American Airlines appoints chief customer officer

American Airlines has named veteran company executive Heather Garboden as senior vice president and chief customer officer, effective immediately, according to a Tuesday internal memo from American CEO Robert Isom.

Isom said Garboden will head up a “new customer experience organization.”

American’s previous chief customer officer, Alison Taylor, retired in 2023, and her departure was accompanied by a reduction in travel agency sales support. Her day-to-day responsibilities were partially assumed by chief commercial officer Vasu Raja, who led a distribution strategy focused on direct and NDC bookings, alienating corporate customers and their travel agencies. Raja is no longer at American, departing last year after the airline scrapped its direct-NDC strategy and began to make amends with clients and travel agencies while building back up its sales team.

Garboden will report to COO David Seymour and to vice chair and chief strategy officer Steve Johnson “given the customer focus in both our operations and commercial teams,” according to the memo.

Garboden has more than two decades of experience at US Airways and American, and most recently oversaw American’s cargo and regional businesses. 

Senior vice president of inflight and premium guest services Brady Byrnes and his team now will report to Garboden, who will continue to oversee vice president of customer experience Kim Cisek and president of cargo Greg Schwendinger and their teams. 

Leadership of American’s regional business will move to executive vice president of American Eagle, corporate real estate and government affairs Nate Gatten.

Source: Business Travel News