American Airlines has promoted Neil Geurin to VP of sales, effective immediately, and named former Bain & Co. executive Lucas Martin as SVP of sales, according to an internal memo from vice chair and chief strategy officer Steve Johnson. Martin begins his role Feb. 17. American's Scott Laurence also has taken on a new role of SVP of commercial.
Geurin, formerly the managing director of airline retailing, will report to Martin, while Martin and Laurence, formerly the SVP of partnership strategy, will report to Johnson.
Martin was a partner at Bain & Co., where he "spent much of the last year embedded with our team as the chief architect of our sales and distribution pivot," according to Johnson's memo.
"Realizing our full revenue potential also will require the continued recovery, rebuilding and establishment of our sales and distribution capabilities as industry leading, and reestablishing our relationships with travel agencies, corporate customers and other indirect channel partners," Johnson wrote. "Lucas Martin will lead this critical work."
Johnson wrote that Geurin has been with American for more than 20 years and "has been an instrumental leader in our sales recovery and will be in the development of our strategy going forward."
Laurence's new remit includes continuing his work on sales efforts as well as special projects with Johnson across the commercial segment. "We can't thank Scott enough for his leadership over the past few years and for his commitment to helping us reestablish relationships with the indirect channel community and reinvigorate our sales and distribution efforts," according to Johnson.
Johnson assumed leadership of American's commercial organization after former chief commercial officer Vasu Raja left the carrier last year. Raja had been one of the chief architects of American's changes in distribution and corporate strategy that were announced in December 2022 and begun in April 2023.
Those changes—which included removing content from traditional EDIFACT channels and making it available only through New Distribution Capability-enabled channels, and deep cuts to the corporate sales team—caused an uproar in the industry and led to the carrier losing corporate market share. In May 2024, American began to reverse much of that strategy and has been redoubling efforts to win back corporate business.