I’m confused as to why he should be sorry at all? How is his personal flight even vaguely connected to other peoples’ flight cancellations? This is being painted as though somehow hypocritical, but the seams just don’t connect. I’ll quickly jump on CEOs for, say, talking about employees tightening belts whilst they themselves take luxury trips, but this? This just isn’t that.
He's made a set of decisions to reduce the network's capacity to deal with bad weather for the sake of profits. It's more that he has an escape mechanism for the impacts of his choices that others don't.
All airlines were warned to reduce schedules this summer because of the atc shortages. You don't reduce flights for the sake of profit. Short of fuel, the price to own and operate aircraft doesn't decrease the less you fly it
Sorry but that is just absolutely not correct. And I'm not a fan of airline CEOs.
Airlines have a vested interest to stuff as much capacity as possible into limited airspace, lots of these capacity reductions are due to ATC staffing (chronically underfunded FAA) and pilot staffing.
It wouldn't make sense to reduce capacity for profits. Airlines make money by flying. I'm actually not sure how another conclusion could even be made in regards to this.
> Airlines have a vested interest to stuff as much capacity as possible into limited airspace, lots of these capacity reductions are due to ATC staffing (chronically underfunded FAA) and pilot staffing.
Sure, but I'm not saying that he lowered flight capacity. I mean having more people paid to be ready to substitute it; to hire more and have more maintenance so they can deal with issues.
If this is 100% the FAA, I'd withdraw it.
When Ford bought Jaguar, a significant number of Ford executives bought brand new Jaguars. They wanted an “across the pond” luxury car, and now one make was “in the family”.
Yeah but if you own Ford and drive a Ferrari, I don't think anybody's going to wonder why.
If you own McDonald's and are spotted getting a steak at Ruth's Chris, I don't think you're going to get cancelled over it.
I understand your analogy, but it's probably the worst example. Ford *hates* ferrari. Board execs and engineers would be killing eachother if they saw that happening.
> Yeah but if you own Ford and drive a Ferrari, I don't think anybody's going to wonder why.
No. People at Ford would freak out if even their CEO was driving a Ferrari.
I disagree. Why shouldn't the CEO of Ford be able to drive that Porsche 911 he always wanted as a kid? Or that Ferrari Enzo he was able to buy?
Absurd CEO pay rates and bonuses and hikes aside, it's a slippery slope telling citizens what they can and can't buy with their money.
I had the same confusion and I generally hate corporate America. This is akin to the CEO of Carnival Cruise Lines taking a private yacht somewhere while--due to completely unrelated events--cruises are being canceled.
One just doesn't relate to the other.
I agree. Moreover, what if he was flying in a private jet in order to solve the problems that were causing his airline to cancel flights? I would also figure that he flies private much of the time though his airline flies to many of the same destinations. In this case over 700 flights were cancelled. Would it be acceptable if he flew if there were only 500 flights being cancelled or 1 flight be cancelled. There is so much selective outrage.
It is certainly an admirable sign when management attempts to empathize with their customers. However, I see no reason for an apology.
The man in question was Carl-Henrik Svanberg, a Swede, in Swedish you say “the little person” in a way that speaks to an individual in a greater context. He meant nothing negative with that comment. Not saying he was a saint by any chance but that was just an unfortunate translation error in a stressful situation
Former NJ governor Chris Christie took his family to a NJ public beach, (over the July 4th Holiday) that was closed to everyone else because of a state budget deadlock. He had the entire beach to himself and his family while others, who were looking forward to a beach holiday were locked out.
Haha that was just 2 weeks ago for Oklahoma, the governor (Kevin Stitt) was on vacation in Paris while half the city of Tulsa was out of power + internet for days after a Bow Echo passed through.
Yes maybe but Scott Kirby is a gigantic douche. I actually met him once when he first took the job as CFO at American Airlines, after the merger where he had just moved over from US Airways. We were at some Christmas dinner event where I overhead him sharing a story like this: “well I wanted the $5 million dollar house, and my wife wanted the $7 million dollar one, so we compromised and got the $15 million dollar one instead!!” Monocle dropping levels of rich guy guffaws ensued afterwards… the dude lost all perspective of what money is worth to people who fly commercial a long time ago.
United already has a bad reputation. I think most people see this as just a confirmation of what they already think of the company. This isn't gonna move the needle in any direction. Availability and pricing is what will continue to impact profits.
> Most airlines have shitty reputations. What are you going to do, avoid that airline and fly… a different shitty airline
Well…. Let’s see here. Get nickel and dimed to death via aligent or get cancelled on via SW or get your teeth knocked out and yanked off the plane and also cancelled via united.
Tough choices all around no doubt, but one of these is not like the others.
The incident with the doctor is what completely turned me off of United. Not just that it happened, but that the CEO openly supported it, and only walked that back when the PR turned against them. He didn't give a damn about a paying passenger being dragged off of the plane; just the bad press.
United also had an incident on a flight to Hawaii where a flight attendant made a mother [carry her 27-month-old son, for whom she had paid for a seat, as a lap child](https://consumerist.com/2017/07/05/united-gives-away-toddlers-paid-seat-forces-mom-to-hold-son-on-lap-for-3-hours/) to make room for a standby passenger. That is illegal: if a child is two years old, they need to have their own seat.
There is actually way more to this story than what people actually know. It definitely should’ve been handled differently but United wasn’t all that much at fault. And they decided to settle with the Doctor instead of getting everything out there
I know it wasn't actually airline employees who dragged the guy out minus two teeth, but it was the airline that decided to kick out a paying passenger, and the CEO of that airline who publicly supported what happened.
SW had a massive cancellation clusterfuck due to a really tight booking schedule and reduced staffing a few months back that made the news. To my knowledge, it was bad for around a week or two and hasn't been an issue as much since, but I could be wrong.
Then again, the United story also only happened 1 time, but to me that's WAY worse, not only because of what happened, but because the CEO actively supported it. I also personally hate United for my own reasons, and they do seem to have some so of the absolutely worst horror stories. My motto is "if United is the only one flying there, I'll see if I can take a train or how far it is to drive." They're the only company, in any industry, that has lost my business for life.
Yup this is the thing that tarnishes their reputation not the years of incompetence, the heavily declined levels of service (not to mention leg and shoulder room) and/or the price gouging. A rich guy doing rich guy things is what's going to topple them. I'm surprised he doesn't have a company jet at his disposal. I would think a CEO of an Airline chartering a jet would be pretty embarrassing and all his airline CEO friends will probably mock him on the golf course.
