American Is Official Airline and Corporate Sponsor for 10 Years

PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- American Airlines announced today it is supporting the 10th Annual Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference. American has supported the conference every year since its inception.

This year's event, titled Seasons of Change: Taking Risks, Embracing Opportunities, will be held May 18-22, 2005, at the Wyndham Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas, and is expected to draw approximately 2,000 of the nation's top African-American entrepreneurs and business leaders.

To kick off the event, American Airlines Board of Directors member and BLACK ENTERPRISE publisher Earl G. Graves, Sr. will present the State of Black Business address.

American Airlines is hosting a luncheon at the conference, honoring executives from the Black Enterprise "BE 100s" list, an annual list of the top-grossing African-American owned industrial and service companies, including 100 auto dealerships, 15 advertising agencies, and 65 financial services firms. American Airlines Vice President of Corporate Communications and Advertising, Roger Frizzell, will be the keynote speaker. American has created opportunities for partnering with African-American businessmen and women for years. The program affords qualified minority, women-owned and small businesses opportunity to participate as potential suppliers for products and services for American Airlines.

"Our Diversified Supplier Program is a catalyst to foster business relationships with minority-owned and women-owned small businesses locally and throughout the United States," said John MacLean, American's Vice President of Purchasing. "We've been committed to this program for more than 15 years, with our recent focus in the area of professional services such as legal, information technology, human resources and financial services."

At the American Airlines booth, conference attendees will be able to enroll in American's AAdvantage(R) program and join the Admirals Club(R), the ideal place to relax before, between or after flights. Attendees also will be able to sign up for American's Business ExtrAA product, a business loyalty program by which small and mid-size companies can earn points redeemable for travel awards on American, and business travelers earn AAdvantage miles.

More information about the Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference is available at http://www.blackenterprise.com.

Web Site: http://www.aa.com http://www.blackenterprise.com