American recalling flight attendants to handle travel crowds

American Airlines is telling some flight attendants to cut short their leaves of absence and come back to work

FORT WORTH, Texas -- American Airlines is canceling extended leaves for about 3,300 flight attendants and telling them to come back to work in time for the holiday season. And American plans to hire 800 new flight attendants by next March, according to an airline executive. The moves are the latest indication that leisure travel in the U.S. is recovering more quickly from the pandemic than airlines expected. “Increasing customer demand and new routes starting later this year mean we need more flight attendants to operate the airline,” Brady Byrnes, the airline's vice president of flight service, told flight attendants in a memo Thursday.