American Airlines Creates New CX Organization, Names SVP and Chief Customer Officer To Oversee It

Veteran executive Heather Garboden has been appointed senior vice president and chief customer officer at Fort Worth-based American Airlines, overseeing its newly created Customer Experience organization.

The company said that Garboden brings more than two decades of experience at US Airways and American that make her uniquely qualified to oversee this work.

American said that Garboden’s years of experience in revenue management and finance give her an understanding of what will be good for the health of the business. Since 2023, she has overseen American’s Cargo and Regional businesses, both of which rely heavily on coordination across operations, commercial, customer experience, finance, and other areas to give customers a seamless experience with American.

“We’re also taking this opportunity to evolve our Operational Excellence Advisory Board, which will become our Customer Experience Advisory Board,” CEO Robert Isom said in a memo sent to employees. “Currently, this group provides our team with outside perspectives from experienced industry leaders. We plan to add additional outside voices who can share insights with us on how we structure our customer-focused efforts going forward.”

Isom said the airline is positioning itself for sustained, long-term success, which, for the past several years, has focused on fortifying its operations under the leadership of COO David Seymour. Isom said that Vice Chair and Chief Strategy Officer Steve Johnson has spent the past eight months developing an updated commercial strategy that’s delivering improved results.

Customer journey and other leadership moves

In his memo, Isom said that “Today we’re announcing the creation of a new Customer Experience organization that will drive the strategy and coordinate the implementation of the initiatives that define our customers’ journeys with American.”

He said that organization will advocate on behalf of customers and provide a holistic view of the entire customer journey—”from booking to bags to inflight experience to customer feedback.”

Garboden will report to both Seymour and Johnson.

Isom said that in introducing this new team, Brady Byrnes, SVP of Inflight and Premium Guest Services, and his team now will report to Garboden.

Both Kim Cisek, vice president of Customer Experience, and Greg Schwendinger, president of cargo, and their groups will continue reporting to Garboden.

Isom said that leadership of American’s regional business will move from Garboden to Nate Gatten, executive vice president of American Eagle, corporate real estate and government affairs.