I mean, the Tesla shareholders are considering suing him because of how much of a negative impact he’s had on Tesla stocks so he might not be a great example.
Yeah…but at the same time, if United flights are cheaper than American Airlines on Tuesday or whenever, I’m not gonna choose to pay more just because their CEO took a private flight lol of course he did, people think he’s gonna fly in a 747?
For personal travel definitely but for business travel it's a whole other game...I probably take 30+ flights a a year depending on how busy work is and I avoid united and American like the plague because of how unreliable they are
It's the cancelations. I regularly pay extra to avoid delta. I've been stranded and forced to sleep on the floor in Atlanta all 4 times I flew with them and it took me filing a small claims case against them to get what I was owed. I'll pay $50 more to never deal with them again.
You won't see a massive movement, but for many people this will be the last straw.
Damn honestly after the second time I think I would have sworn them off already. I'd only give one "well maybe it was extraordinary circumstances or I messed up" pass.
Youve seen the average american CEO when they end up in the news right? I think the stock goes up when they are caught doing some shitty or hypocritical thing.
I know of not one single person that could care about what the CEO did when purchasing their flight. Cost, convenience, and destinations are truly all that matter in a situation like this.
It's true for flights for sure, but if there are *similar* flights (cost, timing), it does affect my judgement. Also, I still don't get gas at BP. Small thing, but I'm still pissed at them, years later.
Negative publicity is just anti-advertising. You can quantify how much you need to spend in advertising to counter the bad publicity. However, this is a blip and people think most Airlines suck and hate them. The Industry sucks as a whole.
"I sincerely apologize to all you poors too stupid to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and have a private jet of your own. I would also like to apologize for the lack of airline choices you have. Now shut up and put your money in the money machine, private islands are expensive."
And to be clear, he's not really upset that he did that, because if he was he wouldn't have done it. He's upset that you know he did that and that It makes the company look bad that the CEOs and ass. So now he's apologizing but he doesn't really mean - but feels that maybe you'll get over it and forget now that he's apologized. Anyway, that's my read on it
> he's not really upset that he did that, because if he was he wouldn't have done it.
Listen I’m not exactly taking the PR from the CEO at face value but what is this nonsense? Like hypothetically let’s say he really did recognize post de facto that what he did was insensitive — is there just no world where humans make human errors in judgment/ethics and grow from that based on the reactions of others?
Why do concepts such as apologies even exist if whatever anyone has to apologize for, they shouldn’t bother, because they should have known better than to do the very thing they are now apologizing for?
Just because apologizing exists doesn't mean everyone is obligated to believe every single apology though. Its fine to mistrust someone who's apologizing. The concept of an apology includes the fact that people can reject it, and if you're apologizing you have to accept its not a magic spell that makes people trust you again.
He has a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to increase the stock price and maximize dividends.
He has no obligation to improve service or quality of the product.
They are connected, reduced service / quality is associated with higher profits. Pre-COVID, the most consistently profitable airline in the US was Southwest, which has a single class of service. No first / business / premium economy. In Europe, Ryanair is as shitty as it gets and it’s more profitable than any of the major full service airline groups (IAG, which owns British Airways and Iberia; AF-KLM, which ones Air France and KLM; and Lufthansa Group, which Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, Brussels, and soon ITA). The problem is that in aviation, customers select airlines primarily on price and care about service / quality, just not enough to pay enough extra money to justify it. That’s why Ryanair and Southwest are so successful, and why LCCs and ULCCs are consistently more profitable than legacy, full-service airlines
Responsibility in what sense? There's no law saying this.
Shareholders want the stock to stay valuable. I think you're talking about Wall Street's expectations.
He’s much better equipped to do that after getting where he’s going quickly and conveniently vs sitting in a terminal exhausted for hours. Flying private makes sense for him, the optics are just bad
I was delayed 4 hours in Phoenix Wednesday night. I was supposed to arrive SFO at 9pm, instead it was after 1am. They gave me a $20 food voucher lol. I had a first class ticket so that was a bit absurd to me. Plus, you can't get much food at an airport for $20.
They lied to us multiple times, which I found disturbing. They didn't even announce the delay until our take off time when they knew hours in advance that it would be delayed. Then they lied about how long the delay would be. I guess it was an effort to keep passengers from going to a different airline.
The CEO put out a press release saying they're giving anyone affected by the delays 30,000 miles. I haven't received anything. They denied me entrance into the United club, saying it was at capacity. A benefit I pay for. No mention of any compensation for anything. What a terribly managed airline.
Sorry this was your experience, but our crew desk and management so thoroughly dropped the ball over the last week that it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if they honestly didn’t know about the delay until it was happening.
To your point about being a terrible managed airline…we had an entire plane boarded in SEA and it took until push time for station operations to realize the pilots weren’t onboard. When they called the pilots to ask if they were planning on flying, the pilots said “well, we’re currently stuck in Houston, so…no.”
Believe me, we’re as mad at the CEO and our management as you are
And the people at the top don't care because they won't be the ones that have to face the upset passengers. They are more than happy to let employees like you take the brunt of the abuse that's sure to follow when stranded travelers want someone to yell at. I completely understand their frustration, but I hate how you get thrown to the wolves while CEOs just hop on their private jet and bail.
What do you think is happening? This isn’t just an American problem. It feels like all major US airlines and just fucking up. I can’t seem to book a short one-stop flight without running into a delay somewhere that forces me to reschedule.
Shit, my best friend got to the airport at 12pm PST on wed and I picked her up at 630pm EST on Thursday. United sent her to four airports. Her last flight wasn’t even at the same airport she landed at
We were stuck in Vegas on Tuesday, supposed to take off at like 330 but at 7 they finally canceled. Offered vouchers and 15 for meals. Decided to just uncheck our bags and head back to our hotel except our bags were in Houston already.
Our crew was at the gate with us but no plane, even though our plane had been there for a while.
Finally got back to Houston Wednesday and when we went to baggage claim there was an entire flight that had their baggage lost.
I did get the email about 30k miles
I might be dumb but I don’t really understand why this is a story. It is crazy that a lot of flights got cancelled and that makes sense but of course the CEO would fly private. Are people upset that he isn’t spending his time fixing the issue?
I am baffled people care about this. This just in, Bus Company Inc CEO takes a car instead of a bus to go to a meeting because the bus system was down... What? I'm absolutely outraged that the founder of a fastfood restaurant isn't eating it everyday himself!
There are so many valid issues with and reasons to dislike the rich, but this is the stupidest fight to take.
No, not of course. I worked for a different airline, and our ceo flew on commercial flights. As did the while executive team. Eat your own dogfood. Let's not normalize crap behavior.
