Designer Dustin Curtis was so disgusted with the American Airlines Web site that he redesigned it, and posted the results as an open letter to the company . Guess what? One of AA’s designers responded with a long defense about why better design dies a slow death at places like AA.

As Curtis wrote: “If I was running a company with the distinction and history of American Airlines, I would be embarrassed–no ashamed–to have a Web site with a customer experience as terrible as the one you have now…Your Web site is abusive to your customers, it is limiting your revenue possibilities, and it is permanently destroying the brand and image of your company in the mind of every visitor.” But it just took him a couple hours, starting with the original design, to produce a cleaner concept. Here, a before and after (check out the links for the full design):

Why doesn’t such an obviously better design win out, at a place like AA? Here’s what a one Mr. X, an experienced and, according to Curtis, quite competent UX designer, had to say for the company’s feeble effort:

I saw your blog post titled “Dear AmericanAirlines,” and I thought I’d

drop a line. Sorry for the length of this email, but let me sum up the

gist of what I’ve written below: You’re right. You’re so very right.

And yet…

The problem with the design of AA.com, however, lies less in our

competency (or lack thereof, as you pointed out in your post) and more

with the culture and processes employed here at American Airlines