United Airlines’ Chief Executive Officer, Scott Kirby, in this interview with WOLE SHADARE at the unveiling of the airline’s United’s Polaris Studio suites in New York, United States, speaks about $150 million in inflight meals, excitement about its operations in Africa, supply chain crisis and how to make the carrier the biggest in the world.
United’s Polaris Studio suites you are unveiling today are not only innovative but also creative as they give premium travellers a new travel experience in the B787-9 aircraft. From your perspective, can you speak to why you chose this?
Going back almost a decade now on this, what we decided long ago is that consumers wanted choice, and there was a bunch of airlines that were going one direction, which was no choice at all, particularly here in the United States, and we saw that as a great opportunity to pivot and go the exact opposite way. So, long ago, we started creating new products that created more diversity across what we could put onboard our aircraft and in the cabins. And so, as we started to think about the next generation of Polaris, it became really obvious to us that there was an opportunity to do more. This is not a first-class seat, but we have put so many things around it to make it appear first-class, but we have done it in a uniquely United way. It is the studio; it’ll have all those great amenities, but we are 100 per cent confident that there’s going to be eight people that want to upgrade on each and every one of these flights into this great product. The more choices we can offer and deliver upon, which is really important because we are a complex business to begin with. The more I think consumers love and fall in love with United and the opportunities to have that experience. We are as focused on basic economy, to be honest with you, as we are in the Polaris studio. It is really important to have a broad range of products from the very highest premium to more basic offerings, because that is what consumers want, particularly as consumers go through the life cycle of their own travel. Many start off younger in basic economy, and someday when they are a little bit older, they will be travelling in the Polaris studio, and we will be able to do all of that from really soup to nuts. Where many of our competitors have just gone the exact opposite way, they are now scrambling to do something a little bit different, but we now have a lead that is a decade in the making, and more importantly, we are not going to give it up, and more importantly, there’s more innovation to come at a later date. We won’t stop here. We are still working on the exact policies, but there’ll be eight studio suites on each aircraft, each of the B787s we are getting, and you will have to upgrade from your existing Polaris seat into it.
How much investment has gone into this product?
We’ll keep the exact math to ourselves. We did say we put $150 million per year into food across the entire airline, incremental to what we are spending, because food is an important part of most people’s journey, and that’s a place where we knew we could do better, and so we’re beginning to do that. It is not only the food, it’s the plates they come on; we have added a red pepper shaker in case you want to spice up your meal. I think that is pretty unique amongst airlines, so it is the whole journey. It is a significant investment, but we have learned that our goal is not to just cut costs. Our goal is to invest in things that our customers would like to buy.
United has continued to expand its operations in Africa, but you have not expanded beyond Lagos despite the ‘Open Skies’ deal with Nigeria and many other African countries. Why is that so?
We are now the largest U.S. carrier flying to Africa. We fly to many destinations. We have been growing, we plan to grow and add more cities. We are excited about Africa. We would have been even bigger today, but Boeing has been a little behind on aircraft deliveries, or we would have added some of those routes already. We leaned into it heavily during the pandemic, and it has been done well, and we’re going to continue to grow.
Internet connectivity is becoming a game changer in long-haul operations. Your competitor flying to Lagos from Atlanta has scored a good point with onboard Wi-Fi. Is United towing the same line?
We’re an important link, particularly between Newark and Washington, D.C. It is not just about commercial air service. It’s about connecting people and uniting the world, and those links are critical to the future of Africa, and to have the Americans involved and connected to the continent, really critical. On Wi-Fi, the great news is we are now going to have the best Wi-Fi in the sky. Starting this week (Two weeks ago), the first commercial flight with Starlink on any of the large U.S. airlines is going to come. We are going to have the whole fleet eventually replaced with that. It is going to be free. It will be free today. The reason it’s not free today is that there is not enough bandwidth. If you make it free, and this happens on some of our competitors when it’s free, and everyone gets on, it doesn’t work for anybody.You have to have enough bandwidth to make it work. Putting Starlink on, we are going to get it done as fast as possible, and they go way faster than any other vendor we have ever dealt with or any other partner we’ve ever dealt with. Having fast, high-speed Wi-Fi is what you need to make work free.
You have said that Donald Trump’s approach towards tariffs is laudable. Would chaotic not be a little bit more appropriate?
Well, instead of reading the headlines, go back and read what I actually said. What I have said is I think the president’s goal is to bring high-quality jobs back to the United States. The kinds of jobs, by the way, that United creates. One of the few companies left in the country that creates the kind of jobs where you can make a six-digit income, you can support a family, buy a house, send your kids to college, even if you only have a high school education. Those are the kinds of jobs. I think that goal is laudable. I think tariffs on their own probably are not enough to make that happen. But I have said the goal is laudable. Many of us here in this country and in your country share the goal to create those kinds of careers for people. I have said the goal is laudable. I’ve also said everyone should kind of take a breath because we are not at the end game yet. We are not the new normal yet. I mean, you saw what happened this week. Let us all just take a breath and wait till we get to sort of a new normal and see where all of that sorts out, which is what I think we should do. I am also surprised. Maybe not surprised, but the U.S. economy has remained remarkably resilient. And I think actually the global economy appears remarkably resilient in light of all this. And so I think despite all the headlines, what most consumers and businesses are doing is doing exactly that. They are taking a breath. They are not making big, long-term dramatic changes. They are waiting to see what happens. They are waiting till we sort of sort out a new normal to make decisions.