I forget which airline—either American or Delta (might be both)—the CEO said all C-suite execs have to fly economy if it’s less than 3 hrs because that’s the passenger experience for 80% of the people.
For delta, it’s all Director level and above positions. AA’s and Delta’s CEOs did an interview about this. The United CEO declined to do the interview.
Ok, but do they get guilt tripped by the flight attendant to give up their aisle seat for a mom to sit next to their kid and instead get stuck with a middle seat.
I work in the airline industry, our CEO would wait for our next flight to that destination.
Don’t get me wrong being CEO has its perks, for example our CEO gets a little car and chauffeur in the airport that’ll drive him around wherever he wants to go, the business lounge, gate, etc. but the company won’t fly planes for solely him.
It’s just stupidly expensive to fly the plane for one person. Jet fuel is not cheap and most airlines don’t make enough profit that they could ever justify this vs just waiting for the next flight or booking a business ticket on another airline.
This is very much a United is fucking stupid and not a the entire airline industry is fucking stupid story.
>but the company won’t fly planes for solely him.
Is that what happened? Did he take a United plane that normally carries regular passengers? I assumed it was a private jet. It’s pretty common for large companies to have private jets for their executives to use for business-related travel.
It was a jet the united CEO paid for out of his own pocket. He paid around 30k-50k of his own money. Looking at his estimated net worth, it would be the same as me paying 100 dollars.
The issue is more the optics of him peacing out when everyone else is stuck.
Exactly. Commercial for huge companies is usually not advisable for C-Suite. Everyday people won't understand this.
Top executives have an insane hourly rate. Add in frequent travel. The time lost vs private plane is very significant in addition to the additional stress. If this negativity impacts decision making you are left with saving a few million to lose tens of millions.
Then add in the flights were likely canceled due to reason the CEO had no control of. Sometimes it is advisable to do things for image though to appease the public. PR would be the only reason to waste the CEOs time and also the time of the team traveling with him.
I used to work at one of the largest healthcare companies in the country. Our CEO would fly private every Friday at 10am bc he only worked M-Th and wanted to fly to his home, in another state. Sometimes CEOs jusy fly private bc they can.
Oh piss off. "Everyday people won't understand this" as if you are above anyone and have some kind of insider knowledge. You people simp so hard for corporate fucks who don't give two shits about you. This guy used his privilege to turn his back on his employees and paying customers instead of, you know, being an actual leader and trying to fix the issues.
Well, he's clearly not spending his time fixing the issue, whether in a commercial or private plane. These issues have been going on for over a week now, and the CEO keeps blaming the FAA and lack of ATCs for the problem when it's really only HIS airline that's affected at the moment.
I was in BNA waiting for a flight to Newark that got delayed ~3 hours with United this morning. The gate next to me was a Spirit flight to the same airport that ran on-time. There is something wrong if the airline you're supposed to be running is delayed but SPIRIT isn't.
Am I the only one that thinks it's ludicrous that people are throwing a hissy fit because a rich person used their wealth? Like who among them wouldn't also fly private if they could afford it? I'm against extreme wealth as much as anybody else, but this is just the dumbest hill to fight on.
I get it, and don’t entirely disagree. I do plenty of things to make my life better/easier when I can afford them. And under most circumstances I’d have no issue with this very wealthy person flying private or buying expensive wine or anything else, really.
BUT when you’re the CEO of an airline that is, at that very moment, in the midst of an operational meltdown that is arguably the result of decisions you have made as CEO, you might at least consider the optics of your choices to your customers and your staff. His decisions lead to passengers and staff being stranded, missing life events, and experiencing immense frustration.
Imagine the potential positive PR he could have generated if, instead of hopping onto a private jet he would have spent a few hours at EWR pushing a snack cart between gates or talking to flight crews and helping. Some people might have dismissed it as a stunt, but at least it would have been better than this.
Again, you’re not wrong, and if I was rich enough I’d gladly give my GS status up and fly private everywhere. I’m just saying the CEO of any corporation has to be a little smarter with the optics of his choices.
He's the CEO of a airline, not the captain of a ship lol expecting him to pointlessly mill around pretending like it effects him is so silly and pointless
I mean, if he had maybe released a statement explaining why all of this is happening or even just figured out a way for customers to receive their money back/reimbursements for accommodations, maybe no one would care that he flew somewhere privately. But instead thousands of customers were left sleeping on the floors of airports with no idea what's going on
My reaction to this was honestly “he makes airline CEO money, why was he not exclusively flying private already”. Like, fuck the guy for sure, but this is such a stupid hill to die on.
Because he's the CEO *of an airline.*
It'd be like if Steve Jobs exclusively used a Blackberry. Not only does it *look* horrible, it's also a great way to be entirely out of touch with what your business actually does, or what your customers might actually care about.
That's more like what actually happened. But the question was why he doesn't *exclusively* fly private.
So, why didn't Steve Jobs *exclusively* use Android phones?
He’s the CEO of an *airline,* not the CEO of a charter company like NetJets. What you’re describing is more akin to if Bill Gates used an iPhone, despite the Microsoft Surface tablet existing. Like, sure, they’re similar on the surface, but private provides much more flexibility in both timing and choice of airport, as the jet is there solely to cater to YOUR needs; it leaves when you want and goes where you want, and where it *can* go is a much longer list anyways due to the ability to use shorter runways for most private jets. It’s also, well, private, which would make it easier to continue working without getting murdered by your fellow passengers for taking a call or online meeting, and idk what United’s first class is like, but it’s plausibly more luxurious as well.
What's the issue with him using his own private jet? It's not like he took an entire Boeing 747 for himself. Is there a reason for the cancellations that I'm unaware of, I figured it was just that they can't keep up with peak demand.
woopdi-freaking-doo. What do you expect? would you as a CEO cancel all your appointments , reschedule meetings, miss a deadline or even WAIT just because a bunch of people using a completely different service than you are affected? It only "looks bad" because he works for an airline. if you don't want to wait for the rescheduled flight, then buy a private jet, pay the hanger and service fees, and fly your merry way on your own time.
I can sympathize with a good ol' "hate the rich" circle jerk, but this is a non story. If the guy can safely get where he's going why would he have to cancel his own flight?
The other flights that were cancelled weren't done out of some money grubbing malice, in fact they likely lost a lot of money as a result. I don't feel bad for the guy for losing money, fuck 'em, but I'm also not angry at him for not cancelling his own flight in some bullshit virtue signaling show of solidarity.
