American releases a new video. Is the updated logo on the way?

This morning American posted a new video on YouTube highlighting all the efforts they’ve made this year to “to improving American Airlines for our people and our customers.”

This comes just a week after the one-year anniversary of its bankruptcy filing and a few days after the Allied Pilots Association approved a new contract.

Last week after the pilots’ vote, American’s CEO Tom Horton sent a letter to employees to talk about the past year and the work ahead. Here’s some of what he wrote:

We’re modernizing the entire travel experience, with a steady stream of industry leading products and services that offer our customers the ultimate in ease, comfort and connectivity. We are poised to have the most modern and efficient fleet in the industry. In fact, we will introduce 60 new aircraft to the fleet in 2013 including the new Airbus 319 and 321 and our new Flagship, the Boeing 777-300ER. And, as you may have heard, we have exciting work underway to renew and refresh our iconic brand in the very near future.

I think they’ve done a great job. It’s not just the big and obvious things, like new aircraft and new cabins.  But the small things, like nearly fleet-wide wifi, improved meals in first class and coach, pre-order meals, Main Cabin Extra, great mobile apps that work across multiple platforms, a real-time customer service Twitter team, an improved website, the ability to redeem AAdvantage partner awards online.

The improvements just keep coming and some really cool stuff is on the way: new planes, new seats, new entertainments systems, international Wi-Fi!

Here’s the video. And at the end, a teaser. The tail of an aircraft covered by a tarp….

 

Rumors and speculation

I know that American is supposed to be taking delivery of their first new 777-300ER tomorrow. I also heard from a source that American’s 4th 777-300ER will be the first of their new planes that will have the new livery and branding.

I don’t know if they’ll introduce the new branding before then or if this first 777-300ER will fly with a polished aluminum finish (as of Friday it was still sporting the gray paint).  I wonder if it will have some sort of new logo or hybrid look, but not the final livery?

Do you think we’ll see the new branding before the end of the year?