Rdenney

The question is, what good would that do? You'd get a new guy who would start off with high ambitions and would then run headlong into the unions and the general employee attitude, and three or four years from now, he would be gone, too. At least Munoz knows what he is dealing with.

Unless, that is, a true visionary leader for the airline could be found who has the skill to persuade the employees of a better way. But the chances of the board finding someone like that are just about nil. It's usually someone who comes up from within who has the credibility and understanding to do that, but boards interested in quarterly financial reports don't hire people who actually know how to run airlines, they hire finance people like themselves. That is a disease across much of US corporate business, not just at United, though, so we can't believe that will happen all by itself.

At some point, you have to change the people who are there, not just change to different people.

It must be said that part of the problem is that many customers of the major US airlines are more akin to people who once took the bus, because it was the cheapest travel mode, than to people who once took the train and sat in the first-class compartment. In the race to the bottom that has been pricing strategy for US airlines, they have found it. That is why the foreign airlines do better--In Europe, those who travel routinely by air are the business and well-to-do travelers, because there are other less expeditious but cheaper modes for the short distances involved that can carry the rest. This is a problem simply because many people who fly don't know how the process works, and when it surprises them in a negative way, sometimes they only have anger as a response. We've all seen it time and time again. DYKWIA behaviors aren't just for wealthy flyers. I offer as an example the couple who were removed in Houston last week.

But Munoz (or anyone in his position) can't say that to employees because it is guaranteed to leak when he does and it will look like "us versus them", or showing disrespect to his customers. And so it would be. The challenge is finding ways to bring out positive behavior from people who are stressed in multiple ways, and not necessarily in ways they are used to.

I'm trying to recall whose advertising it was from a few years back that talked about the flying experience from the infrequent passenger's perspective--the unexplained delays, the silent treatment, the hurry up and wait, the changing stories--to express how that airline "understood". I'm not sure it wasn't United. That's the right strategy--train employees to experience what the customers experience, so that they learn to work within that sensitivity.

Had the gate agent for 3411 done that, we would not have just set a record for thread length. She missed every single opportunity to remove the sting from the barb, thinking that bluster would carry her through a bad situation instead of empathy, even within the (much too) narrow context of the options provided to her. That has to be fixed, but it won't be fixed by a continuing succession of CEO's whose only real qualifications are knowing what EBITDA means, a good resume, and availability.