The new CEO of United Airlines faces a daunting list of problems he must fix, including late flights and technology that too often suffers embarrassing outages.
But if Oscar Munoz listens to people who fly his airline – and some who have stopped – he’ll start his tenure by addressing a longtime problem for the world’s second-biggest airline: poor customer service.
Early signs point to a honeymoon for Munoz, the railroad executive tapped to replace Jeff Smisek as CEO. United’s labor unions and Wall Street analysts were mostly upbeat about Munoz’s arrival – or maybe more accurately, Smisek’s departure.
Munoz knows the airline from his combined 11 years as a director first of Continental Airlines and then at United Continental Holdings Inc. Now he must guide United on a day-to-day basis:
“I know from my time on the board we’ve made significant progress, but there’s still a lot to be done,” he says.