American Airlines and its own pilot union are going head-to-head with rival trading card decks in a bizarre twist on a story that started earlier this week when the Allied Pilots Union (APA) announced it was finally bringing trading cards to American Airlines without the Texas-based carrier’s involvement.
But just days later, American Airlines made the surprise announcement that it had created its own set of trading cards for the very first time as part of the commemoration efforts of its 100th anniversary.
American Airlines has been an outlier in the trading card craze, which has become an increasingly big trend in the last few years, partly driven by TikTok, which has brought awareness to a much larger audience that some airlines have these trading cards available for free.
The idea is simple: Pilots are issued the trading cards, and it’s up to passengers to ask them whether they have a card to trade in order to complete their set. Passengers usually do this as they are boarding or deplaning, but most pilots are happy to trade cards in the airport concourse.
Alaska Airlines is the first known US carrier to introduce trading cards when it created a limited-edition set in the 1990s using inexpensive cardstock.
Around two decades ago, Delta Air Lines then jumped on the bandwagon when it created a trading card to celebrate the retirement of its McDonnell Douglas MD-11 aircraft. The card proved so popular that Delta went on to create more and more trading cards.
For years, the ability to collect trading cards was kept pretty secret, but a few years ago, the cards became TikTok famous, and demand suddenly skyrocketed.
In 2024, Delta passengers collected more than three million cards, and the print run for Delta’s special centennial collection, featuring its flagship Airbus A350, as well as the Airbus A330, Boeing 767, and smaller aircraft like the Airbus A220 and A321neo, is even bigger.
From early May, American Airlines will make its own set of centennial trading cards available, which feature three classic aircraft in the form of the DC-3, 707-123, and MD-80, along with four current aircraft: the A321neo, 737-800, 777-300ER, and 787-9P.
Given how popular the trading card trend has become, American Airlines plans to print seven million cards in time for the summer. Along with an image of the aircraft, the cards feature a wealth of additional information, including aircraft specifications, diagrams, and facts about each aircraft.
Presumably, the three classic cards created for American’s 100th anniversary are a temporary addition just for 2026, whereas the remaining cards will continue to be printed in the years ahead.
Meanwhile, if you can’t wait until early May, the pilots’ union has created its own trading card deck, which features some of the airline’s most popular aircraft types, including the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, Boeing 737, and Airbus A321, flying above destinations like Paris and Sydney.
The collection also features the Boeing 777-300 in a special 100th anniversary retro livery, which is based on the ‘Flagship’ paint scheme that used to be emblazoned on the carrier’s Douglas DC-3 airplanes more than 90 years ago.
Why the airline and the union created their own seperate trading card decks remains a mystery. It also remains to be seen whether the pilot’s union will continue its print run now that their employer has created its own set.
