Director, Cabin Operations and Field Support Engineering
Director, Cabin Operations and Field Support Engineering
Posting Start Date:  10/13/26

Location: DFW Headquarters Building 8 (DFW-SV08) 
Cities: Fort Worth - TX
Requisition ID: 88728 

Job Description

Intro

Are you ready to explore a world of possibilities, both at work and during your time off? Join our American Airlines family, and you’ll travel the world, grow your expertise and become the best version of you. As you embark on a new journey, you’ll tackle challenges with flexibility and grace, learning new skills and advancing your career while having the time of your life. Feel free to enrich both your personal and work life and hop on board!

Why you'll love this job

  • Oversees the vision, strategic direction and day-to-day leadership of Cabin Operations and Field Support Engineering.
  • Directs the Cabin Operations and Field Support organizations to improve cabin and IFEC reliability, reduce operational disruptions and provide timely technical support to the operating fleet. Plays a key role in collaboration across Technical Operations, Engineering, Maintenance, Supply Chain and other internal and external partners.

What you'll do

As noted above, this list is intended to reflect the current job but there may be additional essential functions (and certainly non-essential job functions) that are not referenced.  Management will modify the job or require other tasks be performed whenever it is deemed appropriate to do so, observing, of course, any legal obligations including any collective bargaining obligations.

  • Set the strategic direction for Cabin Operations and Field Support Engineering, aligning organizational priorities with company safety, reliability, operational, customer-experience, and financial objectives
  • Lead and develop senior managers, managers, and engineers while building organizational capability, succession readiness, and a strong leadership pipeline.
  • Establish performance expectations and hold leaders accountable for cabin and IFEC reliability, operational responsiveness, repeat discrepancies, deferred maintenance, and systemic issue resolution.
  • Direct the organization’s response to significant cabin, IFEC, and structural issues, ensuring risks are appropriately assessed, escalated, prioritized, and resolved.
  • Govern interiors reliability and field-support strategies across all American Airlines fleet types.Establish operating rhythms, governance processes, and performance measures that provide leadership visibility and drive sustained improvement in reliability, discrepancy aging, response effectiveness, and corrective-action closure.
  • Sponsor cross-functional initiatives that reduce operational disruptions, improve customer experience, and strengthen the reliability and maintainability of cabin products and systems.
  • Ensure operational findings, reliability trends, and lessons learned influence future aircraft designs, retrofit programs, supplier requirements, maintenance strategies, and technical standards.
  • Partner with senior leaders across Technical Operations, Maintenance, Engineering, Supply Chain, Finance, Technology, and Customer Experience to establish priorities and resolve enterprise-level issues.
  • Provide executive oversight for the operational readiness, entry into service, and post-implementation stabilization of cabin modifications and new aircraft systems.
  • Establish strategic relationships with cabin and IFEC equipment suppliers, repair vendors, regulators, and industry organizations, and hold external partners accountable for performance and contractual commitments.
  • Direct the evaluation and adoption of methods, technologies, products, and processes that improve safety, reliability, maintainability, operational performance, and lifecycle cost.
  • Establish governance for policies, procedures, technical guidance, training, and compliance within the areas of responsibility.
  • Develop and manage capital, expense, and headcount plans; allocate resources based on operational risk, strategic priorities, and expected business value.
  • Communicate organizational performance, emerging risks, resource needs, and recommended actions to senior leadership.
  • Foster a culture of safety, caring, collaboration, accountability, innovation, technical excellence, and continuous improvement.
  • Represent American Airlines in senior-level supplier, industry, and regulatory forums, as required.

All you'll need for success

Minimum Qualifications- Education & Prior Job Experience

  • Demonstrates the highest level of ethics and integrity.
  • Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Aviation, a related field of study, or equivalent experience/training.
  • 10 years of airline industry experience.
  • 7 years of leadership experience in an area related to technical operations, engineering, aircraft maintenance, reliability or field support.
  • Experience managing and coaching technical teams and leaders.
  • Experience working and interacting effectively with the FAA.
  • Demonstrated knowledge of American Airlines company policy and the Continuous Airworthiness Maintenance Program (CAMP).
  • Demonstrated knowledge of FAA, OSHA and EPA regulations pertaining to aircraft maintenance, repair, engineering and vendor management.
  • Demonstrated knowledge of aircraft cabin systems, interiors, IFEC, field support, maintenance documentation and troubleshooting processes.
  • Demonstrated knowledge of safety and airworthiness investigation, root-cause analysis, corrective action and aircraft/component reliability analysis.

Skills, Licenses & Certifications

  • Ability to influence others through strong interpersonal, collaboration and negotiation skills.
  • Ability to be an action-oriented and results-driven leader with a natural aptitude for engaging employees across multiple workgroups.
  • Ability to balance immediate operational priorities with long-term reliability improvement and organizational development.
  • Ability to build and facilitate relationships at all levels of the organization, both internally and externally.
  • Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to simplify complex technical and operational topics and interact effectively at all levels.
  • Strong analytical, problem-solving and decision-making skills, including the ability to use performance data to prioritize action.
  • Strong project and change-management skills and the ability to work well under pressure, meet deadlines and maintain the highest regard for safety, quality and compliance.
  •  Believes in and promotes the American Airlines five leadership attributes:
    • Caring – We care about all team members
    • Collaboration – We succeed as a team
    • Development – We build future leaders
    • Results – We drive to be the best
    • Future – We continually challenge the status quo

What you'll get

Feel free to take advantage of all that American Airlines has to offer: 

  • Travel Perks: Ready to explore the world? You, your family and your friends can reach 365 destinations on more than 6,800 daily flights across our global network.
  • Health Benefits: On day one, you’ll have access to your health, dental, prescription and vision benefits to help you stay well. And that’s just the start, we also offer virtual doctor visits, flexible spending accounts and more. 
  • Wellness Programs: We want you to be the best version of yourself – that’s why our wellness programs provide you with all the right tools, resources and support you need.
  • 401(k) Program: Available upon hire and, depending on the workgroup, employer contributions to your 401(k) program are available after one year.
  • Additional Benefits: Other great benefits include our Employee Assistance Program, pet insurance and discounts on hotels, cars, cruises and more

Feel free to be yourself at American

From the team members we hire to the customers we serve, inclusion and diversity are the foundation of the dynamic workforce at American Airlines. Our 20+ Team Member Business Resource Groups are focused on connecting our team members to our customers, suppliers, communities and shareholders, helping team members reach their full potential and creating an inclusive work environment to meet and exceed the needs of our diverse world.

Are you ready to feel a tremendous sense of pride and satisfaction as you do your part to keep the largest airline in the world running smoothly as we care for people on life’s journey? Feel free to be yourself at American.

Cities: Fort Worth - TX
Requisition ID: 88728