Good morning and welcome to the American Airlines twenty twenty one Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Doug Parker, Chairman and CEO. Mr. Parker, you may begin.
Thank you, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Doug Parker, Chairman and CEO of American Airlines Group, and I will be the Chair of this twenty twenty one Annual Meeting of Stockholders. We're pleased to conduct this year's annual meeting virtually, which should allow a greater number of our stockholders to be included in participating. Joining us today are all members of the Board of Directors, several members of our senior management team and representatives of KPMG, which is our independent public accounting firm. Our Corporate Secretary, Caroline Wray, will serve as the Secretary for the meeting.
So let me start with a brief review of the agenda. We'll start by taking care of some housekeeping items, then we'll move to the official business for today's meeting, which is consideration of proposals described in our proxy statement. At the conclusion of the formal business, I'll give an overview of the company's performance in 2020 and progress in the COVID-nineteen pandemic, and then we will take questions. First, on the housekeeping. Only stockholders may ask questions in the designated field on the web portal.
Out of consideration for others, please limit yourself to one question. Answers to any questions that are submitted in accordance with the meeting rules of conduct that are not addressed will be posted on the company's website following the meeting. If you encounter any difficulties submitting questions during the meeting, please refer to the proxy statement for information on how to reach our technical support team. So I will now formally call over the twenty twenty one Annual Meeting of Stockholders. We will now proceed with the formal business of the meeting as described in the notice of annual meeting and the proxy statement.
The Board of Directors fixed 04/13/2021 as the record date for determining stockholders entitled to vote at the meeting. An affidavit has been delivered attesting to this fact. The notice of the meeting was mailed commencing on 04/29/2021, to all stockholders as of the record date and will be incorporated into the meeting under the minutes of this meeting. The stockholder list shows that as of the record date, there were 641,383,123 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting. The past list of stockholders and the number of shares held by each stockholder as of that record date is available on the web portal for any stockholder wishing to inspect it.
The Board of Directors has appointed Broadridge Investor Communications Services to act as Inspector of Election at this meeting. Broadridge is represented by Thomas Tighe. Its function is to determine the number of shares represented at this meeting and the validity of proxies and ballots and count all votes and ballots cast as to each matter. The Inspector of Election has been sworn in, and I have his own. I've been informed by the inspector of election that the shares present in person or represented by proxy are in excess of quorum requirements.
So we will begin the meeting. The polls open today, 06/09/2021, at 9AM. Time for voting. There are four proposals to be considered by the stockholders of this meeting as described in the proxy materials. Those are: one, the election of 12 directors second, the ratification of the appointment of KPMG as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for twenty twenty one third, an advisory vote to approve the compensation of American Airlines Group of American Airlines Group's named executive officers as described in the proxy statement and fourth, a shareholder proposal to amend certain voting thresholds.
No other matters will be considered. So proposal number one, the election of directors, is the first item of business and no other nomination against the election of the 12 directors nominated by the Board of Directors. No other nomination is complying with the nomination procedures and the company's bylaws have been received and the nominations are closed. Pursuant to the company's bylaws, the company's directors are elected on an annual basis. At this meeting, Jim Alba, Jeff Benjamin, Adrian Brown, John Cahill, Mike Emblert, Matt Hart, Sue Chronick, Marty Nesbitt, Denise O'Leary, Ray Robinson, Doug Steenland and myself, Doug Parker, have been nominated as directors of the company to serve until the twenty twenty two Annual Meeting of Stockholders and until their respective successors have been duly elected and qualified.
The Board of Directors has recommended that the stockholders vote for each of the nominees. Second item of business is the ratification of the appointment of KPMG LLP to serve as the independent registered public accounting firm for American Airlines Group for the fiscal year ending 12/31/2021. The Board of Directors has recommended that the stockholders vote for the ratification of the appointment of KPMG as American Airlines Group's independent registered public accounting firm for 2021. Proposal three, the third item of business, is the approval on a non binding advisory basis of the compensation of the named executive officers of American Airlines Group as disclosed pursuant to the compensation disclosure rules of the SEC as described in the compensation discussion and analysis, the compensation tables, narrative discussion and any related material disclosed in the proxy statement. The Board of Directors has recommended that the stockholders vote for the approval of, on a nonbinding advisory basis, the compensation of American Airlines Group's named executive officers.
