel privileges.
DFW received the largest allocation at 309 leaves, followed by Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) with 168 and Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) with 144. Miami International Airport (MIA) then follows with 137 and New York LaGuardia Airport (LGA) with 133, followed by Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) at 119, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) at 58, Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) at 56, Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) at 42 and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) at 39.
Rising jet fuel costs are one of the key reasons behind American’s reduced schedule this fall, trimmed from its original plan with six domestic routes suspended from August to October. The carrier has estimated that its annual fuel bill this year will rise by more than $4 billion, forcing it to make difficult network and staffing decisions.
More Than 2,000 Recent Flight Attendant Hires
American has recruited over 2,000 flight attendants since the beginning of 2026, adding a significant chunk of new employees to its workforce. While the airline still plans to operate more flights in September than it did last year, its flight attendant pool is larger than the airline needs next month.
There were more than 300 unpaid leaves taken for this August, a figure that could quadruple going into the next month. August’s offer was unusual in itself as the first in recent memory to be extended during the peak summer season, and it was also made available at every base rather than a select few.
American has nearly 30,000 flight attendants on its roster, one of the largest of any airline in the world. The carrier currently ranks as the world’s second-largest airline by fleet size behind United Airlines, operating over 1,000 mainline aircraft.
Risk Of Operational Shortcomings
The scale of American’s September schedule will leave it thin with reserve cabin crew compared to its summer resources. Over this summer, the carrier deliberately kept extra flight attendants to offer itself operational slack, but this won’t be the case in September.
With a potential shortage of available cabin crew, the carrier could find itself more susceptible to operational breakdowns during periods of poor weather or other disruptions. September and October fall within the Atlantic hurricane season, which often disrupts operations at Charlotte, Miami and Philadelphia, three of American’s bases receiving among the largest leave allocations.
Having a lack of reserve flight attendants available can have a significant impact on an airline’s reliability, forcing it to delay or cancel flights en masse, which often has a cascading effect across its network.
