WORDS MAT THEW PARSONS
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
‘THIS IS A NEW UNITED’ I
Oscar Munoz, United Airlines’ chief executive, believes a radical turnaround programme can make frontline staff more ‘caring’
F EVER A NEW DEFINITION of the term “charm offensive” were needed, Oscar Munoz would be the man to provide it.
The chief executive of United Airlines is in Heath- row as part of a whistle-stop European tour to update teams on a new training programme, Core4, designed to make every one of the airline’s 90,000 employees, and up to 40,000 supplier staff, care just that little bit more about passengers.
Clearly the cloud of the forcible removal from United Express Flight 3411 of passenger Dr David Dao in April last year, which sparked outrage, hangs over the airline. But Core4, which focuses on the characteristics of caring, safe, dependable and efficient, might be enough to see it off. “The journey is one toward becoming the world’s best airline,” Munoz confidently tells me. “The path to that is to establish a line of communication, a constant level of education toward our employees, about how we’re doing things and, more importantly, why. We’re reconnecting with them,” he says.
“We’ve got so many tools and resources we’re building, but at the foundation of that is the human interaction that we have to fix, so we’re rolling out vehicles like Core4. You can’t do this without being in front of people.” Having to train up to 130,000 people, I ask if he’s moving into an HR role: “A PR, brand, marketing, sales, all of those things,” he tells me. “We meet with politicians, customers; there’s never a shortage of issues. But generally, this is a new United and we’re seeing an improvement in the short term, and building for the longer term.”
UPPING THE GAME
As part of this new United, UK travel buyers will soon be able to book Premium Plus seats, while business class trav- ellers at Heathrow will gain a Polaris executive lounge. For Premium Plus – “a true premium product, not just a jazzed up economy seat” – Munoz hopes it will be on sale by “the first quarter of next year”. “It’s approximate, I’m giving myself some time there, but we want to make sure we get it right,” he says.
By right, he explains, the seat needs to be aligned with alliance partners Lufthansa, Air Canada and ANA: “They all have that product, and we want to start matching on all those routes. We have the seats ready, but we need to sort out the china, the linen, and all the special touches.” The new Polaris cabin is being rolled out at a rate of one every ten days, through new aircraft and reconfigurations of existing planes, until 2020.
Planning is also underway for a new “Polaris experience” in the UK, meaning a new lounge. United opened one in Houston on 29 June, following similar facilities opening in Chicago, San Francisco and Newark/New York. But
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the airline must now decide which passengers will have access, as Heathrow already features a United first class lounge. “There’s always a conundrum of who gets in, who doesn’t get in, so we’re trying to balance it so we make sure everyone has something,” Munoz adds. These roll-outs, coupled with a big network in key US cities, reflect the importance of business travel, and premium economy will be good news for those travellers denied business class flying across the Atlantic. But what of the competition, such as Norwegian and Primera? Have they beaten him to it? “There are always new entrants into this business,” he counters. “The economics initially make a lot of sense for a lot of folks. We’ve been at it for 100 years, so we know all the pitfalls,” he says, adding that he takes every competitor seri-
United Airlines’ Polaris seats
ously: “It’s important to understand everyone’s business models… But we are very aware, and constantly looking for ways to effectively respond in certain markets.”
BACK ON TRACK
Munoz also says United is on track, performance-wise. “Operationally, we’ve been doing well for more than 18 months. When you’re coming out of something, it takes a while for people to notice. The financial strategy is something we’ve been building for the past year. Our first quarter was solid; we stayed quiet about it. For our second quarter, it was hard not to be more vocal, because it was so much different to everyone else. A couple of quarters a turnaround does not make, but it’s nice to have these winds behind us.”
At face value, Munoz has the perfect springboard from which to drive home a new ethos of putting customers first, but he’s aware that staff must meet him half-way. “Core4 is meant to provide a template for our frontline folks. First, you always have to be safe, but we’ve also introduced the word ‘caring’.
“I don’t care if someone yells at me ‘that’s a stupid word’ – they’re using the word and, as we know in branding and marketing, the first step is to get people to say the words. If they say, ‘I don’t want to be caring’, I’ve already got you.”
Despite the scale of the task, Munoz’s enthusiasm is evident – Core4 could work like a charm. ■ More airline updates in our aviation feature, p76-89 For a review of Polaris business class, turn to p136
2018 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 45
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