The fourth item of business is a shareholder proposal from shareholder John At this time, I recognize Mr. Chebed for a period of two minutes. So operator, can you please open the line for Mr. Chebed?
Hello. This is John Chabet. Can you hear me okay?
We can, sir. Thank you very much.
Proposal four, a simple majority vote. Charles requested our Board take the steps necessary so that each voting requirement in our charter and bylaws that calls for greater than civil majority vote be be replaced by a requirement for a majority of the votes cast for and against such proposals. Shareholders are willing to pay a premium for shares of companies that have excellent corporate governance. Supermajority voting requirements have been found to be one of six entrenching mechanisms that are negatively related to company performance according to what matters in corporate governance by Lucian Bebchak of the Harvard Law School. Super majority vote requirements are used to block initiatives supported by most shareholders but opposed by status quo management.
In the past four weeks, this proposal topic has won 84% support at HollyFrontier Corporation, 89% support at Bunge Limited, and 99% support at ConocoPhillips. Church and Dwight Scholes gave 99% support to a 2020 proposal on the same topic. This proposal also received overwhelming 99% support at the twenty nineteen Ford of annual meeting. The current super majority vote requirement does not make sense. For instance, with our 80% super majority vote requirement in the election calling for an 8% shareholder approval and observed 200% of the shares that typically cast ballots in favor at American Airlines would need to vote for approval.
200%. In anticipation of significant shareholder support for this proposal topic, an enlightened governance committee chaired by miss Susan Kronick could have expedited adoption of this proposal by giving shareholders an opportunity to vote on a binding management proposal on this topic at our annual meeting today. Hence, adoption could have taken place now instead of later. Management promotes the fallacy that Schuler should be complacent in improving our corporate governance and management accountability to Schuler's with this proposal simply because management merely has some of the average governance practices that most other companies have. However, most average companies have already adopted this proposal.
The unfortunate mindset of management is that since American Air Airlines is average and even below average on this proposal topic that the management goal is to block improvement. Please vote yes. Super majority vote proposal four.
Thank you, sir. The Board recommends a vote against this proposal for the reasons provided in the company's proxy statement. So stockholders who have sent in proxies or voted via telephone or Internet and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action. Any stockholder who hasn't yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions there. Only stockholders of record on 04/13/2021, are eligible to vote at this meeting.
We're now going to take a short pause to allow for any shareholders who have not yet voted to do so. Okay. The time is now 09:09 a. M. Central Time, and the polls are now closed for voting.
The Inspector of Election has advised me that a majority of the votes previously cast have been voted for all of the director nominees listed in proposal one and for proposals two, three and four. The Inspector of Election will prepare the certificate of the Inspector of Election for the company once all votes are tallied, and the results will be detailed in a current report on Form eight ks, which we will file with the SEC. So this concludes the formal portion of the meeting, and the stockholders' meeting is now adjourned. But before we answer questions, let me just take a moment to highlight some of what we see on the horizon for American, which will provide some background for some of the Q and A. As with most presentations, the following discussion contains forward looking statements, and the company's actual results may differ materially from those discussed here.
Additional information concerning factors that could cause such a difference can be found in the company's annual report on Form 10 ks for the fiscal year ended 12/31/2020, and the quarterly report on Form 10 Q for the quarterly period ended 03/31/2021. So the past eighteen months have obviously been very challenging for our industry, but we are extremely proud and we've never been more proud of the American Airlines team and everything they've been able to accomplish, not only withstand but accomplish during this time. The resilience of the American team has shown throughout the COVID-nineteen pandemic, and has been inspiring to all of us. Every day, our team members are putting on their uniforms to go out and serve our customers, serve our country and the people who needed to travel during the most critical of times. They allowed American Airlines to deploy more customers than any other U.
