American Airlines Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja to Depart in June
- The Indian American joined the company is 2004 and has held a variety of roles in sales, planning and revenue management.
Vasu Raja American Airlines Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) Vasu Raja will depart the airline in June, the company announced on May 28. The Indian American served as CCO since April 2022. He is described in media reports as one of the “chief architects of American’s airline distribution and corporate strategy changes, which include a shift away from the corporate indirect booking model via agencies to a direct-booking strategy
Stephen Johnson, vice chair and Chief Strategy Officer, will assume leadership of the commercial organization and help lead the search for a new CCO., the company announcement said.
Previously, Raja held the role of chief revenue officer and senior vice president of Network Strategy, where he was “responsible for Network and Alliances,” the company said. He joined American in 2004 and has held a variety of roles in sales, planning and revenue management. In February 2023, he also “partially assumed the day-to-day duties of chief customer officer Alison Taylor, who retired,” according to Travel Weekly.
Rumors of Raja’s exit began to circulate last week, The Points Guy notes. At the time, the airlines “denied that he was planning to leave the company, amid rumors that he was not present in the airline’s office and had been ousted by a board that was unhappy with American’s revenue strategy,” the travel website said. The report cited a statement sent by an American Airlines spokesperson to Airline Observer noting that Raja was working remotely “for a few weeks while he takes care of some personal matters,” but was “not leaving.”
According to Travel Weekly, Raja “found himself on the defensive during the carrier’s Q1 earnings call in April because American’s share of corporate bookings appears to be on the decline.” He revealed at the time that “American’s managed corporate sales were up in the mid to high single digits.”
Raja began his career with Teach for America in 1999 and taught for three years in Baltimore City Public Schools. In 2013, he was named one of the Top 50 Executives under 50 by Diversity MBA Magazine. He earned a bachelor’s degree in humanities from the University of Texas at Austin, where he serves on the Advisory Council for the College of Liberal Arts.