Here are Don Carty's relevant remarks, on the occasion of AMR's reporting of a $734M 4th=quarter loss, from the PRNewswire, as reported by Yahoo:

In connection with its strategy of reducing costs by simplifying its fleet, AMR announced today that it has reached an agreement with Boeing that, among other things, will result in the retirement of its 717 fleet by June of this year. The 717 is a short-haul, 100-seat airplane similar in size to the Fokker F100s already in American's fleet. American does not need two airplanes of this fleet size and had always intended to retire the 717s. The agreement with Boeing allows American to do this earlier than planned.

``The 717 is a fine aircraft,'' Carty said, ``but we are committed to simplifying the fleet, and it just doesn't make sense to hold on to the 717s when we already have a fleet of 74 F100s in the 100-seat category. All we're doing now is accelerating a retirement that had been in our fleet plan from the beginning of our TWA acquisition.''

The 717 retirement is part of a broad fleet-simplification strategy that will see American reduce its total number of basic fleet types from 14 two years ago to seven types by the end of 2002. In 2001, American retired five fleet types -- the MD11, MD90, DC10, MD87 and DC9. This year, it will take two more types out of the fleet -- the 717 and the 727. As the numbers of fleet types shrink, the overall fleet becomes more reliable and easier and less costly to maintain.

Here is the link to the full article.