S. Airline, all while producing the highest passenger unit revenue of any global U. S. Carrier. In addition to that, our treasury, finance, legal and government affairs teams worked incredibly well to raise more than $30,000,000,000 in liquidity to build the strong cash position we have today.
That result is not only a testament to the team's excellent and hard work, but also to the confidence others have in the future of American Airlines, and that includes the U. S. Government, to which we are greatly appreciative of. As vaccinations have increased across the country, demand returned. Leisure bookings remain very strong, both in The U.
S. And to destinations in Mexico, The Caribbean and Latin America. And business travel and long haul international travel are also starting to show encouraging signs. Many of our corporate customers are returning to their offices and have told us they plan to get back to traveling in the weeks and months ahead. Travel restrictions are being revised and lifted in certain parts of Europe, and we expect that will continue to be the case as vaccines continue to roll out.
Over the past year, we dramatically reduced our costs in Americas and built significant efficiencies into the business. Changes we have made will drive more than $1,300,000,000 of permanent nonvolume related savings in 2021 and beyond. While we needed to take on additional debt due to the pandemic, we're prepared and well positioned to manage. This is all good news after a year filled with uncertainty as customers return to the skies will be met by a different and better American Airlines, one with the broadest and best global network that has been enhanced by new partnerships. And American Airlines with a revamped experience makes travel more convenient for our customers and ensures they feel safe and comfortable as they return to flying.
And that American Airlines is much more financially and operationally efficient. Foundation for all this is our phenomenal team, who will set our service apart as we continue to welcome customers back to travel and back to American Airlines. We are very encouraged by what we're seeing and believe American is well prepared for a strong recovery in the months and years ahead. So with that intro, we'll begin answering questions that shareholders have submitted on the web portal. We're going to those a number of those already come in.
And Caroline Clayton, our Vice President of Corporate Communications, read those and we will do our best to answer them. And as we said before, any ones we don't get to will be posted on the web portal after the meeting. Caroline, what do we got?
Great. Thank you, Doug. As you mentioned, the majority have come in through the portal and advanced the meeting, but we have received some this morning that we will ask as well. First up, what is your plan to increase revenue during and after the pandemic?
Well, first and foremost, demand needs a return, of course, which will increase industry revenue within American. In addition to just recognizing demand as it returns, we put a lot of effort in improving our ability to generate revenues and a higher share of the revenues. We've talked a lot about what we call the green flag plan. What that means is as the recovery continues, we've likened this to a car race with a green flag dropping, and we're going to be ready to go as it does. That's happening today.
A big part of that plan is capturing as much revenue as we possibly can. One of the ways we'll do that is making America the easiest airline to do business with. Customers will want to fly with us. We'll have great demand for our product. This could be anything from making our fare products as simple as possible, which we've done, to creating more value with our loyalty program, which we're also doing.
We're also strategically expanding our network more places that our customers want to travel. We think we'll we know there's going be tremendous pent up demand and with people that are eager to travel. And they'll be able to do so on a broader network, thanks to our network itself as well as the expansion that we put in place with partnerships with airlines such as JetBlue Alaska and Gold South America. So this is something that we think America has done really well during the pandemic. We've shown we can put aircraft where customers tell us they want to go and we can do it quickly.
And our team has done that exceptionally well. It's a big reason why, as I noted in my introductory comments, our unit revenues are leading the industry through the pandemic. We can also redeploy those assets to other locations as demand shifts. Creating a nimble network has been a big asset for us, and we'll continue to be we'll continue to make sure we do that as we work to capture as much revenue as possible as demand returns.
Great. Thank you. And speaking of network, one of the shareholders asked, are we planning to grow in new leisure markets with the retirement of 150 planes last year, especially in markets previously served by those retired aircraft, for example, Croatia or Iceland, and this caused you competitive pressures?
Yes. Again, a good little bit of what I just addressed. We the world has changed, and we've reduced our airline to flying very, very little. And now it's all growing back. And the one of the nice things about that is we can add back where we see demand.
