Qualifications:
Robert W. Mann, Jr.
Mr. Mann is an independent airline industry analyst and consultant, principal of R.W. Mann & Company, Inc., which specializes in the identification, development and implementation of structural improvements to industry productivity, distribution and profitability. He has more than twenty years of increasing responsibility and direct experience in the passenger and express airline industry in a broad range of disciplines, including finance, business/fleet/facilities and resource planning, information and service systems development, marketing, sales, and general management, both domestic and international in scope. Founded in 1993, his consulting practice has advised airline management, employees, investors and airline and travel industry-related firms.
After graduate and undergraduate work in Aeronautics and Transportation/Management at MIT, Mr. Mann began his career and advanced to a senior executive position with American Airlines, subsequently serving as an Officer at three U.S. flag major and international airlines, Pan Am, TWA and Tower Air. He has direct experience with firms whose market positioning spans "boutique", premium-service, short-haul domestic hub specialists, through the lowest-cost, long-haul, large aircraft, international scheduled and charter operators.
His consulting experience spans more than fifty, top-level engagements with client firms on five continents, including a substantial number of repeat assignments and lengthy, on-site implementations. During 1996-1998, Mr. Mann advised the Allied Pilots Association Board of Directors and membership on issues relating to the new generation of cost-effective, small jets expected to be acquired by AMR Corporation, and on likely airline industry consolidation events and their impact on APA and ALPA bargaining efforts. During 1994-1995 he advised the 16 CEOs of the LatinPass airline group on strategies for competing with U.S. airline growth and emerging alliances in the Latin American region. He advanced to airline/hotel/car rental industry CEOs an innovative proposal to reform CRS marketing practices and align airline/CRS/travel agency interests so as to control the growth in CRS fees, in advance of the DOT's revision of these regulations.
During 1995, Mr. Mann was retained to serve as an Executive Officer of Tower Air, responsible for all aspects of marketing, service operations, systems and planning, resulting in record results and improvements in the areas of profitability, service reliability and performance, cost control and revenue growth. He continued afterwards as a productivity systems and automation consultant to Tower, for whom he began consulting in 1990 on a series of market development, distribution/automation and executive personnel issues.
Mr. Mann was formerly a Vice President with the firm of Simat, Helliesen & Eichner, Inc., responsible for that firm's marketing, product planning, general management and labor advisory practices, where he sourced or serviced engagements for airline owners, management and employee groups, investors, legal firms, distribution system operators, government agencies, advertising agencies and travel industry entities. Key assignments were an eighteen month, on-site, development and implementation of the marketing strategy underlying the successful America West reorganization, strategic reviews of the Amadeus and Galileo global distribution systems,and a four-year advisory to three successive leaderships of the Allied Pilots Association, representing American Airlines and certain American Eagle regional airline crew members.
Mr. Mann previously served as Vice President - Marketing for Trans World Airlines, where he was responsible for advertising, promotion, business and leisure segment marketing, planning and research, innovative services and distribution, and for the corporate marketing plan, where he introduced the concept of "product and program management". TWA's advertising and direct marketing strategies and tactics were successfully targeted towards highest probability, high growth, high profitability business and leisure travelers and prospects. Marketing program development efforts were expanded in scope to better leverage the carrier's customer database. Formal marketing planning, measurement systems, rigorous consumer research and test marketing were employed to target product and service development efforts and maximize return on marketing investment. TWA earned its highest-ever operating profit during his tenure. He also performed acquisitions analysis for Icahn & Company, TWA's parent firm.
At Pan American World Airways, as Vice President - Marketing and Product Planning, he was responsible for distribution, service systems, product and program planning, and for managing the selection of advertising agencies for Pan Am and The Pan Am Shuttle. Previously, as Vice President - Marketing Information Systems, he was responsible for functional development, development of planning and measurement systems, and for an overhaul of Pan Am's distribution system links, internal reservations, pricing and revenue management systems and their functionality. As General Manager - Marketing, responsible for marketing plans, product and program management, he proposed and managed a multifaceted strategic marketing alliance with American Airlines, involving Pan Am's adoption of the Sabre reservations inventory host/distribution system and the AAdvantage Frequent Traveler program.
Mr. Mann began his career at American Airlines, where over an eight year period, he held finance, planning, marketing and sales positions. He established American's initial international sales and commission policies, developed and automated a $100 MM in-house wholesale vacation travel operation that became FlyAAway Vacations, managed the start-up of AAdvantage, AAirpass and direct marketing programs, developed merchandising plans for the initial expansion of American's Dallas/Fort Worth hub, developed fleet and facilities planning decision support systems with which American retired the Boeing 707 and acquired the MD-80, via a then innovative lease/purchase arrangement.
Mr. Mann earned his pilot's license at age 18, among other things working an assembly line at a technical products firm and washing General Aviation aircraft to fund that goal. Since 1984, he has served as an outside Director of Airline Automation, Inc., the aviation schedule and proprietary reservations system software and services firm. He has been qualified as an industry expert witness in proceedings before Federal, State and Local authorities, in National Mediation Board arbitration, on Presidential Emergency Board #233 (American Airlines v. Allied Pilots Association) and has served as a guest on CNN and CNBC television, on National Public Radio and in print business media programming. He has written numerous articles for aviation specialist publications.
Mr. Mann earned M.S. and B.S. degrees from MIT, in Transportation/Management and Aeronautics. He was on staff at MIT's Flight Transportation Laboratory, specializing in the optimization of short-haul air transportation.