For five years, United chief executive Jeff Smisek was a familiar face to the airline’s passengers, appearing in a pre-flight video that played seemingly without fail before take-off.
“Thanks for flying with us,” a smiling Smisek intoned in his video message, which evoked the airline’s blue-and-gray color scheme and the unmistakable strains of its theme song, George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”
It’s safe to say fed-up fliers won’t be subjected to Smisek’s cheerful visage much longer. He resigned on Tuesday amid a federal probe into whether the airline traded favors with the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
But the rest of United’s woes remain. Even before Smisek was ejected from the C-suite, the nation’s No. 2 airline struggled with integrating the Continental merger, unhappy employees, sinking customer service and computer glitches that caused delays and cancellations.
Critics blamed a management team focused on pinching pennies rather than operating a well-oiled machine. Here’s a rundown of Smisek’s turbulent tenure:
- After United closed the deal with Continental in 2010, executives said the integration process would take at least 18 months. Five years later, the airline is still dealing with the fallout from the merger, such as separate union contracts and disparate technology systems. Meanwhile, other merged rivals are flying smooth skies. Delta and Northwest worked out most of their kinks within a year of the merger.
- United has been beset by a string of computer failures since the 2010 merger with Continental. In July, a glitch left thousands of passengers across the globe grounded and halted all US departures for about two hours. It was the second time in five weeks that United had to ground flights because of a computer issue, leading some to declare it the airline’s “summer of hell.”
- The company has yet to strike unified labor contracts with its 24,000 flight attendants and 9,000 mechanics, which has strained relations with management. United pilot leaders had been calling for Smisek’s departure for months, citing operational and pilot management issues. On Tuesday, all three of United’s major unions welcomed new CEO Oscar Munoz and the prospect of a “fresh start.”
- Passengers are fed up with delays, poor customer service, run-down planes and cuts to its frequent flier program. Among the traditional carriers, United placed at the bottom of JD Power’s annual North American Airline Satisfaction Study. The indignities were both big and small. Along with exorbitant baggage fees and mileage degradation, United did away with the traditional practice of boarding passengers with small children early in favor of a few elite travelers.
