American Airlines sends SOS for CRM help

Here’s one certain to pique big CRM players’ interest. American Airlines has announced its search is on for an agency to handle its European customer relationship marketing business. The airline is contacting agencies directly with a brief that centres on boosting online bookings.

This appears to be a key period in American Airlines’ history, due to the upcoming fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks in which American Airlines airplanes were used in the killing of 3,000 citizens in New York City and Washington, D.C. Combined with the current effort to establish itself as the main airline (as opposed to British Airways and Virgin Atlantic) for flights between the United Kingdom and the United States, American Airlines seemingly desperately needs to upgrade certain aspects of their CRM, particularly their old-fashioned in-house newsletter which had been their primarily mode of marketing.

James Gandolfini of HBO’s “The Sopranos” fronts the company’s current £5 million (approximately US $9.44 million) campaign.