Oct. 01--Few companies are as key to Chicago's economic vitality as is United Airlines, the hometown carrier that connects this city to the world. If you fly, chances are you've flown United. Chances also are you've grumbled and thought about choosing a different carrier:
Because your United flight was delayed. Or you were disappointed in the service. Or frustrated by the website.
Employees haven't been happy, either, which makes everyone's experience worse. You've felt their frustration as you board. Look at any ranking of airline on-time performance or customer satisfaction and United sits near at the bottom.
If only someone could get this exasperating airline flying right, before we all switch to American or Southwest or ...
The person with that responsibility is new CEO Oscar Munoz, who took the job unexpectedly Sept. 8 after Jeff Smisek resigned due to a political scandal unrelated to United's performance.
Munoz, who comes from the railroad industry and was already a United board member, on Wednesday visited the Tribune Editorial Board and we're pleased to report he had an on-time arrival for the meeting.
Munoz has heard the grumbling. We didn't have to dwell on the maddening delays, the cramped regional jets, the bad coffee, the unsympathetic bereavement fares, the caste-system boarding process. He's received tons of emails from customers and heard from employees. One flight attendant, near tears, told him: "I'm just so tired of having to tell people I'm sorry."
He admits all of this. "I suspect there are people in this room who stopped flying us," he told us.
It was good to hear that Munoz, whose career has put him on many comfy corporate jets, also understands the view from Seat 22A, because he's been flying coach since getting his new job. One United flight from Jacksonville, Fla., sounded like a doozy: overbooked, a thunderstorm, late departure and, at his destination, an interminable wait for luggage.
What he remembers most from that trip, though, was an attentive, cheerful flight attendant named Jenna, which gives him hope he can fix United's customer service and workplace culture. Right now, Munoz said, his 84,000 employees feel beaten down -- "disenchanted, disenfranchised and disengaged," he said. "Not a happy bunch. I need to get those folks reconnected."
United's bind is a puzzler. The company looked like it was in a great spot after Smisek, then Continental's CEO, orchestrated the 2010 merger of his airline with United. Customers liked Continental. Smisek must know something. Sounds like a smart deal.
Five years later, that united United hasn't pleased its customers, while two other big mergers (Delta/Northwest and American/US Airways) went off much better. All three airlines are very profitable, flying fuller planes and paying less for jet fuel. That tells us there is nothing inherently wrong with becoming a megacarrier. Rather there was a failure at United to get the job done. The fact that Smisek got the boot for an odd scandal involving New Jersey pols and not for the bad service in economy class tells you something about mixed-up priorities at the airline.
Munoz didn't lay it all out, but he suggested there were enough bad decisions about technology, obsessive cost-cutting and other challenges to set the company up for its worst mistake: alienating pilots, flight attendants and gate workers. "Somewhere in the mix we forgot the very critical people who deliver the service," he said.
He has ideas for how to fix things, and of course we as fliers do, too. Munoz announced the launch of a website, UnitedAirtime.com, to hear from customers and employees. That's a sound idea if people who use it actually get some response. (Note Twitter already does this. Sample Tweet from Wednesday: "@united you are virtually impossible to deal with. Not happy with your service at all").
Munoz said he'll rethink United's cost-savings philosophy and seek simple ways to make customers and employees feel better. For a guy who doesn't drink coffee he talked a lot about the coffee, so expect something there. He has to get labor contracts done with flight attendants and maintenance workers. Major computer glitches have grounded flights, so that needs an overhaul. It sounded as if he wants better regional jets ... or to move away from that kind of plane.
We don't expect the airline to reinvent itself in a few weeks. And some issues, like Chicago weather, aren't fixable. But before Munoz can do anything else, he has to make sure his executive team understands the scope of the challenge United faces if it's to regain flier loyalty.
One suggestion: His tale of the view from Seat 22A reminded us of the classic United TV commercial featuring Ben, the boss of an unnamed business, who lost one of his best customers because "he said he didn't know us anymore." So Ben handed out plane tickets to his workers and told them to get out there and reconnect with every customer they still have.
Munoz should do that with his managers. Get them flying with the masses so they know what makes the difference between a great flight and a hellish one. His customers sure do.
