FT:  What is your top priority?
RS:  My top priority is always serving our customers as best we can! But really, all our goals for the year are somehow aligned to serving our customers – whether it’s maximizing the use of our network to provide them with more options to connect freight around the world, enhancing our product suite, or launching more digital connections, our customers will remain at the forefront of all we do.

FT:  How has the year gone so far for American Cargo? Are you on track meeting goals as planned?
RS:  It’s been a good start to the year so far and we are pleased with the momentum we brought with us into 2025 after a really solid 2024, and a particularly strong second half of the year. One of the big factors that drove our business activity in 2024 and will continue to be a priority in 2025 is digitization. We’ve been talking about the importance of digitization for several years now, and it remains at the forefront as we continue to enhance our business with the implementation of new tools and capabilities that better serve our customers and we are on track to deliver more enhancements later this year.
     Operational efficiency coincides with the digital experiences we provide our customers as well. In 2024, we focused on developing new monitoring and reporting practices that help us predict and plan for possible challenges along the shipment journey. Using resources including new dashboards, machine learning to help us more accurately forecast capacity, AI to help predict which shipments are most likely to experience a service failure and increased scanning capabilities have enabled us to provide an increasingly seamless experience for our customers operationally, and we will continue to invest in those tools in 2025.

FT:  What impact with the ever-changing U.S. landscape? Challenges? Not knowing what to expect and how do you plan long term?
RS:  We started the year anticipating a pretty solid demand environment, coupled with reasonably consistent supply, albeit with a few questions related to the potential of impending tariffs. Two months in, things have changed a little. The on/off tariffs coupled with proposed changes to the de minimis rule have raised questions related to the demand outlook, which may end up having a significant impact upon supply (how capacity is deployed within the market). Additionally, we are seeing an evolving geo-political landscape including the U.S. perusing a new foreign policy with the change in administration.
     Thanks to 2020, as an industry we’ve learned how to be agile and to adapt to whatever comes our way. Our long-term plans are now always backed by nimble tools and resources to pivot business plans as needed and we simply see 2025 as another opportunity to demonstrate this!

 FT:  What regions are growing? Any surprise developments?
RS:  Currently, we continue to see strong demand in both directions on the transatlantic, and on our Latin American North and South bound routes. Asia has started to recover after the Chinese New Year, and we are paying close attention to any further developments in the region, as changes within the e-commerce sector may results in capacity being repositioned.
     Exports from the U.S. are showing an improvement vs. last year and we are looking to further leverage our capacity as our network grows over the coming months, especially in CLT and PHL. I wouldn’t say that the demand environment has been surprising so far, but we are watching the evolving geo-political and macro-economic environments very closely and will be ready to respond to any potential change in the supply/demand environment.

FT:  What is American Airlines doing differently in 2025 with respect to air cargo security and sustainability?
RS:  Sustainability continues to be a key area of focus for American Airlines. As an airline, we have milestones in place to guide us toward our goal of net-zero emissions in 2050, which include utilizing sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, to help offset CO2 emissions, testing solutions for contrail avoidance, and improving environmental sustainability across our operations. We’ve also made investments in newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft – in fact, we have the largest and youngest fleet among the U.S. carriers.
     Specific to Cargo, we are really proud of our growing relationships with BioNatur Plastics. We utilize their bio-degradable plastic products at most of our U.S. hubs and several international locations. BioNatur plastic biodegrades in normal landfill conditions in 8-12 years and, by using this product, we were able to reduce our long-term plastic waste in 2024 by the equivalent of 12.6 million water bottles.

FT:  What is your proudest achievement at American Cargo?
RS:  We have spoken about this a lot over the last few years, but the way that the team pulled together during COVID was incredible and that has remained an important part of our culture ever since. From the support that they provided to one another, to the way that we rapidly worked with departments across the airline to stand up our Cargo Only flights, it was a really challenging, rewarding and humbling experience. I’m proud of what we accomplished in a time of crisis, and also how that has made us a stronger team in the years that followed.

FT:  You have undoubtedly made promises to customers that do business with AA Cargo. What have been kept? Any that you are still working on?
RS:  We always strive to deliver on our promises at American, and I feel really good about how we’ve performed in that area! Our commitments center around the fact that we are always looking for ways to improve. This includes delivering product enhancements, making it easier to do business with us by expanding our digital booking channels, and implementing operational efficiencies that enable us to respond faster to challenges that may arise during the shipment journey. We have made significant strides in all these areas, but we are also continuously working to deliver further improvement.

FT:  If you had, say, five minutes to address each person at Dallas what would you say?
RS:  It would have to be something short because there are a lot of people here! I think it’s generally more insightful to ask questions rather than speaking, so I’d ask people “What’s the one thing that American could do that would most help your business?” and see where the conversation headed for the next four and a half minutes!

FT:  What would you like to see added to the agenda at cargo trade shows in 2025?
RS:  I think these industry events and trade shows are a great way to connect with industry partners – there’s just never enough time to talk with everyone! Each event is different in its own way, but in general I like to see an agenda which contains up-to-date, meaningful topics (i.e. discussion around tariffs and the impending de minimis change would be great examples today) and I’m always interested in hearing economists give macro-economic overviews – especially as the environment is subject to rapid change. It’s also important to balance the desire to serve compelling content with allowing sufficient time for people to meet and network. A huge part of the value proposition for conferences is the opportunity that they provide for face-to-face meetings with partners, vendors and customers.
GDA/MLS