My first instinct upon taking the job as CEO of United was to get out of the confines of our global headquarters in Chicago as soon as possible. I would zip across multiple time zones and points of latitude, visiting with employees and customers at each of our seven domestic hubs spread across the United States—my first chance to introduce myself to the company.
To avoid the look of being walled off by an entourage, I didn’t travel with a staff. I didn’t want anyone to think they couldn’t approach me as I walked by.
I should make it clear that, no, I didn’t fly on a corporate jet but rather on our normal service.
Rather than dozing off or catching up on reading, the instant the captain switched off the fasten seatbelt sign, I took that as my cue to hop out of my seat and make myself available to anyone who might want to chat. I always got a good chuckle when a customer would wander to the galley and discover, to their utter surprise, the CEO chatting with a group of flight attendants, catching-up on life and family, talking about everything; and also, about . . . well, not much of anything at all.
While flying back from Denver to Chicago one afternoon, early in my tour, I strolled through the aisle, chatting with customers and members of the inflight team along the way, as I always do, working toward the galley. There I met Amy, one of our Denver-based flight attendants, a veteran of the company.
As I began to chat with her, I could see that she had so much to say to me but wasn’t sure if she could—or should. She must have seen something as we locked eyes, an invitation assuring her, that indeed, she was among friends and—suddenly—she burst into tears. “Oscar,” she said, “I’m just tired of always having to say, ‘I’m sorry.’”
In an instant, the barrier between CEO and employee evaporated. I was new to the airline. Yet, as if by alchemy, I felt like I was an old colleague, someone who Amy believed would understand what it is like to invest both heart and soul in a company and not feel any sense of recognition or respect in return.
I am sure if you had been in the galley with me that afternoon, your heart would’ve broken for her, as mine did. And that’s not something I say lightly anymore. She didn’t elaborate much further or allow herself to complain. After a few minutes, I promised I would remember her words. We hugged, and with that, she got right back to work serving customers.
For weeks, I had gathered information, spoken with hundreds of employees, customers, investors, analysts, consultants, elected officials, union leaders, public relations firms, and all our various stakeholders. I had reams of data, human resource reports, financial analysis, and commentary telling me what was wrong with United.
Yet, it took a single frontline employee to crystallize all of it for me, speaking barely above a whisper in the galley but carrying the force of a shout.
It was a watershed moment, and I knew this was a message that would “travel,” so to speak. Whatever the language, dialect, or culture, if United employees working anywhere in the world heard what Amy expressed to me that day, they’d wholeheartedly agree with her. And so would customers, I believed.
Ask yourself how many times you have been told some version of the following by an airline employee:
“I’m sorry the flight is delayed.” “I’m sorry the coffee sucks.” “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“No, we cannot accommodate that request.” “No, we can’t seat you next to your young child.”
“No, no, no, no.”
Trust me, it is as exhausting for the employee as for the customer; even more so when the employee is apologizing on behalf of decisions being made way at the top, over which they have zero control.
If your flight is delayed or your bags are lost, if the airplane is cramped and crowded or if the amenities have been cut to the bone, frontline employees—especially those who are customer facing—are the ones who receive the complaints. They didn’t create the problems, but they’re responsible for solving them—and they’re told to do it with a smile.
“Be the Brand”—that was the slogan used in our employee communications in those days. It rightfully became a target of mockery. Not because it was a bad slogan, per se, but it implied that all the responsibility of serving customers rested solely on the shoulders of our frontline employees, not shared by management. As if our employees’ attitudes were all that stood in the way of winning customers back to United. Not the cost-cutting, rule-obsessed, disciplinary-heavy culture that had come to define what it meant to “Fly the Friendly Skies” during those difficult years.
Every time employees learned that another perk had been rescinded or another onerous rule had been imposed upon them or their customers, they would see those posters and shake their heads: “Hey management, practice what you preach.”
They weren’t looking for an excuse not to do their jobs. They were looking for me and the top brass to do ours—that is, to create an environment where hearing “thank you” becomes the expectation for frontline employees, not the rare exception.
As we descended into Chicago, after speaking with Amy, I was fired up. I felt that I was beginning to distill the volatile mixture of feedback into a digestible solution, one that I could easily communicate to every United employee.
From now on, every decision would have to pass a simple litmus test: Will this put our employees in a better or a more difficult position to serve our customers?
This was the north star I was looking for, and it took one of my employees to point it out to me.
Excerpted from Turnaround Time: Uniting an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies, Copyright © 2023 by Oscar Munoz. Reprinted here with permission from Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
Oscar Munoz served as CEO and chairman of United Airlines; he currently serves on the board of directors of Salesforce, CBRE, Televisa Univision, and Archer Aviation and is the author of Turnaround Time.
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