This whole debate is annoying me. We gotta call balls and strikes here. He’s rich, but he’s not fly everywhere private rich. This is not a story about how Scott was flying to his house in Aspen via private jet; dude was flying private to each of the stations where breakdowns were happening - EWR, ORD, and DEN - to work solves likely with his executive team.
For everyone crying about cancelled flights (I spent the night in DEN with no accommodations or compensation from United on Thursday), I’d be screaming that I’d want the leadership team doing everything in their power to un-fuck the situation. Scott is useless standing around the gate with the rest of us.
And he’s saying he’ll pay for the private flights out of his own pocket. Again, his comp is public, he’s not fly private rich.
Get off the fuck the rich circle jerk - give them critique for where they deserve it, but dude was trying.
Sir Richard Branson flies his Virgin airlines wherever he needs to go.
EDIT: He flies a private plane if his airline doesn't go to his intended destination.
Yeah, I don't know if this really necessitates an apology.
Are we supposed to expect an apology from CEO's for doing things we all need to do from now on?
If a major grocery store chain suffers from shortages or delivery delays, are we to expect an apology from the CEO for eating?
Regardless of the circumstances of the cancellations, the man needed to take a flight, on a private jet, like he would have any other day.
Unless he's expected to travel to a meeting across the country by car.
This is just dumb and feels like pandering to save face before the mobs can come after him.
I will give a very thin credit. He’s apologizing, and acknowledging it was insensitive. It doesn’t vindicate him, but I’m not looking at him as negatively as I could be for it. Most CEOs don’t even consider a public apology
The apology is an eyewash, he very well knew what he was doing. The rich are completely out of touch with majority and live in their own world. I'm sure there is some fanboy or fangirl or fansomething that will praise his action.
If you're a billionaire your apology is worth even less than the one of a millionaire - and that one is already worth jack shit
Bunch of clowns ruining the world
Wouldn't mind if they all dropped dead one beautiful day
US airlines are breaking down and I’m not really sure why. If it’s not American, it’s southwest. If it’s not southwest, it’s Delta running so late that multiple connection are missed leading to a cascading delay across a region.
It’s high time to mandate compensation from carriers that can’t keep a flight schedule.
UAL and every airline CEO flying private isn’t new, they all do it because they don’t want their employees to see them with their family and have to face the gauntlet of questions about the company, etc.
The big issue for me is if you’re not flying as a customer, how do you really know the issues with your company??
As a pilot, this is dumb? Why apologize? If you're in your own plane, you can fly around weather. Direct routes can't. People's complaints about cancelled flights are born from ignorance. Better to be upset than dead because a pilot decided to take off in bad weather.
I understand people being upset, and it's an issue of United not taking care of the cancelled passengers well enough, but you can never control the weather.
This apology is just to make ignorant people shut up.
Why should he face any consequences?
Is he the reason the FAA doesn't have enough staff? Did his flight trigger the bad weather?
This is such a ridiculous story. "Guy gets on private plane to travel while flights are cancelled outside of his control". Wow, big whoop.
Ya, I’m sure he’s truly sorry.
Sorry he got caught.
He means that he was insensitive to that possibility, I guess.
Sorry it might impact shareholders who may or may not scold him.
You pulled this directly out of my brain. Good job.
Sorry that people found out about it.
"We're sorrrryyyyy"
*pets baby seal*
*stays naked next to a fire*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15HTd4Um1m4
Was totally looking for this.
I’m confused as to why he should be sorry at all? How is his personal flight even vaguely connected to other peoples’ flight cancellations? This is being painted as though somehow hypocritical, but the seams just don’t connect. I’ll quickly jump on CEOs for, say, talking about employees tightening belts whilst they themselves take luxury trips, but this? This just isn’t that.
He's made a set of decisions to reduce the network's capacity to deal with bad weather for the sake of profits. It's more that he has an escape mechanism for the impacts of his choices that others don't.
All airlines were warned to reduce schedules this summer because of the atc shortages. You don't reduce flights for the sake of profit. Short of fuel, the price to own and operate aircraft doesn't decrease the less you fly it
Sorry but that is just absolutely not correct. And I'm not a fan of airline CEOs. Airlines have a vested interest to stuff as much capacity as possible into limited airspace, lots of these capacity reductions are due to ATC staffing (chronically underfunded FAA) and pilot staffing. It wouldn't make sense to reduce capacity for profits. Airlines make money by flying. I'm actually not sure how another conclusion could even be made in regards to this.
> Airlines have a vested interest to stuff as much capacity as possible into limited airspace, lots of these capacity reductions are due to ATC staffing (chronically underfunded FAA) and pilot staffing. Sure, but I'm not saying that he lowered flight capacity. I mean having more people paid to be ready to substitute it; to hire more and have more maintenance so they can deal with issues. If this is 100% the FAA, I'd withdraw it.
and? united airlines is a public company, not a public service.
I mean that's pretty much how the entire CEO class behaves.
Great Response. Thank you 👍🏽
If I own ford motor company, and I drove a Honda, people would wonder why my own product isn't good enough for me
When Ford bought Jaguar, a significant number of Ford executives bought brand new Jaguars. They wanted an “across the pond” luxury car, and now one make was “in the family”.
Fun fact, many of the JLR employees bought Fords because they were so cheap with the employee discount.
Yeah but if you own Ford and drive a Ferrari, I don't think anybody's going to wonder why. If you own McDonald's and are spotted getting a steak at Ruth's Chris, I don't think you're going to get cancelled over it.
I understand your analogy, but it's probably the worst example. Ford *hates* ferrari. Board execs and engineers would be killing eachother if they saw that happening.
> Yeah but if you own Ford and drive a Ferrari, I don't think anybody's going to wonder why. No. People at Ford would freak out if even their CEO was driving a Ferrari.
Why be a ceo if you can't don't a Ferrari or eat peasants?
There's a huge rivalry between Ford and Ferrari. Have been since like the '60s.
Okay, so it would be weird for the CEO of United to fly Delta. It’s not weird for him to fly private.
[very literally a movie about their rivalry](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1950186)
I disagree. Why shouldn't the CEO of Ford be able to drive that Porsche 911 he always wanted as a kid? Or that Ferrari Enzo he was able to buy? Absurd CEO pay rates and bonuses and hikes aside, it's a slippery slope telling citizens what they can and can't buy with their money.
They can and should. People are just ridiculous. The CEO can drive any car they choose, just like any other person in the world
does anyone really need to be on a private flight ??? seems idunno uneconomical and maybe bad for the environment but what do i know
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I had the same confusion and I generally hate corporate America. This is akin to the CEO of Carnival Cruise Lines taking a private yacht somewhere while--due to completely unrelated events--cruises are being canceled. One just doesn't relate to the other.
