AMR president: Alliance is worth $500 million

The Dallas Business Journal caught up with Tom Horton, the newly named president of AMR Corp., on his first day of work — just hours after American Airlines got final U.S. approval for its joint venture with British Airways. Horton said the approval was “a very big deal for American” and its Oneworld partners after years of operating at a competitive disadvantage to other immunized alliances. He predicted that Oneworld customers would begin feeling the results almost immediately:

“As you can imagine, we’ve had 14 years to plan for it. So we are pretty much ready to go. Most of what affects the customer will be rolled out in the early fall … such as the fully reciprocated frequent flier miles.”

He went on to defend American’s dogged pursuit of deeper alliances, even in the face of repeated rejection:

“We have been focused on the international alliance world because that is where the airline industry is going. We have been focused not only on having the best partners, but also the best markets.”

And he concluded with a number that should make it all worthwhile for AMR’s stakeholders — frequent fliers included:

“What we have said publicly is that the combination of the joint ventures and the cornerstone strategy … we think its worth over $500 million a year.”