American Airlines 2000 Annual Report Download - page 4

In the third area of airline leadership,
Pr oduct, we made tremendous progress
in 2000. We put 43 new jet aircraft into
service at American and introduced 29
new regional jets at American Eagle. More
dramatically, we seized industry leadership
in onboard comfort with the launch and
implementation of our More Room
Throughout Coach program, which is
enhancing the comfort, satisfaction, loyalty
and disposition of virtually every American
Airlines coach customer. We have also
increased legroom in Business Class and
introduced two major enhancements to our
premium cabin – the 767 fully flat seat,
and the new Flagship Suite Concept on
our 777 aircraft serving Europe and Latin
America. In addition to our aircraft-related
product enhancements, we also improved
our onboard entertainment options, contin-
ued to refresh and improve our physical
infrastructure at airports all over the world,
and began a partnership with America
Online to create AOL/AAdvantage miles,
which gives AAdvantage members a
wealth of new opportunities to earn and
redeem miles, online and off.
The AOL/AAdvantage program is a
good example of how new technology is
changing virtually every part of our busi-
ness – and why technology leadership is
a critically important element of our over-
all strategy. In 2000, we made important
strides to better leverage the changes tak-
ing place in technology to produce posi-
tive results for our shareholders, customers
and employees. At airports and reserva-
tions centers through-
out the American
Airlines system,
we are in
the throes
of major re-
engineering
projects
designed
to give our people better, easier-to-use
tools that will enable them to provide even
better customer service.
From a marketing perspective, the
Internet revolution is creating enormous
opportunities for American. In 2000, our
Web site, AA.com, was hailed by CIO mag-
azine as one of the top 50 business Inter-
net sites. No other airline site made the
list. Kudos are nice, but what’s even nicer
is the ability AA.com has given us to lever-
age the strength of AAdvantage and offer
our best customers a wide range of indi-
vidualized promotions. While the business
of travel distribution continues to evolve
very quickly – with new online channels
emerging on what seems like a daily basis
– American is also exploring ways to
exploit the connective power of the Inter-
net to reduce procurement costs. In fact,
we are collaborating with several other
carriers to create a new business-to-busi-
ness site that we think will streamline, and
wring significant expense and investment
from, our supply chain.
Technology leadership has been a
hallmark of American’s strategy for
decades. Sustaining that leadership in an
environment as fast changing as today’s is
tougher than ever. That’s a big reason why
we launched the on -time on -line home
computer program in 2000. This program,
which provides our people with dis-
counted home computers and Internet
access, is an acknowledgement that we
are taking the technology challenge very
seriously and that we will need the partic-
ipation of the entire American team if we
are going to meet it.
Technology is obviously an area of
our business that has changed dramatically
in recent years. But one part of our man-
agement challenge that hasn’t changed is
the imperative to consider the interests of
our employees in every decision we make.
Cultur e leadership is a strategic imperative
Creating industry-
leading outcomes for
our shareholders,
customers and employ-
ees is the overarching
goal of the A irline
Leadership Plan.