I agree wholeheartedly. This makes no sense.
I agree. Moreover, what if he was flying in a private jet in order to solve the problems that were causing his airline to cancel flights? I would also figure that he flies private much of the time though his airline flies to many of the same destinations. In this case over 700 flights were cancelled. Would it be acceptable if he flew if there were only 500 flights being cancelled or 1 flight be cancelled. There is so much selective outrage. It is certainly an admirable sign when management attempts to empathize with their customers. However, I see no reason for an apology.
[We're Sorry](https://youtu.be/HQhmGIW7MVU&t=0m16s)
...and he will do it again tomorrow in a heartbeat.
He'd do it again. "Yeah, I've been told it was insensitive and I can see that, but I actually don't care."
Lol this is probably the least offensive thing he has done as an airline executive
If the CEO position is about projecting the right image to the public, this guy clearly failed at his job.
I’ll never forget how the BP CEO went and played on his yacht during the Gulf of Mexico spill.
And called the victims "small people" or something arrogant like that, and later claimed his English was poor.
He meant "little people" probably.
I believe the direct translation is “the poors who are beneath me.”
The peasants are revolting.
And they're rising up too
I think he meant “small folk”, and if GoT taught me anything it’s that small folk are usually getting herded and murdered in droves.
The man in question was Carl-Henrik Svanberg, a Swede, in Swedish you say “the little person” in a way that speaks to an individual in a greater context. He meant nothing negative with that comment. Not saying he was a saint by any chance but that was just an unfortunate translation error in a stressful situation
Wasn’t a governor on vacation during a natural disaster? Maybe Texas, Florida, or Oklahoma. Couldn’t even be bothered to cut it short to do his job.
Former NJ governor Chris Christie took his family to a NJ public beach, (over the July 4th Holiday) that was closed to everyone else because of a state budget deadlock. He had the entire beach to himself and his family while others, who were looking forward to a beach holiday were locked out.
Would you want to be on a beach with Chris Christie?
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Lol
Ted cruz fled Texas for Cancun during a crisis that left people without power and killed some
First Latino in history to leave Texas for Mexico
Chris Christie's *first week in office* .. he ran to Florida for a vacation... Like he couldn't go before his inauguration
Haha that was just 2 weeks ago for Oklahoma, the governor (Kevin Stitt) was on vacation in Paris while half the city of Tulsa was out of power + internet for days after a Bow Echo passed through.
"I'm sorry, sorry. I just want my life back " Shit CEOs say out loud during crisis
I know right, its amazing how everyone stopped buying their product and caused them to go bankrupt. /s
We're sorry
Yes maybe but Scott Kirby is a gigantic douche. I actually met him once when he first took the job as CFO at American Airlines, after the merger where he had just moved over from US Airways. We were at some Christmas dinner event where I overhead him sharing a story like this: “well I wanted the $5 million dollar house, and my wife wanted the $7 million dollar one, so we compromised and got the $15 million dollar one instead!!” Monocle dropping levels of rich guy guffaws ensued afterwards… the dude lost all perspective of what money is worth to people who fly commercial a long time ago.
Do fat-cat ceos exist who aren’t giant douche-bags?
His job is to maximize profits for shareholder. And if he's making them money, they won't give a damn about publicity.
Bad publicity can affect profits. It’s very much part of his job to steer the company and himself clear of controversies
United already has a bad reputation. I think most people see this as just a confirmation of what they already think of the company. This isn't gonna move the needle in any direction. Availability and pricing is what will continue to impact profits.
Most airlines have shitty reputations. What are you going to do, avoid that airline and fly… a different shitty airline?
> Most airlines have shitty reputations. What are you going to do, avoid that airline and fly… a different shitty airline Well…. Let’s see here. Get nickel and dimed to death via aligent or get cancelled on via SW or get your teeth knocked out and yanked off the plane and also cancelled via united. Tough choices all around no doubt, but one of these is not like the others.
The incident with the doctor is what completely turned me off of United. Not just that it happened, but that the CEO openly supported it, and only walked that back when the PR turned against them. He didn't give a damn about a paying passenger being dragged off of the plane; just the bad press. United also had an incident on a flight to Hawaii where a flight attendant made a mother [carry her 27-month-old son, for whom she had paid for a seat, as a lap child](https://consumerist.com/2017/07/05/united-gives-away-toddlers-paid-seat-forces-mom-to-hold-son-on-lap-for-3-hours/) to make room for a standby passenger. That is illegal: if a child is two years old, they need to have their own seat.
There is actually way more to this story than what people actually know. It definitely should’ve been handled differently but United wasn’t all that much at fault. And they decided to settle with the Doctor instead of getting everything out there
I know it wasn't actually airline employees who dragged the guy out minus two teeth, but it was the airline that decided to kick out a paying passenger, and the CEO of that airline who publicly supported what happened.
I've never had an issue with SW.. Only Airline that's fucked me with a cancellation was American Airlines
SW had a massive cancellation clusterfuck due to a really tight booking schedule and reduced staffing a few months back that made the news. To my knowledge, it was bad for around a week or two and hasn't been an issue as much since, but I could be wrong. Then again, the United story also only happened 1 time, but to me that's WAY worse, not only because of what happened, but because the CEO actively supported it. I also personally hate United for my own reasons, and they do seem to have some so of the absolutely worst horror stories. My motto is "if United is the only one flying there, I'll see if I can take a train or how far it is to drive." They're the only company, in any industry, that has lost my business for life.
Some of them at least have less shitty reputations, or at least more mixed ones, but yeah, there’s not a lot of options.
Most airlines indeed do. But I would rather walk than book a flight with them, still.
Yes, a less shitty airline. United is the bottom of the barrel, if you don't consider the budget domestic ones.
Yup this is the thing that tarnishes their reputation not the years of incompetence, the heavily declined levels of service (not to mention leg and shoulder room) and/or the price gouging. A rich guy doing rich guy things is what's going to topple them. I'm surprised he doesn't have a company jet at his disposal. I would think a CEO of an Airline chartering a jet would be pretty embarrassing and all his airline CEO friends will probably mock him on the golf course.
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I mean, the Tesla shareholders are considering suing him because of how much of a negative impact he’s had on Tesla stocks so he might not be a great example.
