American Airlines has unveiled plans to offer customers a new, faster and easier way to purchase travel on AA.com, that will provide a more customer-centric online travel booking experience.  In addition, American Airlines Vacations, a division of American Airlines, revealed it is making enhancements to AAVacations.com.  Customers will begin seeing changes this summer, with additional enhancements coming in following months.
The enhancements to AA.com, which has, on average, more than 1.2 million unique visitors per day, were developed using extensive customer input and include user-friendly features that provide expanded options to plan and purchase travel.  Currently, customers can search either by price or by schedule. These new features will take their travel purchase experience to a new level by soon offering a third option: to see flight choices in a convenient display which shows price and schedule combinations. 
A demonstration of the new AA.com booking tool feature is available online at www.aa.com/book.
  “With American Airlines and American Eagle offering more than 4,000 flights each day, we are always working to enhance our customer’s travel purchase experience and the services we offer to them,” said Bella Goren, American’s Senior Vice President - Customer Relationship Marketing & Reservations.  “Expanding and enhancing AA.com is an ongoing effort - knowing that we reach over a million customers daily, we value and seek their input on how to refine their travel planning and purchase experience.”
  The new shopping and ticket purchase functionality on AA.com will empower customers to evaluate their flight options by providing a convenient display of schedule,
price and levels of service combinations.  When customers search for flights, a new results display will return a range of schedule and price possibilities for the departure and return portions of a roundtrip, which can be checked independently.  This new display will enable customers to see how their trip choices impact the price, and will offer customers more control to customize their travel plans according to individual priorities.
  “The combined price and schedule display will make booking travel on AA.com even easier, smoother and more streamlined.  We are committed to helping our customers get the most from their travel with American, and that begins with a simplified and convenient purchase process on AA.com,” added Goren.
The new display will allow travelers to sort results by expanded criteria including price, number of stops and departure and arrival times, and will provide easy access to flight detail information.  A simple click will enlarge a selection and provide additional flight details including travel time, seat maps, AAdvantage® miles, aircraft type and meal availability.
Serving a worldwide customer base, the advancements of AA.com are far reaching.  The major enhancement to the purchasing process on AA.com follows two other major changes made to the Web site earlier this year.  In January, American introduced AA.com/español, a Spanish-language portal that gives users in 17 different Spanish-speaking countries the ability to book travel on American Airlines in their native language.
In February, American implemented industry-leading changes to its online award booking process.  The new AAdvantage booking tool on AA.com provides easier planning and award booking capabilities including a calendar view of redeemable award travel for a time period two weeks before and after a selected date.
This summer, American Airlines Vacations will unveil its new AAVacations.com Web site.  The new site will use technology that enhances the shopping experience by allowing customers to easily choose among individual vacation elements to design unique, customized trips that fit their needs and budgets.  Booking a vacation getaway with AAVacations will now be more convenient and flexible.
These changes represent American’s strategic investment in services and products that make solid business sense while improving the overall customer experience.  Enhancements to AA.com, American’s largest distribution channel, underscore the company’s commitment to lower costs to compete, building a financial
foundation for the future and giving customers what they value - key tenets of American’s Turnaround Plan.
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