American - Businessman | July 26, 1958 -
At American Airlines, we have built a business around the love of travel that has lasted three quarters of a century. And I'm pretty sure we're just getting started.
Gerard Arpey
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We continued the hard work of integrating TWA, because at that time we still thought an efficient connecting hub in St. Louis could be a profitable addition to our network.
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However, the economics of our business continued to deteriorate. We barely escaped bankruptcy a year ago, and in the aftermath of that escape we had to make some even tougher decisions.
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One of our most difficult realizations was that - in the course of two years - a connecting hub in St. Louis had gone from something we thought we needed to something we could no longer afford.
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Despite the painful changes we have had to make, we continue to believe in the St. Louis market. And we are hoping to add flights, in a careful way, as the economics of our business improve and the demands of the traveling public in St. Louis become clear.
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But I definitely see us playing a major role in St. Louis in the years to come. We already provide service to 95 percent of the markets St. Louis travelers visit the most. And we're adding capacity in some of the most important markets.
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First, we have to lower our costs to levels that are more competitive. This will prevent the lower-cost airlines from pushing us out of the markets we want to serve. We've made great progress on this front, but we need to keep pushing.
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Second, we have to make the most of the strengths we have, the amenities that many of our competitors cannot replicate. But again, those advantages won't mean much if we don't do a great job with the basics of our business.
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We need to take excellent care of our customers, and do so at a profit.
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I think in just about any business the low cost competitor is always going to have an advantage.
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That doesn't mean you have to have the lowest costs in the industry to succeed. But you need to make sure the activities and product attributes that increase your costs above the other guy bring in at least that much more in revenue, and hopefully more.
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Our Fly Smart philosophy is about investing only on those points of differentiation that pay for themselves, that earn a revenue premium commensurate with what it costs us to provide that product or service.
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