ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS SOARS WITH AMERICAN AIRLINES CONTRACT
American Airlines recently awarded a five-year, $39 million contract to our Enterprise Solutions Group. The agreement names Verizon and Nortel as the single providers to replace American's voice network with our fully managed voice services worldwide. The agreement covers 33,000 of the airline's 50,000 employees. Under the financing arranged by Verizon Credit, all equipment will be Verizon-owned and ESG will provide American with managed voice services based on a simple monthly per-user charge. These services include Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and unified messaging that will enable employees to capture phone, email and fax messages by phone or PC. The airline's customer call centers will be upgraded with a Verizon-managed integrated voice recognition system delivered via IP. The system will improve service efficiency while reducing cost. Based on our initial performance, American may elect to expand the contract to cover all of its employees for a total of $70 million.