Do you see sort of more supply chain issues?
Well, you know, aviation has probably, I do not know of any industry that has had as big a supply chain challenge as aviation coming out of the pandemic. A lot of workers retired. So I do not see anything right now that makes it any incrementally worse. In fact, things are getting better. But it is still going to take a while for the entire supply chain in aviation to fully recover. It limits capacity. So if you are an investor in airlines, it is probably a good thing. It limits capacity. You know, Boeing’s behind. Airbus is behind.The engine manufacturers are all behind. You know, the BFE, the equipment, the seats on aeroplanes is another big constraint. A number of international airlines have aeroplanes parked in Charleston, South Carolina, waiting for seats to be done and certified. So, I do not think the supply chain challenges have got any worse, but they are still big, and they still are limiting capacity and supply around the industry.
On the Newark situation, how much more will you have to cut back to stabilise the situation? When do you think you can go back to a normal schedule, and when will you be able to roll action?
At Newark, first and foremost, it is safe. It is safe. When these issues happen, our pilots are trained with backup procedures to keep the airline safe. And so if you lose communications or radar, we have backup procedures. We go to different control centres. We go to different frequencies. Also, on board every airplane, we have a system called TCAS that is essentially radar in the sky. Our pilots have a radar equivalent that knows where every other aeroplane is. When something like this happens, what you do is you go into these automated racetrack holding patterns, like all of you have flown when you flew in weather. And that keeps it safe because you are maintaining miles of separation. You can see all the aeroplanes. So it is safe. The issue that you appropriately ask is, what does it mean for customers? At Newark, what is going on right now is there is a two-month project to resurface one of the runways. So there is only one set of parallel runways. One of them is down. So the FAA asked airlines to cut back capacity. We did that. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not ask for enough, so there were too many flights scheduled. But the quick answer is, on June 15th, that’s all fixed. Before the Newark airport was out of service, from the beginning of the year through mid-April, it was the number one on-time airport here in New York. It was better than LaGuardia, and it was better than JFK. It had the lowest cancellation rate and the highest on-time performance. On June 15th, it will go back to that. So I think we are going to be right back to where we were as the most reliable airport for the New York, New Jersey region.
Do you think with the product that you’re introducing today, you can claim that, indeed, it is the best airline in the world in the history of aviation? What is your vision for the next 10 years for United?
I think, well, we are the biggest. I say we’re going to be the biggest and the best airline in the history of aviation. I think we are the biggest. I think we have become the best, but I think we have a lot more, a long way to go. And I think we’re still in the early innings. Our goal is to create something that almost doesn’t even feel like an airline to you anymore, to not only create great products in the sky, which is another great example of a great product, but to create an airline that you can count on to be transparent, to be honest with you. One of the goals I have, which I think is really important for our customers, is anytime you fly a flight and there is a delay or any kind of disruption, that I want us to pretend that I’m on the aeroplane and I have called our operating centre and asked, what’s going on with my flight? I want to tell 100 per cent of our customers exactly what is going on with that flight and communicate honestly and transparently. We have a goal to get to a point where if we do not lose many bags, it is a very low rate, but if we do miss you, if your bag does miss your flight, that 100 per cent of the time we text you and send a message to your screen, because we all have seat-back entertainment screens now, that we send a message to your screen that says, ‘we apologise, we didn’t get your bag, but here’s where it is and here are the three options for you to get it back, how we can reconnect you with it.’ In fact, I have a goal for the team that our NPS scores for a customer when we lose a bag is higher than our normal NPS and everything goes fine, because if we treat it right, if we take care of it and we communicate proactively, even though something bad happens, I think we can surprise people with what we are going to do. And there are all kinds of other stuff that we’re going to do the app is the best in the business, but really focuses on what customers care about and knowing you can travel with confidence on United. I think that’s going to be the key to making this the best airline in the history of aviation. There are the new Department of Transportation rules on ticket cancellations and refunds.
Can you talk about what effect that’s had for United? Has it been more expensive for you?
Kirby
It’s minimal so far, but to me the bigger point on this is, which I hope we will have an ability to make with Secretary Duffy, is our delays and cancellations are almost all because of air traffic control. You see what is happening in Newark right now. We do not like that happening. We do not want that to happen. We want to do everything possible to take care of our customers, but we can’t control air traffic control. Even on days last year when it was clear blue sky days, 68 per cent of our delays were because of air traffic control shortages.
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