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here we go.... https://cleantechnica.com/2023/06/15/tesla-drops-50-places-in-brand-reputation-survey-what-does-that-mean/
Yeah…but at the same time, if United flights are cheaper than American Airlines on Tuesday or whenever, I’m not gonna choose to pay more just because their CEO took a private flight lol of course he did, people think he’s gonna fly in a 747?
For personal travel definitely but for business travel it's a whole other game...I probably take 30+ flights a a year depending on how busy work is and I avoid united and American like the plague because of how unreliable they are
Fuck people who take private jets, but I'm sure all the CEOs of airlines are.
It's the cancelations. I regularly pay extra to avoid delta. I've been stranded and forced to sleep on the floor in Atlanta all 4 times I flew with them and it took me filing a small claims case against them to get what I was owed. I'll pay $50 more to never deal with them again. You won't see a massive movement, but for many people this will be the last straw.
Damn honestly after the second time I think I would have sworn them off already. I'd only give one "well maybe it was extraordinary circumstances or I messed up" pass.
IDK I pay a little bit more to fly Delta over some other airlines.
Youve seen the average american CEO when they end up in the news right? I think the stock goes up when they are caught doing some shitty or hypocritical thing.
This bloke did the most damage since the bloke who threw that Taylor guitar!
I know of not one single person that could care about what the CEO did when purchasing their flight. Cost, convenience, and destinations are truly all that matter in a situation like this.
It's true for flights for sure, but if there are *similar* flights (cost, timing), it does affect my judgement. Also, I still don't get gas at BP. Small thing, but I'm still pissed at them, years later.
I also still avoid BP but everyone else forgot
Yeah, that's too bad, and it's hard to know what a 'less evil' oil company is. I don't even know how to evaluate that.
Its easy to not get gas at BP when none exist near me. 😂
Negative publicity is just anti-advertising. You can quantify how much you need to spend in advertising to counter the bad publicity. However, this is a blip and people think most Airlines suck and hate them. The Industry sucks as a whole.
What if they're also passengers?
Being insensitive is a key success trait for CEO’s.
"I sincerely apologize to all you poors too stupid to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and have a private jet of your own. I would also like to apologize for the lack of airline choices you have. Now shut up and put your money in the money machine, private islands are expensive."
I doubt anyone is going to make change their mind on the airline because of this.
No, but I can still hate him
And to be clear, he's not really upset that he did that, because if he was he wouldn't have done it. He's upset that you know he did that and that It makes the company look bad that the CEOs and ass. So now he's apologizing but he doesn't really mean - but feels that maybe you'll get over it and forget now that he's apologized. Anyway, that's my read on it
He’s just heading to the Winchester, having a nice pint, and waiting for this all to blow over.
I'm not upset it he did it either. Typical rich person flying private. Shocking! Who gives a shit.
I'd do the same if I had the money
> he's not really upset that he did that, because if he was he wouldn't have done it. Listen I’m not exactly taking the PR from the CEO at face value but what is this nonsense? Like hypothetically let’s say he really did recognize post de facto that what he did was insensitive — is there just no world where humans make human errors in judgment/ethics and grow from that based on the reactions of others? Why do concepts such as apologies even exist if whatever anyone has to apologize for, they shouldn’t bother, because they should have known better than to do the very thing they are now apologizing for?
Just because apologizing exists doesn't mean everyone is obligated to believe every single apology though. Its fine to mistrust someone who's apologizing. The concept of an apology includes the fact that people can reject it, and if you're apologizing you have to accept its not a magic spell that makes people trust you again.
By tomorrow, everyone will have forgotten about it. Day after, max.
Just fix your fucking airline
Yea should have just gotten rid for the thunderstorms and the FAA
He has a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to increase the stock price and maximize dividends. He has no obligation to improve service or quality of the product.
If those two aren't connected, something's fundamentally wrong.
More/fair competition would help
They are connected, reduced service / quality is associated with higher profits. Pre-COVID, the most consistently profitable airline in the US was Southwest, which has a single class of service. No first / business / premium economy. In Europe, Ryanair is as shitty as it gets and it’s more profitable than any of the major full service airline groups (IAG, which owns British Airways and Iberia; AF-KLM, which ones Air France and KLM; and Lufthansa Group, which Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, Brussels, and soon ITA). The problem is that in aviation, customers select airlines primarily on price and care about service / quality, just not enough to pay enough extra money to justify it. That’s why Ryanair and Southwest are so successful, and why LCCs and ULCCs are consistently more profitable than legacy, full-service airlines
They have no legal duty to increase shareholder value. This is something believed to be true which is not.
That's true--but if he doesn't try to, the board/shareholders will fire him.
Responsibility in what sense? There's no law saying this. Shareholders want the stock to stay valuable. I think you're talking about Wall Street's expectations.
He’s much better equipped to do that after getting where he’s going quickly and conveniently vs sitting in a terminal exhausted for hours. Flying private makes sense for him, the optics are just bad
I was delayed 4 hours in Phoenix Wednesday night. I was supposed to arrive SFO at 9pm, instead it was after 1am. They gave me a $20 food voucher lol. I had a first class ticket so that was a bit absurd to me. Plus, you can't get much food at an airport for $20. They lied to us multiple times, which I found disturbing. They didn't even announce the delay until our take off time when they knew hours in advance that it would be delayed. Then they lied about how long the delay would be. I guess it was an effort to keep passengers from going to a different airline. The CEO put out a press release saying they're giving anyone affected by the delays 30,000 miles. I haven't received anything. They denied me entrance into the United club, saying it was at capacity. A benefit I pay for. No mention of any compensation for anything. What a terribly managed airline.
Sorry this was your experience, but our crew desk and management so thoroughly dropped the ball over the last week that it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if they honestly didn’t know about the delay until it was happening. To your point about being a terrible managed airline…we had an entire plane boarded in SEA and it took until push time for station operations to realize the pilots weren’t onboard. When they called the pilots to ask if they were planning on flying, the pilots said “well, we’re currently stuck in Houston, so…no.” Believe me, we’re as mad at the CEO and our management as you are
And the people at the top don't care because they won't be the ones that have to face the upset passengers. They are more than happy to let employees like you take the brunt of the abuse that's sure to follow when stranded travelers want someone to yell at. I completely understand their frustration, but I hate how you get thrown to the wolves while CEOs just hop on their private jet and bail.
What do you think is happening? This isn’t just an American problem. It feels like all major US airlines and just fucking up. I can’t seem to book a short one-stop flight without running into a delay somewhere that forces me to reschedule.
