anc-ord772

I didn't see this news here. Am I late?

"United Continental Holdings Inc.’s top executive is forgoing a bonus for last year and its chairman is stepping aside. Chief Executive Officer Oscar Munoz asked the board not to award him the payout for 2017, the airline said in a regulatory filing Monday. " - Skift

Skift

"United’s chairman, former Air Canada CEO Robert Milton, won’t stand for re-election to the board so he can focus on other interests. Director Laurence Simmons, who joined United’s board in 2010, also plans to leave."

mherdeg

I guess you could say he … volunteered to be denied boarding.

usbusinesstraveller

Jim Whitehurst for Chairman? I guess it depends on his workload at Redhat. They’ll need another former airline exec to replace Milton on the BOD.

JHake10

Picked up by the WSJ also. https://www.wsj.com/articles/united-..._us_business_f (pay wall)

climmy

United's management / employee soured relationship goes back so far. Personal experience goes as far back as the "Employee Owned" airline ran delays all of the time in the late 90's and early 2000's.

I give Oscar huge kudos for doing this and it deserves major credit. I just fear that the employee response will be so jaded as to nullify the goodwill.

There's so much momentum in a sour relationship that I think it'll do little to move the needle...Although I hope it does.

onthesam

Chicago Tribune is suggesting the refusal to take bonus is somewhat related to Dao. United CEO skips bonus after passenger-dragging incident - Chicago Tribune

spin88

count me impressed with Munoz, if it was actually his doing. If so it will go far with the line work force, which could use some encouragement.

Curious about board departures. Were they in the Rah, rah, go Smisik, go set? Is this a house cleaning? Other than a perception that the board has been the handmaiden of every anti-consumer bad decision, and let things spiral out of control, I don't know who is naughty, and nice.

Gig103

I'd love for someone to tell an AA flier what successes UA had that he's referring to. From the outside, all I have seen are the bad -- Dr. Dao, basic economy (AA has that too, unfornately), and rolling into 1Q 2018, the attempts to change employee bonuses to a lottery, and having to end the ironically-named PetSafe program.

jsloan

UA believes that they've made significant operational improvements, including industry-leading D:0 times (on-time or early depature). There's a thread debating whether or not the focus on D:0 is good for the customer, but I'm confident it's one of the first things they'd mention.

bocastephen

I vote he keeps the bonus and fires Kirby instead - saves about the same amount of money, but this way everyones' a winner

DenverBrian

Could he have not kept the bonus and then immediately used it to set up a foundation of some kind? Letting the company keep the money seems to be sending a weak-tea kind of message.

EWR764

I think it's important to have some airline experience on the BOD, but the actual chairman and the board itself simply do not have as much influence on the operation of the airline as many seem to believe. The BOD's purpose is much more high-level and strategic, and while some airline experience is important as a check against incompetent management (especially to the extent the prior BOD was viewed as sycophantic and absentee), it's far more important to have experienced airline managers in executive roles, to, you know, actually execute. For better or worse, United has much more of that now with Kirby/Nocella/Levy replacing others with less extensive and diverse airline backgrounds.

I'd ask you to look at the composition of other airline boards of directors... you'll find comparatively few directors with airline pedigree.

It seems to be well-received on the front lines and Munoz is genuinely respected by the rank-and-file.

The perception of the BOD being the "handmaiden of every anti-consumer bad decision" seems to be a creature of this forum, probably derived from the kernel-of-truth notion that the 2012-2015 iteration of the UCH board was mostly absent while Smisek ran amok. That appears to have metamorphosed in time to the assignment of much greater weight to the BOD's influence in day-to-day, tactical decisions at the airline, which is decidedly not its purpose. True, it approved the hire of the latest bogeyman, Scott Kirby, but imputing to it things like cuts to the Polaris service or implementation of married segment logic to award bookings, is a big stretch.

Milton was installed two years ago around the same time as the PAR/Altimeter action. Simmons was a PMUA board member and has sat since 2010, but I believe Smisek replaced him on the board of National Oilwell Varco, so there are ties if we want to look through the conspiratorial lens (though more likely ties to oilman Tilton)!

The BOD is going from 16 to 14, so Simmons and Milton won't be replaced. By my count, that leaves four independent/non-employee members of the original 2010 UCH BOD, besides Munoz who was an independent member of the Continental board starting in 2004 and became an employee in 2015 as CEO. Of those four, three (Garvey, Isaacson, Vitale) sat on the UAL Corporation BOD while only Carolyn Corvi, formerly of Boeing, sat on the Continental board starting in 2009.

bluedemon211

I have been impressed with Mr. Munoz from day 1 and this is an example of putting his money where his mouth is. The negative, anti-management people will spin it their way, but no matter how you cut it, the man walked away from millions of dollars the comp committee was willing to pay him. No matter how much you have, walking away from a mid-7 figure pay day is significant. Color me impressed.

kmersh

I am by no means a fan of UNITED, but Mr. Munoz has impressed (both positively and negatively) me from time to time and forgoing pay is impressive (in the positive way), even if he really will not miss a dollar of it.

I have also been impressed (negatively) with his decision, or at least to not prevent of the hiring of Scott Kirby, since his hire, on-board soft product has been cut and maybe cut some more, not positive in the slightest.

As someone who pays for their own tickets strictly for personal use, I resent paying hard earned cash for a poor product and for a while after Mr.Munoz took over, things were improving, since Kirby I am once again displeased when I spend money on UNITED.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Here's some stats - As an AA flyer, you can look through this yourself. The stats show UA is ahead of AA in most of them - on-time, IDBs, reported bag mis-handles, tarmac delays, late departures due to late incoming a/c, etc, etc, etc. And, yes, this is a flip-flop from when Munoz began - some of it due to changes by Munoz, some of it by changes at AA. Unfortunately, the Dao incident was pretty darn high profile, but it hides the fact that AA has more IDBs (but managed to handle them with less publicity ) Don't be scared of the facts...United seems to have been run better than AA last year by almost all measures other than publicity on several high-profile UA screw-ups. Your reaction shows how a few high-profile screw-ups can lead the public to believe that UA's problems are system-wide. UA doesn't normally have their IDBs dragged thru the aisle. UA does get an "F" on pet handling.

https://www.transportation.gov/sites...uaryatcr_0.pdf