Dive Brief:
- American Airlines EVP and CIO Maya Leibman will step down from her role after the company appoints a successor, the airline said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday.
- Leibman, who has served in various roles at the airline since 1994, will relocate to the United Kingdom, according to the filing. Once the company names her successor, she will transition into an advisory role with American Airlines.
- There is no specific timeline to the appointment of a successor, a company spokesperson said.
Dive Insight:
Enterprise technology evolved in leaps and bounds throughout Leibman's 27-year tenure at American Airlines. So too did reliance on digital systems for everyday operations.
In its next CIO, American Airlines will need an executive who can manage the multiple backbone technologies that enable air travel — all while planning for large-scale innovation. Failure in critical technology systems or third-party vendors have caused disruption for multiple airlines in recent years.
Leibman, who became CIO in January 2012, led the airline's ongoing transition to the cloud. In May, American Airlines announced plans to use Microsoft Azure "as its preferred cloud platform for its airline applications and key workloads," the company said in a release.
Through Azure, the companies plan to use advanced analytics and other digital technologies to optimize customer experience and airline operations, according to the announcement.
Leibman also guided American Airlines' DevOps journey, revamping internal processes and plugging automation and training into company operations. The change helped the airline launch a touchless check-in experience in six weeks during the pandemic.
In 2020, American deployed software that uses real-time weather conditions to find optimal flight altitudes and speeds. By the end of last year, the company had equipped 85% of its mainline aircraft with this solution, which helped save 5.4 million gallons of fuel, according to an April SEC filing.
The company's incoming CIO will have to confront the imbalance between budgets and technology needs in a sector bogged down by legacy technology.
Prior to the pandemic, airlines spent roughly 5% of their revenue on IT, according to a McKinsey report. This proportion of IT spending trails other industries, such as financial services, which spends on average 10% of its revenue in tech.
One action to take in response to the post-pandemic landscape for airlines is to step up IT and automation investment, McKinsey said in a report. Companies can also benefit from reevaluating their relationships with IT and distribution providers to enhance operations.