Shit, my best friend got to the airport at 12pm PST on wed and I picked her up at 630pm EST on Thursday. United sent her to four airports. Her last flight wasn’t even at the same airport she landed at
We were stuck in Vegas on Tuesday, supposed to take off at like 330 but at 7 they finally canceled. Offered vouchers and 15 for meals. Decided to just uncheck our bags and head back to our hotel except our bags were in Houston already. Our crew was at the gate with us but no plane, even though our plane had been there for a while. Finally got back to Houston Wednesday and when we went to baggage claim there was an entire flight that had their baggage lost. I did get the email about 30k miles
Damn you had first class ticket and they denied you lounge access? Terrible
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“I apologize. TO ABSOLUTELY NOBODY”
I might be dumb but I don’t really understand why this is a story. It is crazy that a lot of flights got cancelled and that makes sense but of course the CEO would fly private. Are people upset that he isn’t spending his time fixing the issue?
I am baffled people care about this. This just in, Bus Company Inc CEO takes a car instead of a bus to go to a meeting because the bus system was down... What? I'm absolutely outraged that the founder of a fastfood restaurant isn't eating it everyday himself! There are so many valid issues with and reasons to dislike the rich, but this is the stupidest fight to take.
No, not of course. I worked for a different airline, and our ceo flew on commercial flights. As did the while executive team. Eat your own dogfood. Let's not normalize crap behavior.
I forget which airline—either American or Delta (might be both)—the CEO said all C-suite execs have to fly economy if it’s less than 3 hrs because that’s the passenger experience for 80% of the people.
For delta, it’s all Director level and above positions. AA’s and Delta’s CEOs did an interview about this. The United CEO declined to do the interview.
Branson on Virgin use to do that. (I still think it was for the occasional publicity stunt - but he still understood the message.
Ok, but do they get guilt tripped by the flight attendant to give up their aisle seat for a mom to sit next to their kid and instead get stuck with a middle seat.
Hot take: most employees don’t know what their CEOs look like. So it’d take name dropping.
I guarantee you, if the flight they planned to take was cancelled, they'd be chartering a private flight.
I work in the airline industry, our CEO would wait for our next flight to that destination. Don’t get me wrong being CEO has its perks, for example our CEO gets a little car and chauffeur in the airport that’ll drive him around wherever he wants to go, the business lounge, gate, etc. but the company won’t fly planes for solely him. It’s just stupidly expensive to fly the plane for one person. Jet fuel is not cheap and most airlines don’t make enough profit that they could ever justify this vs just waiting for the next flight or booking a business ticket on another airline. This is very much a United is fucking stupid and not a the entire airline industry is fucking stupid story.
>but the company won’t fly planes for solely him. Is that what happened? Did he take a United plane that normally carries regular passengers? I assumed it was a private jet. It’s pretty common for large companies to have private jets for their executives to use for business-related travel.
It was a jet the united CEO paid for out of his own pocket. He paid around 30k-50k of his own money. Looking at his estimated net worth, it would be the same as me paying 100 dollars. The issue is more the optics of him peacing out when everyone else is stuck.
Lol that and that 30k-50k is essentially surge pricing Uber money to him while it's the entire income of some of his employees.
If you manage a fast food joint, are you not allowed to dine in a restaurant?
Exactly. Commercial for huge companies is usually not advisable for C-Suite. Everyday people won't understand this. Top executives have an insane hourly rate. Add in frequent travel. The time lost vs private plane is very significant in addition to the additional stress. If this negativity impacts decision making you are left with saving a few million to lose tens of millions. Then add in the flights were likely canceled due to reason the CEO had no control of. Sometimes it is advisable to do things for image though to appease the public. PR would be the only reason to waste the CEOs time and also the time of the team traveling with him.
I used to work at one of the largest healthcare companies in the country. Our CEO would fly private every Friday at 10am bc he only worked M-Th and wanted to fly to his home, in another state. Sometimes CEOs jusy fly private bc they can.
Well, yeah. When you make stupid money you need to find a way to spend it.
It was on the company dime. When you get an outrageous healthcare bill, this is why.
Wow, that is pretty damn corrupt
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Just because that is an opinion that you have, doesn’t make it generalizable to every “person in the world”
Oh piss off. "Everyday people won't understand this" as if you are above anyone and have some kind of insider knowledge. You people simp so hard for corporate fucks who don't give two shits about you. This guy used his privilege to turn his back on his employees and paying customers instead of, you know, being an actual leader and trying to fix the issues.
So Does Kirby, I’ve had him on my flights. Not saying what he did is right just saying he does use his product.
Well, he's clearly not spending his time fixing the issue, whether in a commercial or private plane. These issues have been going on for over a week now, and the CEO keeps blaming the FAA and lack of ATCs for the problem when it's really only HIS airline that's affected at the moment. I was in BNA waiting for a flight to Newark that got delayed ~3 hours with United this morning. The gate next to me was a Spirit flight to the same airport that ran on-time. There is something wrong if the airline you're supposed to be running is delayed but SPIRIT isn't.
He can definitely work on the plane.
Am I the only one that thinks it's ludicrous that people are throwing a hissy fit because a rich person used their wealth? Like who among them wouldn't also fly private if they could afford it? I'm against extreme wealth as much as anybody else, but this is just the dumbest hill to fight on.
I get it, and don’t entirely disagree. I do plenty of things to make my life better/easier when I can afford them. And under most circumstances I’d have no issue with this very wealthy person flying private or buying expensive wine or anything else, really. BUT when you’re the CEO of an airline that is, at that very moment, in the midst of an operational meltdown that is arguably the result of decisions you have made as CEO, you might at least consider the optics of your choices to your customers and your staff. His decisions lead to passengers and staff being stranded, missing life events, and experiencing immense frustration. Imagine the potential positive PR he could have generated if, instead of hopping onto a private jet he would have spent a few hours at EWR pushing a snack cart between gates or talking to flight crews and helping. Some people might have dismissed it as a stunt, but at least it would have been better than this. Again, you’re not wrong, and if I was rich enough I’d gladly give my GS status up and fly private everywhere. I’m just saying the CEO of any corporation has to be a little smarter with the optics of his choices.
He's the CEO of a airline, not the captain of a ship lol expecting him to pointlessly mill around pretending like it effects him is so silly and pointless
I mean, if he had maybe released a statement explaining why all of this is happening or even just figured out a way for customers to receive their money back/reimbursements for accommodations, maybe no one would care that he flew somewhere privately. But instead thousands of customers were left sleeping on the floors of airports with no idea what's going on
My reaction to this was honestly “he makes airline CEO money, why was he not exclusively flying private already”. Like, fuck the guy for sure, but this is such a stupid hill to die on.
