The brilliance in American’s reservation cutover

Did you hear that? If you reply “what?”, then that’s the point. The world’s largest airline, American Airlines, completed the final and most challenging step in its merger-acquisition with US Airways at the weekend – the cutover to a single reservation system.

And the sound of silence since that cutover is proof of what can only be described as the most meticulously planned and executed airline mergers ever. Despite the scale of the operation, Doug Parker’s team this month proved that they knew the challenges that lay ahead, correctly identified the pain points, and rightly identified the approaches and solutions that would get them through the various integration steps.

I know that Doug has set aside a slot in his calendar each week that is firmly committed to meeting with his integration team. Huge priority was set on keeping the flow of communications open so that problems could be tackled early on.

The result is that neither the company’s operational or financial performance nor its customers were harmed.

American Airlines Group this week reported third-quarter net income of $1.69 billion, up 79.8% over a net profit of $942 million in the 2014 September quarter, while the airline has delivered an 89.4% on-time performance and 99.5% completion rate since the cutover.

President Scott Kirby described this as “a huge milestone” and he’s correct.

But the very fact that most of American’s customers knew nothing it is what makes that milestone so brilliant.