Key Takeaways

99% Global Cash Visibility

90% Automated Accounting Tasks

20% of Hours Saved Through Automation

American Airlines is one of the largest airlines in the world. With a rich history dating back to the early days of commercial aviation, American Airlines operates an extensive network of domestic and international flights, serving millions of passengers each year. Together with its regional partners, American Airlines offers thousands of flights daily to more than 350 destinations in more than 60 countries. Known for its fleet of modern aircraft, commitment to safety, and comprehensive route network, American Airlines is a key player in the global aviation industry.

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Challenges

American Airlines’ complex global operations require many partnerships to power and maintain their vast fleet of aircraft. Each partnership comprises distinct contracts, assets, parameters, business arrangements, and more. This intricate web of relationships posed considerable challenges, compounded by inflexible software systems and a reliance on manual spreadsheets and disparate bank portals to accurately track and manage capital structure. These outdated tools hindered capacity to effectively scale operations by occupying significant time and resources. American Airlines also suffered from a lack of controls, opening them to numerous exposures, such as key person, audit, and FX risk. Teams within the company also noticed duplicative tasks, with multiple users creating separate entries that needed to be reconciled.

American Airlines sought a comprehensive solution that would centralize their financial operations while affording the agility and adaptability of user controls, unencumbered by rigid, hard‐coded constraints.

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Solution

American Airlines selected GTreasury to address their operational complexities and overhaul their fleet database management. The GTreasury team collaborated closely with American Airlines to build a robust fleet database management system using GTreasury’s Collateral Management System. This solution offers granular, user-configurable worksheets designed to centralize, streamline, and meticulously track and manage each component of their expansive and complex fleet of aircraft. GTreasury’s user-friendly interface, advanced tagging capabilities, and ubiquitous data absorption contributed to the decision, as well as the confidence American Airlines had in the overall partnership. American Airlines also adopted GTreasury’s cash management and forecasting, bank account management, debt management, letter-of-credit, short-term investments, and FX risk management to round out its digital operations.

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Benefits

The consolidation of American Airlines’ database management system eliminates the need for disparate offline components, and it gives real-time visibility to the value of all fleet assets, including the company’s debt portfolio and collateral database. The company estimates the GTreasury platform has increased their global cash visibility from roughly 65% to 99%, demonstrating a massive overhaul. This provides the airline with better strategic agility, not just in fleet management, but also for investment. By having this data readily available within a centralized system, American Airlines can leverage it for collateralization purposes. With a clear valuation of their fleet assets, American Airlines can access more favorable financing terms and open additional investment opportunities. American Airlines now experiences significant time savings, resource optimization, and cost savings with GTreasury, as well. Automation of their treasury accounting entries increased from about 50% to 90% with the introduction of the system. Through automation, manual processes are minimized, and user-configurable worksheets allow for the automation of various tasks. Reducing the need for manual input also significantly reduces the risk of errors, enhances accuracy, and creates a reliable trail for compliance and audits. Optimized visibility, actionable insights, and proactive risk management allow for a new level of scalability for the business with the amount of complexity their treasury can handle. Cost savings include reducing personnel requirements, minimizing fees, optimizing working capital requirements, and mitigating risks stemming from operational inefficiencies. American Airlines also finds that they have freed up to 20% of hours since their implementation of GTreasury.

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“With the help of GTreasury, American Airlines has been able to revolutionize its Treasury Technology infrastructure”

Ryan Millard

Director of Global Banking and Treasury Services

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Conclusion

Overall, GTreasury’s solutions have empowered American Airlines to operate more efficiently, mitigate risks, and focus on strategies for growth and innovation in the competitive aviation landscape. The enhancements in American Airlines’ financial operations enable the company to better serve its customers, foster growth, and thrive in the aviation industry. By streamlining processes, centralizing data, and improving the positioning of the company’s treasury, American Airlines can allocate resources more efficiently, ultimately enhancing the customer experience through improved reliability, responsiveness, and organizational growth.

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“The value of consolidating all Treasury Management tasks into GTreasury has exceeded our expectations and allowed the team to focus on more strategic objectives”

Ryan Millard

Director of Global Banking and Treasury Services

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