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Copyright 1996-2004 Elliott Publishing. All rights reserved.

Less Room Throughout Coach
Memo of the Week ˇ June 25, 2003

American Airlines recently announced it would scrap its roomier economy-class seats on nearly a quarter of its flights serving leisure and vacation markets. When passengers protested, here's the reply they got. (Remember, if you have a letter or memo you'd like us to publish, please e-mail it to us.)

You are a valued customer and we appreciate your candid comments about More Room Throughout Coach.

I can assure you that this is not the end of spacious coach cabins on American. Our customers will continue to enjoy the additional legroom afforded by More Room Throughout Coach on more than 75% of our fleet, which translates into approximately 80% of our daily departures. In addition, we will have systems in place so that you will know whether or not your scheduled itinerary will be operated by an airplane with More Room.

However, I would like to provide you with some insight about why we plan to slightly modify this product.

Quite frankly, the removal of seats from our aircraft to provide additional legroom in our main cabin was a very costly endeavor for us. However, we considered it money well spent and looked forward to enjoying an increase in customer loyalty as a result of this unique benefit. We considered that the additional business generated by More Room Throughout Coach would help to offset the considerable monies spent on this product. Unfortunately, our expectations weren't completely realized and we simply could not ignore this reality. We had to find a viable balance between cost-competitiveness and our customers' preferences.

As you can imagine, with about 90 million customers every year, there are lots of customer tastes and preferences to consider. Many of our customers are "Road Warriors", who place great value on those things that take some of the stress out of flying: Admirals Clubs, AAdvantageŽ miles, premium cabins, More Room Throughout Coach, the frequency of our schedules and the breadth of our network.

At the same time, we also fly to a wide variety of so-called "leisure" markets, where less frequent travelers (or Road Warriors on vacation), are more focused on price than they are on the services just mentioned. Taking all this into consideration, we believe it only makes sense to return to standard seating in those markets where this particular product (More Room Throughout Coach) has not translated into a revenue advantage.

However, we will retain the extra legroom on those airplanes that operate in markets primarily flown by our frequent business travelers. You can be sure that we will continue to look closely at all of our markets to ensure that we have the right airplanes in the right cities.

I know you are disappointed but I hope this information has given you a better understanding of why we're making this particular change. As we continue moving American Airlines forward, as always, customer feedback will be highly regarded. Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective about More Room Throughout Coach.

We consider our loyal customers to be our business partners and we look forward to our continued partnership with you.

Sincerely,

[Name deleted] Customer Relations American Airlines.

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