American Airlines 1998 Annual Report Download - page 5

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American and American Eagle — consistent with market
conditions — to preserve and enhance our leadership in
the U.S. airline industry. To that end, we have committed
billions of investment dollars for the new jet aircraft,
facilities, technology and training we think we will need
to keep American and American Eagle at the industry
forefront. However, while our capital commitments are
significant, the flip side of our plan’s first objective is that
we will return to shareholders any capital in excess of
what we think is necessary for prudent growth.
Our second objective is to offer our customers the
world’s most comprehensive and powerful airline
network through a combination of the industry’s
strongest domestic route system, the premier regional
carrier, increased international flying, and the broadest
— and best-executed — set of airline alliances.
The third objective of our plan is to make
The Sabre Group — which is the largest of AMR’s non-
airline businesses — the world’s leading provider of
information technology for the travel and transportation
industry. In its second full year as a publicly traded
company, Sabre attracted many new clients for its
information technology solutions business while sustain-
ing its leadership in electronic travel distribution. For
the year, Sabre’s revenues increased by 29 percent to
$2.3 billion, and its pre-tax margin was 16.1 percent.
Since its 1996 initial public offering, The Sabre Group’s
revenues have grown by more than 40 percent, and as
it has grown, American Airlines — Sabre’s largest
customer — has benefited from the group’s new-found
market efficiencies.
Our fourth major objective is to create a corporate
culture within AMR that involves and excites every
employee in every one of our businesses. Involving and
exciting every member of the AMR team is fundamentally
important to providing outstanding customer service
— which, in turn, is critically important to delivering
top-notch financial performance.
AMR’s new strategic plan is sharply focused on
our core airline and technology businesses. In keeping
with that focus, we decided, in the fall of 1998, to sell
three of the company’s smaller, less-strategically impor-
tant businesses: AMR Services, AMR Combs and
TeleService Resources. These three businesses — each
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