Sept. 19--To: Oscar Munoz, new United Airlines CEO
From: A longtime United Airlines customer
I might have reached out in a less public way, but the message you sent to frequent fliers about how you believe it's important to listen to customers was sent from a no-reply email address.
It's my experience that it's easier to hear people who can get through to you, though anyone who has waited on hold to speak with the next available agent might well suspect United does not share this belief.
"We can do better," you wrote, answering a question that no one asked.
What we want to know: Will you? What are you prepared to do to be better?
First off, you might do well to stand in line and fly anonymously in coach, on long flights and short. You think you're in the hot seat? Try the middle seat on a connecting flight parked on the tarmac because you're waiting for an available gate.
The air vent isn't working. Your phone's battery is dead. The seatback in front of you is in your lap. You're hungry. You're cramped. You have no carry-on bag because they made you check it. You can't get to the lavatory.
On the plus side, the connecting flight you won't make has been canceled.
These are your friendly skies.
Your most recent previous job was as president and chief operating officer of CSX Corp., a railroad shipping concern. United's passengers increasingly feel like freight.
How would that have flown at Coca-Cola or PepsiCo when you worked there? Even AT, where you also worked, realized it had to invest in ensuring calls went through and stayed connected.
The typical United customer doesn't expect to be wined and dined over Italian dinner or have the airline rearrange its flight network and schedule for his or her convenience.
But courtesy, concern, competence and some real effort and empathy are always appreciated.
So thank you for acknowledging that United must improve its greatly diminished customer service and disappointing on-time performance.
You correctly observed that United needs to step up its game and move more quickly, signaling that customers come first. Of course it also took a whole week after being named CEO to shoot us this note, which suggests more than a little sluggishness.
This mess can't be a surprise to you and, if it somehow is, please forward this message to your successor ASAP.
Maybe you didn't expect the abrupt exit earlier this month of your predecessor, Jeff Smisek, familiar to all United fliers as the guy in the preflight videos patting himself on the back for the Continental merger that made him richer and the flying experience poorer.
(Have to admit: Never would have guessed Smisek would exit as collateral damage from New Jersey's Bridgegate scandal investigation. Then again, who wouldn't bail out of United if equipped with a golden parachute? Ordinary passengers have only their seat cushion, life vests and that margarine tub that drops from the ceiling to save them in a sudden loss of altitude.)
But Oscar, you've supposedly been paying attention to United as a board member since its marriage to Continental five years ago and Continental installed you on its board all the way back in 2004.
You had to know coming in that the cost-cutting, staff reductions and inability to simply arrive as scheduled were alienating even the most loyal United flier, that the once-reliable tether of investment in the MileagePlus program was starting to fray.
As if overtaxed employees trying to conceal their frustration while still hoping for a unified labor contract weren't enough, there's the undisguised determination to do things on the cheap. Add to that how ticket buyers feel squeezed in every way, from fees to reduced leg room.
Yes, the entire airline industry has had to fight through bankruptcies, downsizing, mergers, historically slender margins and unreliable weather. But the fact United stands out as it does speaks to just how bad things have gotten.
The good news is you're showing up at an opportune time.
By tightly managing seating inventory and benefiting from low fuel prices, it's a good time for the airline business and United has been racking up record profits -- an unprecedented $1.2 billion in the black for the quarter that ended in June, despite a decrease in revenue.
Judicious investment in planes, personnel and systems upgrades would go a long way. United's announced routing tweaks to reduce weather delays caused by planes meant to fly between unaffected cities getting hung up at besieged hubs already is a start.
If United can't get its act together when it's flush, make strategic improvements when there's cash, there's no hope of doing so when things inevitably tighten up.
A Goldman Sachs analyst predicted the other day that a glut of crude may keep oil prices low for 15 years, which obviously would help, but best not bank on that. Move quickly.
If the windfall continues, United and everyone else will be served by it. The world moves at an ever-quickening pace. United better, too.
All of us who fly United know you have baggage to deal with in your new job, Oscar, and we're liable to be as forgiving as your airline. If you can't leave it behind or at least reduce its size, be prepared to pay.
philrosenthal@tribpub.com