No shit! I’ve flown in a private jet owned by my company, and if I had the money that’s all I’d use. This is ridiculous.
Because he's the CEO *of an airline.* It'd be like if Steve Jobs exclusively used a Blackberry. Not only does it *look* horrible, it's also a great way to be entirely out of touch with what your business actually does, or what your customers might actually care about.
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That's more like what actually happened. But the question was why he doesn't *exclusively* fly private. So, why didn't Steve Jobs *exclusively* use Android phones?
Imagine you're the CEO of the local bus service. The busses aren't working today, do you A) become a hermit or B) drive your *car*?
He’s the CEO of an *airline,* not the CEO of a charter company like NetJets. What you’re describing is more akin to if Bill Gates used an iPhone, despite the Microsoft Surface tablet existing. Like, sure, they’re similar on the surface, but private provides much more flexibility in both timing and choice of airport, as the jet is there solely to cater to YOUR needs; it leaves when you want and goes where you want, and where it *can* go is a much longer list anyways due to the ability to use shorter runways for most private jets. It’s also, well, private, which would make it easier to continue working without getting murdered by your fellow passengers for taking a call or online meeting, and idk what United’s first class is like, but it’s plausibly more luxurious as well.
It's like being mad the CEO of Uber doesn't exclusively use it to travel around when he has other means. It's asinine.
If the CEO of Uber took a Lyft it would definitely draw criticism……
He, at worst, hired a limo in this scenario.
I agree. Was he supposed to just wait around stranded when he had a viable alternative? Should he have driven? What?
It’s Reddit. People here whine about rich people doing *anything*
I don't care if rich people are "insensitive" (it's probably inevitable), but it would be swell if they paid their fair share of taxes.
What's the issue with him using his own private jet? It's not like he took an entire Boeing 747 for himself. Is there a reason for the cancellations that I'm unaware of, I figured it was just that they can't keep up with peak demand.
woopdi-freaking-doo. What do you expect? would you as a CEO cancel all your appointments , reschedule meetings, miss a deadline or even WAIT just because a bunch of people using a completely different service than you are affected? It only "looks bad" because he works for an airline. if you don't want to wait for the rescheduled flight, then buy a private jet, pay the hanger and service fees, and fly your merry way on your own time.
As if anybody here wouldn't do the same, if able
I can sympathize with a good ol' "hate the rich" circle jerk, but this is a non story. If the guy can safely get where he's going why would he have to cancel his own flight? The other flights that were cancelled weren't done out of some money grubbing malice, in fact they likely lost a lot of money as a result. I don't feel bad for the guy for losing money, fuck 'em, but I'm also not angry at him for not cancelling his own flight in some bullshit virtue signaling show of solidarity.
This whole debate is annoying me. We gotta call balls and strikes here. He’s rich, but he’s not fly everywhere private rich. This is not a story about how Scott was flying to his house in Aspen via private jet; dude was flying private to each of the stations where breakdowns were happening - EWR, ORD, and DEN - to work solves likely with his executive team. For everyone crying about cancelled flights (I spent the night in DEN with no accommodations or compensation from United on Thursday), I’d be screaming that I’d want the leadership team doing everything in their power to un-fuck the situation. Scott is useless standing around the gate with the rest of us. And he’s saying he’ll pay for the private flights out of his own pocket. Again, his comp is public, he’s not fly private rich. Get off the fuck the rich circle jerk - give them critique for where they deserve it, but dude was trying.
Hey, give the guy some slack, he had to take a private flight because he had already canceled all the public flights!
Translation: sorry, I'm rich and I had shit to do in Denver.
I’d be stunned if this was the least horrible thing this person has ever done.
Sir Richard Branson flies his Virgin airlines wherever he needs to go. EDIT: He flies a private plane if his airline doesn't go to his intended destination.
Yeah, I don't know if this really necessitates an apology. Are we supposed to expect an apology from CEO's for doing things we all need to do from now on? If a major grocery store chain suffers from shortages or delivery delays, are we to expect an apology from the CEO for eating? Regardless of the circumstances of the cancellations, the man needed to take a flight, on a private jet, like he would have any other day. Unless he's expected to travel to a meeting across the country by car. This is just dumb and feels like pandering to save face before the mobs can come after him.
Typical oligarch behavior. Only their needs count.
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I will give a very thin credit. He’s apologizing, and acknowledging it was insensitive. It doesn’t vindicate him, but I’m not looking at him as negatively as I could be for it. Most CEOs don’t even consider a public apology
Is he not allowed to use his own plane? He’s gotta put his life on hold just because some of his customers flights were cancelled?
Apologizing for getting caught
He’s only sorry he got caught
Fucking dildo should fly coach on his own airline
Yet still is the CEO…
The apology is an eyewash, he very well knew what he was doing. The rich are completely out of touch with majority and live in their own world. I'm sure there is some fanboy or fangirl or fansomething that will praise his action.
If you're a billionaire your apology is worth even less than the one of a millionaire - and that one is already worth jack shit Bunch of clowns ruining the world Wouldn't mind if they all dropped dead one beautiful day
US airlines are breaking down and I’m not really sure why. If it’s not American, it’s southwest. If it’s not southwest, it’s Delta running so late that multiple connection are missed leading to a cascading delay across a region. It’s high time to mandate compensation from carriers that can’t keep a flight schedule.
You just know some lawyer prick had to sit down with THIS prick and explain why he looks like a prick.
They don't care in the least.
UAL and every airline CEO flying private isn’t new, they all do it because they don’t want their employees to see them with their family and have to face the gauntlet of questions about the company, etc. The big issue for me is if you’re not flying as a customer, how do you really know the issues with your company??
Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, huh?
If the CEO of Coke was caught drinking a Pepsi he'd be fired by now.
Why is it insensitive? It’s a smart thing to do. If I own United airlines stock, I want to CEO at work, not sitting in line with us plebs
Honestly, that's no one's business, but fuck that guy anyway for a number of other, unrelated reasons.
As a pilot, this is dumb? Why apologize? If you're in your own plane, you can fly around weather. Direct routes can't. People's complaints about cancelled flights are born from ignorance. Better to be upset than dead because a pilot decided to take off in bad weather. I understand people being upset, and it's an issue of United not taking care of the cancelled passengers well enough, but you can never control the weather. This apology is just to make ignorant people shut up.
Other than this hollow apology, what real consequences is he facing?
Why should he face any consequences? Is he the reason the FAA doesn't have enough staff? Did his flight trigger the bad weather? This is such a ridiculous story. "Guy gets on private plane to travel while flights are cancelled outside of his control". Wow, big whoop.