Letting technology fly From jet repairs to passenger services, American is back on course as an innovator

One in an occasional series

Funny thing about laptop computers - they can make everybody more efficient.

Say you're sitting on an American Airlines jet that's stuck at the gate because of a mechanical problem. You can get some work done on your laptop while you wait.

At the same time, underneath the airplane, laptops are also helping your plane get fixed more quickly.

American Airlines Inc. maintenance supervisors Gene Blasavage and Gary Carlson can't tell you how much their new computer system has increased productivity.

But they can tell you how much faster American's mechanics can put broken airplanes back in the air. And that's the bottom line for them.

"Planes are waiting at the gate, people are on it, and you've got to do stuff," Mr. Carlson said. "We can turn a 45-minute wait into 10 or 15 minutes."

They're doing it with laptops and a wireless network that can call up repair manuals, parts lists, airplane records and other information instantly.

Such a system was only a dream 10 years ago, but now it's part of the daily routine for the line mechanics who hustle to keep American's planes flying.

The software and the system's infrastructure was designed within the company, evidence that the airline has made great strides in rebuilding the technological prowess that largely departed in the late 1990s after parent AMR Corp. spun off its technological arm, the Sabre Group.

Overseeing the effort has been Monte Ford, a former executive at Associates First Capital Corp. and Bank of Boston. Mr. Ford was hired in late 2000 by former AMR chairman and chief executive Don Carty to build back its capabilities.

Early leader

From the time it created the Sabre reservation system in the 1970s, American had developed a reputation for technological superiority in how airlines operate. And it went far beyond just a computer system to help it and travel agents book travelers.

It was a leader in revenue management, or pricing tickets to get the most money out of each seat. Its programmers developed software to better schedule airplane crews, ground employees and aircraft for maximum productivity.

It produced call center software and hardware to better handle reservations calls; tools to manage AMR's finances, including for its investment subsidiary; and other technologies to help the airline run better.

Initially developed for AMR's internal needs, its services and programs were sold to other airlines and to companies outside the travel industry. By the time Sabre was spun off in March 2000, it had annual revenue of more than $2 billion, more than 150 airline customers and many nontravel clients.

"We put a lot of value into Sabre," Mr. Ford said. "We put a lot of substance into Sabre to maximize the benefit and value to shareholders in that spinoff deal, which it did. Shareholders got a great deal out of that. But in doing so, we also spun off most of the thinking and most of the IP," or intellectual property.

American retained information technology people after Sabre left. But, Mr. Ford said, the "think tank" of intellectual property had largely moved on.

As a young IT manager in banking, Mr. Ford would take field trips to American Airlines and Sabre "because they were so state-of-the-art," he said. "We were all in awe of what American Airlines was able to do because it was the technology leadership company."

Mr. Ford said he thinks the desire to establish an independent identity from Sabre helped hold back innovation to help American.

"American lost a little ground in that creativity and innovation there, and I think both companies probably suffered a little bit from that," said Mr. Ford, senior vice president of information technology and chief information officer.

Mr. Ford's mandate was to bring that creativity and technological leadership back to American, with the understanding that Sabre (and later Electronic Data Systems Corp.) would handle a lot of its IT needs.