For a long time, Mr. Arpey voiced his opposition to bankruptcy, but the airline struggled because of it. “Our bankrupt colleagues all made net profits, good net profits last year, and we didn’t,” Mr. Arpey told me a few months ago. “And you can mathematically pinpoint that to termination of pensions, termination of retiree medical benefits, changes of work rules, changes in the labor contracts. That puts a lot of pressure on our company, not to be ignored.”

Over the last eight years, I have interviewed hundreds of senior executives for a major academic study on leadership, including six airline C.E.O.’s. Mr. Arpey stood out among the 550 people I talked with not because he believed that business had a moral dimension, but because of his firm conviction that the C.E.O. must carefully attend to those considerations, even if doing so blunts financial success or negates organizational expediency. For him, it is an obligation that goes with the corner office.

When we discussed the prospect of bankruptcy at American he spoke with an almost defiant tone of the company’s commitment to its employees and holders of its stock and debt. “I believe it’s important to the character of the company and its ultimate long-term success to do your very best to honor those commitments,” he said. “It is not good thinking — either at the corporate level or at the personal level — to believe you can simply walk away from your circumstances.”

But after being the only major airline with a net loss last year and with dismal prospects ahead, American joined the rest of its major competitors when the board declared bankruptcy. The board requested that Mr. Arpey stay on, but as he wrote to American’s employees, “executing the board’s plan will require not only a re-evaluation of every aspect of our business, but also the leadership of a new chairman and C.E.O. who will bring restructuring experience and a different perspective to the process.”

Mr. Arpey may be the only airline C.E.O. who regarded bankruptcy not simply as a financial tool, but more important, as a moral failing. In a day and age of outrageous executive compensation and protest movements justifiably angered at the self-serving nature of the 1 percent, it is refreshing to see a C.E.O. leave a position with honor even as he loses a long-fought battle.