It may not be where we flew in the past, certainly not exactly every route we flew in the past. So we're going to bring the airline to the places that our customers most want to go. For leisure specifically, we've already brought back the domestic system in large part, although we certainly are flying more routes to certain markets we have in the past, larger airplanes we have in the past because it's largely leisure dominated. This summer, we're going to be flying close to what we flew in 2019 in terms of leisure travelers in the leisure market. We'll bring back long haul flying as long haul international flying as soon as we can.
But as I noted in my remarks, a lot of that depends on government regulations as governments get more comfortable and lift restrictions. There's huge pent up demand for international travel, but we need those restrictions to be lifted for that demand to not be suppressed. I guess in summary, what I'd tell you is this. As demand comes back quickly, we have flexibility in our fleet to be able to go capture. I think we've done that well so far.
Our network team has done a great job building and rebuilding and then rebuilding again schedules over the past year. And it's all entirely been based on where our customers want to go. So if there are leisure markets or business markets for that matter, customers show us that they want to fly, we're going figure out how to be able to get them there.
With that in mind, what is American's estimated operating capacity for the next year, especially against the baseline operations of late twenty nineteen?
Well, we can't predict exactly what our operating capacity is going be next year given what I said, the return of business travel and international travel are contingent upon still a number of factors. But I can say what we said already is because of strong demand, particularly the leisure markets, we're now we're going to be flying 90 more than 90%, I think, of our domestic seat capacity this summer compared to the 2019 and about 80% of our international seat capacity compared to 2019. So that's where we'll be this summer. Where that goes from there will be entirely dependent upon demand increasing. We certainly expect it will grow beyond that because we expect demand will increase, but that's the best I can do in terms of specifics at this point.
Thank you. American took on a lot of new debt during the pandemic. What is the company's plan to pay down this debt?
Yes. It's certainly as proud as we are of what we accomplished, there's no doubt that for all airlines resulted in us having to take on higher debt. We again, we received a lot of support from the U. S. Government, most of that in grants, some of it in debt.
And we also needed to go out and raise more debt. That's not where we were headed in America. We entered 2020 with having gotten through a fleet modernization and announced we're looking to retire begin retiring debt in the coming years. We were excited about that. That didn't happen, of course.
But that's still the plan. Our plan prior was to reduce our debt by at least 8 to $10,000,000,000 over the coming five years through regularly scheduled debt amortization, and that's still the case. But because we're now starting at a higher debt level because we know we need to delever even more than we planned, more than we will do through regular scheduled debt amortization. So in the near term, plan to keep these very high liquidity levels we expect in the fourth quarter I'm sorry, the first quarter with over $20,000,000,000 of liquidity, which is well in excess of what we will need to have once we get back to sustainable profitability. But in the near term, we plan to maintain these higher liquidity levels until we are generating sustained positive cash flow.
Once that occurs and given the efficiency measures I talked about and also a lower capital expenditure profile, which I haven't really talked about, but we have spent more on aircraft modernization than certainly than our peers. And as a result, we don't have a lot of aircraft purchases in the future to continue to modernize. So that will also help us to use excess cash to delever our balance sheet by proactively retiring prepayable debt and increasing our unencumbered assets. So that's where we stand. It's an issue that, again, is top of mind for American and our Board and our shareholders and one that we know we can certainly manage through a combination of the excess cash generating cash flow in the future.
Every dollar we generate, every dollar of excess cash we have will go toward reducing our debt and getting it back to a more manageable level and getting it back to the point where we were as we started 2020 of retiring debt as through regular amortization.
You mentioned fleet retirement as a lot of those happened last year. Has AAL been able to sell any of the planes that it retired?
Yes. We've been is Derek here. We have as we talked about, we sold we've retired all the 757s, all the 767s, all the E190s and all the A330s. We've also retired CRJ200s and Embraer 140s. All of the 75s, 76s and E190s have been sold and put into contracts to sell those aircraft.
