Originally Posted by
itsme
I believe that Carty, a Canadian and Harvard Business School grad, may have come up under Crandall before taking over as AA's next CEO. Earlier this year, I found myself sitting next to his son on a UA flight to ORD. (The son has a lifetime pass on AA, but AA had canceled their flight and put him on a UA one.) The son told me that his father was very pleased with himself for coming up with the olive idea.
So, I can't say with certainty who at AA should be "credited" with the olive cost savings measure. The points remain the same, though - "frugality" in the airline business is not original to UA; "nickel and dimeing" does produce savings for the airline, even if it is $40K or $100K in a multi-billion $ operation.
(I was served a salad on UA just this past week, but I don't recall any olives in it at all.)
AFAIK, it was Crandall who was the one to eliminate the olive from the salad. CNBC replayed a recent piece a day at AA and interviewed Crandall. He then discussed how he cut costs at a storage facility each year by reducing the night watchmans's hours, then getting a gurad dog, then having the guard dog work less hours, and then playing a tape recording of a barking dog. I do not think the cost cutters in management understand that if you become excessive in cost cutting, you may actually generate customer dissatisfaction. Just look at the inefficiencies and angry customers whom have to deal with the Indian Call Center when calling United. Why United leaves it operating is a mystery to me.