American Airlines has restructured its sales team, and three sales executives are departing the airline, the carrier confirmed Wednesday. The changes, effective immediately, were announced in a letter from SVP of partnerships and retailing Scott Laurence.
The move is the second sales reorganization this year, following one announced in February.
VP of global sales Thomas Rajan will leave the company. Rajan was at the helm of global sales for a yearand had been with American since 2017. VP of operations and commercial for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific Kyle Mabry also will depart American after more than 30 years with the carrier. He also stepped into his most recent role in September 2022.
American global head of corporate sales and managing director Hank Benedetti announced his departure from the airline in a Wednesday LinkedIn post.
“It has been an honor to help lead the AA sales team for most of the last two decades and to represent such an amazing company to the global travel industry,” Benedetti wrote, adding that “as for what’s next, first some time away but am open to suggestions.”
Laurence in the memo wrote that Benedetti and Mabry chose to retire. Benedetti started at American in April 1999, according to his LinkedIn profile, and other than 11 months at JG Black Book of Travel in 2010 and 2011, he was with the carrier since.
These departures follow the retirement announcement in January of chief customer officer Alison Taylor.
“We’ve evolved many of our commercial offerings in recent months to innovate in the travel retailing space and engage more directly with the end customer—the people flying American,” American said in a statement. “As part of this focus, we recently announced updates to the structure of our sales team to help us better provide the services our customers need and continue to deliver programs that provide value to corporate customers and their travelers.”
New American Sales Team Structure
Laurence’s memo outlined the additional updates to the American sales department. It also noted that over the last decade, the sales team had grown and “in many cases, added entire departments in other parts of the company with similar functional expertise,” he wrote, adding that the carrier will now group those “like-minded job functions” together to support the entire enterprise.
International operations, led by Jose Freig, will relink with the larger operations team, with Frieg reporting to SVP of airport operations Julie Rath. International sales and joint business development will transition to the partnerships organization led by Anmol Bhargava.
Sales support, led by Theresa Allen, will transition to reservations under VP of reservations and service recovery Carolyne Truelove. Offer management, led by Anthony Rader, will transition to the group led by SVP of revenue management and loyalty Scott Chandler.
Sales communications, led by Julie Harner, will transition to global engagement, led by VP of communications and marketing Caroline Clayton. “Outreach to all customers about our commercial offerings and our company will now generate from one place,” according to the memo.
Sales insights and automation, led by Roberto Cusato, will transition to the commercial insights team, reporting to VP of commercial planning and analysis Massimo Mancini.
American’s NDC, Corporate Sales Evolution
American and its corporate travel strategy has drawn increased attention this year, especially after its December 2022 announcement that travel management companies needed to be connected to American NDC channels by April 2023 or risk losing up to 40 percent of then-available fares.
American followed through on that promise on April 3. It also shook up its global sales team, letting go of several account reps and leaving some companies without a dedicated contact. The carrier allegedly also no longer offered corporate discount programs to accounts that produce less than $1.5 million in revenue for the airline a year.
In his memo, Laurence wrote that Neil Geurin—now managing director of modern retailing, formerly managing director of airline retailing—will “help me support our travelers.” Cynthia Barnes, Noel O’Connell, Kyle Cumbie and Jay Creech now will report to Geurin, who was one of BTN’s 25 Most Influential in 2022.
Laurence added that “business travel continues to be an integral part of our success—that does not change, nor will it. What has changed is how we offer and service that travel based on what we see in customer behavior.”
Along with these changes, Laurence noted that “I will be dedicating more of my time getting closer to the business, and removing obstacles that distract us from our two—and only two—core functions of sales: managed corporate and agency business, and travel for other businesses.”
[email protected] (Donna M. Airoldi)
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