American Airlines’ mobile site takes off

By Giselle Abramovich

January 26, 2008

Travelers can now visit www.AA.com from their Web-enabled phone

American Airlines has debuted a mobile version of AA.com to better communicate with travelers and improve the travel experience for customers.

Travelers can now visit www.AA.com from their Web-enabled phone and check-in for a flight, view itinerary, check schedules and status of flights, get information on destinations, weather or airports and contact the airline.

“We wanted to be where our customers are and the majority of flyers travel with their cell phones and we realized we needed to enhance the mobile experience,” said Billy Sanez, director of corporate communications for American Airlines, Fort Worth, TX.

"This isn’t our first mobile effort, as we’ve used SMS weather and flight change alerts," he said. “We just realized we needed to develop something more advanced and customers expressed an interest in having more mobile capabilities."

The airline expects further enhancements to the mobile version of the site later this spring, enabling travelers to book flights, change their reservations, view fare specials, request upgrades and enroll in the AAdvantage loyalty program.

To access AA.com on a mobile phone or device travelers need to type http://www.aa.com/ into an Internet-enabled mobile browser. The system recognizes when customers are accessing AA.com via a handset and redirects them to the mobile version of AA.com.

On the mobile home page the content is condensed, the design is simplified and the connection is fast, American Airlines claims.

If mobile users want to access a full HTML version of the traditional AA.com site, they also have that option by clicking on the HTML link at the bottom of the Web page.

“The mobile channel is where our best customer is,” Mr. Sanez said. “They are mobile road warriors who make more than six trips a year and we know they are more and more virtual.”