Vasu Raja Isn't Going Anywhere, American Says

The airline’s corporate communications team responded to a rumor that Raja is on his way out.

Dear readers,

Vasu Raja, one of the more embattled executives in U.S. aviation, is working remotely "for a few weeks while he takes care of some personal matters," an American Airlines spokesperson told me on Monday.

You may ask: so what? And you’re right. Normally, I would not care if an airline's chief commercial officer worked from home for a month. But I heard over the weekend from many of you who were sure something was up at American. Many of you have sought to convince me that Raja is never coming back, that the board had tired of his Sunbelt and direct distribution strategies, which thus far have resulted in a substantial margin gap compared to American’s peer airlines. Some of you were absolutely sure you had inside information suggesting Raja is a goner.

I suspect American's corporate communications team knows this rumor is percolating, because on Monday an American spokesperson went on record promising that Raja will return.

"Vasu is not leaving," Andrea Koos told me in a very short telephone interview. I asked some follow-up questions, but she declined to answer anything else on the record.

The way American initially communicated Raja’s absence is partially to blame for the rumors. At first, two sources told me, American told other executives that Raja was taking a “sabbatical,” which suggests a concrete leave of absence. Later, American changed its messaging, telling insiders (and reporters) that he would still be working remotely — just that he won’t be as plugged in as usual. Perhaps that should have been the message from the start.

For $12.2 million, we need more transparency

I wish Raja well, and I hope that whatever he is dealing with is not serious and will be resolved soon. But I also need to criticize the secrecy. When you're the top commercial executive at a Fortune 100 company, and you're leading a strategy that consistently underperforms the competition, people are going to think you're on your way out, whether it's true or not.

Raja is a high-ranking officer at a public company who received $12.2 million last year in total compensation, and in our tiny world of aviation, people care what he does, and where he is. Maybe that's not fair. Maybe he deserves privacy. But people are talking about Raja, and that's never a good thing.