We've gained about $300,000,000 in proceeds so far for those aircraft. The 75s and 76s and E190s are all gone. The 75s take a little bit more time to go out. And the A330s we'll look at as we move forward to dispose of those aircraft. But yes, we have and we have contracts under that and have significant cash flow in from those aircraft that are included in the $20,000,000,000 number that Doug talked about that we will end at the end of the second quarter.
And as you think about the younger, more fuel efficient fleet, we know that sustainability efforts are increasingly important in all sectors, but especially in aviation. What are American's plans in this space? And how do you think you set relative to competitors?
Yes. Thanks. Well, this is an issue for all of us. It's an industry issue as much as anything. I think all of our competitors are doing everything we can to get to net zero by 02/1950, which is the goal that we have set at American AFOR has set for The U.
S. That we, AFOR, carries with Green to set for The U. S. Industry. And it's an ambitious goal given how aircraft are powered, but one that we know we can meet and one that we all intend to meet.
And really proud of what we're doing at American. To get there by 02/1950, I mean, first off, of course, the best thing anyone can be doing at this point is having efficient aircraft, so fleet renewal. That is both a core of our sustainability strategy and a key business objective. It's an area where we've led the industry in recent years. Since 2013, we've invested $24,000,000,000 in creating a newer and more fuel efficient fleet of aircraft while retiring our older and less efficient airplanes that Derek just talked about.
And we now have the youngest mainline fleet of any U. Network airline by a wide margin. So that comes first as in today's world is as we're all burning jet fuel, the best thing we can do is make sure we have aircraft that are burning less of that than others by having new airplanes and Americans leading the way there. We're also focusing on operational improvements to maximize the efficiency. For example, last year, we began deploying specialized flight optimization software on our mainline fleet and increased the usage of single engine taxi, both of which are helping to reduce our emissions and lower our fuel costs.
While we are burning carbon, it's important. Part of our strategy is having carbon offsets over time. We hope do not rely on carbon offsets, but it's an important part now of the plant. We offer our customers the option to offset the carbon emissions from their flights through a partnership with CoolEffect. It's a nonprofit organization that applies extra rigor to the process of verifying that each offsetting project they work with meets the highest possible standards.
So that's largely where we are today. The key to getting carbon neutral for any airline though is sustainable aviation fuel, which is the most promising advancement available to our industry in the near and midterm. We at American are committed to doing everything we can to facilitate the production of sustainable aviation fuels. We've been taking delivery of SAM since last year, and we committed to using 9,000,000 gallons of it between now and 2023. Also in the first quarter of year, we reached innovative agreements with two of our corporate customers, Deloitte and Coon Nagel, demonstrating that there is real demand for sustainable aviation fuels amongst our customers.
And look, we're proud of all that. This is going to require our government to get involved in helping sustainable aviation fuel to become commercially viable. And just as we as a country did with things like solar and wind, we're going to need to do this with sustainable aviation fuels if this industry is going to get to carbon neutral by 02/1950. We all know that. The great news is our government is well aware of that as well and is fully engaged with our industry on climate issues.
And it's very encouraging that we do have those common goals, especially when it comes to staff. So that's the long term answer. What we really need to do is get staff to be incentives for people to produce staff so that we can get it to become commercially viable over time. So we're doing everything we can. We're proud of the work our team is doing, and we'll continue to work with the U.
S. Government to ensure that we are getting interim goals that allow us to meet the longer term goal. It's incredibly important.
Thanks, Seth. It seems like American is going out of its way to get involved in political issues, specifically voter legislation. Why is that? Why are we taking
positions there? Yes. Thanks for the question. Our view is that we're not getting involved on political issues. This is not us looking to pick one side of a bipartisan issue.
It's us looking to pull people together. These as it relates to the question, certain that's related to our statement that American made about legislation voter legislation that was introduced in Texas, where we are headquartered. That legislation was put forward as an effort to increase voter integrity to ally concerns about the lack of voter integrity, obviously something that all Americans favor, ensuring that votes do have the integrity do have a high level of integrity. The problem with that legislation though is it in trying to help integrity, also making it much harder for people to vote and indeed for certain groups of people to vote that made them feel disenfranchised. And we begin to hear about that from our team members.
