American Airlines is starting the countdown clock to the
final major step of its merger with US Airways, and it already has integrated
the “vast majority” of corporate contracts between the two carriers, according
to AA vice president of global sales Derek DeCross.
Two keys of the merger wrapped earlier this year: a single
operating certificate from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and
integration of frequent-flyer programs. Still, the biggest step, moving US
Airways flights from its Shares reservations platform onto AA’s Sabre platform,
lies ahead. Notification of the previously
announced 90-day transition period to the platform could come as early as
this week, DeCross told BTN.
“When you think about risk mitigation, there are a lot of
things we’ve done to make sure this is as much of a nonevent as possible,”
DeCross said. “The big difference between our migration versus our competitors’
is [that we are working on this as a] drain-down process as opposed to a
one-step, knife-edge cutover.”
Flights booked during the transition period for travel beyond
that period will be on the Sabre system, while flights booked for travel within
that transition period will remain on their respective systems. That will give
AA time to make sure all aspects of its system are functioning before switching
completely to Sabre, he said. Because about 90 percent of bookings are made
within a 90-day window, only a small portion of US Airways reservations made
before the transition period will need to migrate to Sabre at the end of the
“drain-down” process, he said.
Additionally, the carrier is training US Airways
reservations agents to use the AA system by the turnover date, and it has
increased reservation staffing. It also developed an interface on top of Sabre
that will be similar to agents' previous reservations environment.
From an IT perspective, migrating to a single reservations
system is only slightly more complicated than merging frequent-flyer programs,
DeCross said. “The response was overwhelmingly positive when we did that back
in late March. That bodes well for the upcoming reservations system migration.
Once that's complete, almost all customer-facing aspects of
the merger will be done, DeCross said, noting that customers still might see occasional
US Airways uniforms on crewmembers or painting on aircraft, he said.
“We will have ongoing modification programs, but in terms of
the way we train employees, our systems, the food in flight, all of those
things are aligned,” DeCross said.
On the corporate business side, AA aims to fully integrate
contracts by the fourth quarter of this year. Its business travel program,
AAirpass, already works on US Airways-operated flights, and AA has rolled out
its new U.S. point-of-sale agency program for the majority of its travel
management company partners, according to DeCross.
Beyond the merger, AA has other plans for its corporate
clients. The carrier will expand its reporting capabilities for corporate and
agency partners. Currently, a value-reporting tool shows corporate members
their status and resulting fee offsets and waivers. Early next year, though, AA
plans to launch a tool “to allow the flexibility and drill-down capabilities
that we think will be cutting edge,” he said.
The carrier plans to roll out its new Flex
Funds tool, which helps travel buyers and agents manage fee waivers, to all
agencies with U.S. points of sale by the end of the year, according to DeCross.
AA also is simplifying its contracts by streamlining legalese and adding pricing addendums that make contract goals more transparent. It'll make similar changes across its joint business contracts later this year, as well as align sales support offerings with joint business partners, DeCross said.