American Airlines 2001 Annual Report Download - page 5

In April, we acquired substantially all of the assets of Trans
World Airlines (TWA), and in the months that followed, our
people – despite all the aforementioned problems in our busi-
ness – completed the biggest, the most complex, and the most
successful integration of two airlines in the history of our
industry. The TWA acquisition was a huge step forward for
our domestic network, and it made American Airlines, once
again, the largest airline in the world.
The More Room Throughout Coach campaign, which
we launched in 2000, gained real traction in 2001, giving
us an important point of differentiation versus the rest of
the industry. In February 2002, American completed the
implementation of More Room, which included the flawless
reconfiguration of more than 850 aircraft and the removal of
about 9,000 seats from AA and TWA jets.
Despite the massive changes of late 2001, our people never
took their eyes off the ball when it came to providing high-
quality customer service. In fact, as the year drew to a close,
American’s on-time performance steadily improved. I’m
pleased to report that this momentum carried over into the
first months of 2002 as American climbed to within an
eyelash of the top spot in on-time performance in January.
At the airports, in our reservations centers and indeed
throughout our Company, our people are creatively applying
new technologies to streamline processes, generate revenue,
reduce costs and improve the customer experience. And while
our recent financial performance has caused us to shelve, at
least temporarily, some technology-related initiatives, we are
nonetheless committed to leading the industry when it comes
to the development and application of technology on behalf
of our customers, shareholders and employees.
As we begin 2002, we face a business environment and an
industry landscape that has been dramatically altered during
the past year. But as we learned in 2001, the values and prin-
ciples that have guided our Company through the past three
quarters of a century are as solid as ever – and the change
swirling around us makes sticking to those principles all the
more important.
One principle that served us well in 2001 was the flexi-
bility we built into our plans during the prosperous years of
the mid-to-late-1990s. By not over-leveraging our balance
sheet, and by consciously keeping our fleet plans as flexible
as possible, we were better positioned to respond to the cata-
strophic events of late 2001.
Despite all that’s happened, the six tenets of our Airline
Leadership Plan – Safety, Service, Product, Network, Technol-
ogy and Culture – remain our blueprint for industry leader-
ship. While individual strategies within those broad categories
must evolve, we are as convinced as ever that the only way to
create the best possible outcomes for all of our constituencies
is by leading the airline industry in all six. That’s the goal we
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