We begin to hear about it from Black CEOs around the country, Black executives around the country. And our view is and will continue to be that we need to support our team. And as our team came forward and let us know, this was really important to them, and they know that American Airlines has a voice in this regard, that we should raise our voice and their support. And again, not on one side of a partisan issue, but rather to try to get people to work together. If indeed, voter integrity is a large concern for some referring group of people, we should work to address that concern, but we should work to address it in a way that doesn't make another group of people feel disenfranchised and make it harder for them to vote.
There have to be ways to do this, and corporations will go away on this point once those that are working toward don't have in doing so, don't generate large concerns from particularly from groups like the NAACP, Legal Defense Fund, like a group of black executives around the country and like team members at American Airlines who feel like this is going to make it harder for them to vote. So again, that's what it's about. It's what we're about. We have an obligation to support our team. What we do is bring people together.
We're trying to bring people together on this point on what is clearly a divisive point. And again, not making one side of the divisive point, trying to get people to work together.
Thank you. A couple of questions specifically on the Board. It seems like the company's Board members have been selected for their experience with large, complex and international companies. Might also be good to include Board members whose background is more entrepreneurial, small business or the like. What is the strategy for the current makeup of the Board of Directors?
Great. Thanks for the question. First off, we have a fantastic and diverse Board, but you're absolutely right that having a Board with diverse backgrounds and Board members who bring various experiences to the table with different perspectives makes us better. That's why we worked so hard on specifically that and made some nice progress over the past year as well. So like I say, we already had an experienced Board with phenomenal experience, large complex companies, many of whom weathered significant cycles, which is invaluable in our industry.
But we also recognize there were places where we could add some fresh thinking. So in February, we welcomed Adrian Brown to our Board. We thought we could benefit from Adrienne's experience in the technology sector, an area known for where she's known for innovation and quick thinking. She also brings a wealth of experience in the ESG sector, which we just talked about, and there it's becoming increasingly important. She's a managing partner of venture capital firm.
And anyway, I can just tell you, in the few months that Adrienne has been on our Board, she's adding huge value with her outside the box entrepreneurial thinking, and that's been a huge asset. Another area where we look to expand our Board's existing expertise was leadership in aviation, in commercial aviation. And so we were really fortunate to be able to add Doug's team, who brings over twenty years of experience as an airline executive, including CEO of Northwest Airlines. Doug as well has been incredibly helpful in his short time on the Board to the management team and to the Board with his perspectives and his perspectives in addition to just being an airline executive is a variety of Board leadership positions that has been extremely helpful to us as well. So anyway, we've had we're very happy with the adds we've made to what was already a great Board, and we will keep doing just what the question asks, which is ensuring that the members of our Board are chosen based on what our business operations and our strategy needs to serve the long term interest of American shareholders.
And we're really proud that we have one of the most diverse Boards in aviation, and that will serve as well as we chart our future.
And as shareholders prepare to vote on Board members, can they receive brief professional bios on the Board of Directors in advance of voting?
Of course. The bios for our Board of Directors are available on aa.com at any point in time, and they're also included in the proxy statement and in the interactive materials that we make available prior to the annual meeting each year. We encourage you to read them. An impressive group of people.
Looking at fuel, that remains one of American's largest costs, and oil prices have doubled over the past year. What impact will this have on American's profitability?
Yes. Fuel is our second largest cost behind salaries and benefits. We're obviously well aware of the recent uptick in the price of oil. It's a cost that we and all airlines will need to bear as we go forward in our pricing. I will note that while the prices are higher in 2020 than they were in 2019 I'm sorry, 2021 than they were in 2020, 2020 got pretty low on a comparative basis as a result of the pandemic.
