The skies for American Airlines are clearer than you think

Dramatic headlines across business publications declare that there is a “civil war” within American Airlines, with union leaders expressing a lack of confidence in the CEO, Robert Isom. Pundits are piling on, with the groupthink of armchair analysts reflexively comparing American’s stock chart to admittedly impressive peers such as Delta and United, without recognizing their differences as compared to American, which flies the world’s largest number of passengers by far.

As Germany’s revered Konrad Adenauer once said...