It's his job to keep American's planes running on time

abcnews.go.com:

It's the job of American Airlines' chief operating officer to make sure the carrier's flights take off on time and fly safely during one of the busiest travel periods of the year

FORT WORTH, Texas — David Seymour's job over the next few weeks is making sure that American Airlines flights take off on time and fly safely during one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

Seymour is American's chief operating officer, which means he oversees flight and airport operations for a carrier that figures to make about 6,500 flights a day between now and New Year's Day.

A West Point graduate and former U.S. Army infantry officer, Seymour joined America West Airlines in 1999. America West became US Airways, then merged with American in 2013. Seymour has held a variety of operations-related jobs and was promoted to his current post in 2020.

Seymour spoke with The Associated Press recently about managing huge passenger numbers during the holidays and preventing people from getting on a plane before their boarding group is called. The answers have been edited for length and clarity.

A: There are many thousands of people running the airline every day. My job, honestly, over this period isn’t so much about managing the chaos, it's managing really all the challenges, and we'll call it the headwinds that come our way. And I would say the vast majority of those are the uncontrollable.

A: What’s going on the (air-traffic control) system around us. If there weren't weather that we have to deal with and other complications that sometimes arise, running an airline would be pretty easy.

A: Before the pandemic, we would have a big storm in the DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth) area or the Charlotte (North Carolina) area, and it would take us a couple