And the reality is our 2021 fuel price correct me if I'm wrong, Terry, but our 2021 fuel price forecast at today's prices is still lower than what we experienced in 2019 and 2018. So again, I'm not trying to minimize the fact that fuel prices have run up. They have. But they're still below 2019, 2018 levels. We certainly have an airline that has demand returns, can be nicely profitable with fuel prices at this level.
Will just be something an expense that we're going need to overcome versus where it was in 2020 as we move forward. And I also talked about in relation to ESG a number of things that we're doing to make sure that we are as fuel efficient as we possibly can be, both because it's good for the environment, but also because allows us to spend less while taking care of our customers.
Thank you. One that just came in. As we look to the years ahead, is Ameriken planning to implement dividends in the recovery?
Well, we are precluded from issuing any dividends or doing any share buybacks per the CARES Act through for a date that I don't know if that might September 30. September 30 of what year? 2022. 2022. We, American, and all airlines took that accepted funds from the CARES Act and the two acts that followed are precluded from doing so until then, which is all airlines, but all U.
S. Airlines, by the way. Beyond that, I don't know. As I said, our first order of business is going to be retiring debt. And right now, it's certainly not an issue we could do.
If we wanted to, we're not talking about it at this point. We're all of our effort right now is looking to retiring as we generate cash using net to retire debt when we get to the point that we're comfortably doing. So we obviously understand that we need to give returns to our shareholders, and some can't some shareholders are very focused on dividends. So we'll address that as we get to that point. But right now, there's something we can do about it.
One final question and then I think we will address the majority of shareholders. And as we mentioned earlier, we will get to the others online if we haven't. When do you think demand will fully recover? And specifically, what are you seeing with
corporate travel? Yes. Okay, thanks. It's a question that we get all the time, and we all obviously interested in the answer, and I won't be able to give you a perfect answer because much of it is dependent upon really on two things. Business is dependent upon business getting back companies relaxing their travel policies, being comfortable sending their teams on the road again and being back in the office, frankly.
I mean we know we've had many customers come visit us in our headquarters in recent weeks. We've been open for business here throughout the pandemic, but most companies haven't. And we're starting to see a lot of uptick in visitors to headquarters because we are open. And 47 of our top 50 corporate customers have told us they plan to return to traveling this year. So we know business travel is coming back.
How quickly it comes back is yet to be seen, but it's certainly going to be better in the third quarter than it was in the second quarter and better in the fourth quarter than was in the third. It is recovering. And the other point is what happens with international long haul international travel, short haul international travel places, Mexico, Canada into The Caribbean are doing quite well. But transoceanic travel is largely hurt by the restrictions we talked about between largely between countries. So that will be the last return in large part because of that regulatory environment and the restrictions that are still in place.
What we've seen is when some of those restrictions are lifted, as happened in Spain and Greece and other countries, bookings pick up considerably every time it happens. So we're actively engaged on this. We've been talking to regulators in The United States and abroad about the importance of reopening borders. We had an online press conference earlier this week with six largest CEOs the four largest airline CEOs in The United States, Transatlantic and the two largest to The UK, talking about how we believe and asking our respective countries to please join us and get to work on opening up a U. S.-U.
K. Corridor because we know that we can do that safely given the vaccination rates on both sides. But anyway, will come that will be the last to return. And when it returns, again, is largely dependent upon when countries decide that it's okay to lift those restrictions. So long way to say it, I don't exactly know other than we've seen a huge increase as vaccination rates return.
We've seen that in the leisure travel where there domestically leisure travel where there aren't restrictions. So once restrictions are lifted, both in business and in long haul international, we know the demand is there. We hear about it all the time from our customers. And we'll just keep working to get those restrictions lifted. And as they do, I fully expect you'll see air travel demand returns low as it has been in the past and higher in the future.
Any more, Caroline?
No, I think that covers most of what was submitted. All right.
Fair enough. Well, thank you all very much. Thanks for your interest. Thanks for your interest in American Airlines. We that concludes the question and answer session of the Annual Meeting.
We thank you for attending. And again, if we didn't get to your question, we will make sure to have it answered on the web portal. Thank you all very much.