An internal letter from United Airlines Chief Commercial Officer Andrew Nocella, reviewed by Live And Let’s Fly, outlines a major leadership shakeup at MileagePlus and Kinective Media that signals a potential change in direction for United’s loyalty strategy.
United Shakes Up MileagePlus Leadership With New Hire And High-Profile Departures
United Airlines is making significant changes at the top of its MileagePlus and Kinective Media organizations, bringing in a high-profile new leader while ushering out two executives who have shaped the program over the past decade.
According to the internal letter, United has hired Jarad Fisher as a corporate Vice President and President of MileagePlus. At the same time, longtime executives Richard Nunn and Luc Bondar will depart the company in the coming weeks.
This is more than a routine leadership transition. It reflects a broader reassessment of where MileagePlus is headed and how closely it should be tied to United’s growing credit card and data monetization ambitions.
Jarad Fisher Is A Serious Hire
On paper, Jarad Fisher is an impressive addition.
Fisher helped build Apple Card, widely regarded as one of the most successful credit card launches in history, and before that played a key role at Delta Air Lines refining its American Express partnership and loyalty platform. His background suggests deep experience at the intersection of payments, consumer platforms, and loyalty, exactly where United wants MileagePlus to operate.
Nocella’s letter emphasizes Fisher’s hands-on approach and his role as a builder rather than a caretaker. That is an important distinction. MileagePlus does not need incremental tweaks right now. It needs a reset in trust and clarity after years of aggressive monetization that often left loyal customers feeling like an afterthought. Per Nocella, “His career is defined by a ‘roll up your sleeves’ approach to innovation.”
Fisher will report directly to Nocella and will focus on maximizing customer loyalty and United’s credit card portfolio. That focus alone tells you where MileagePlus is headed next.
Richard Nunn And Luc Bondar Exit After Defining Era
Richard Nunn and Luc Bondar are credited internally with modernizing MileagePlus and building Kinective Media into what United describes as a first-of-its-kind airline media business (“the envy of airlines around the world”).
That assessment depends on your perspective.
I was never particularly impressed with Nunn’s stewardship. Kinective Media may be a commercial success (though it is still in its infant stages), but it symbolized a broader shift toward treating MileagePlus members less like loyalty customers and more like data points to be monetized. From a Wall Street perspective, that worked. From a loyalty perspective, it often felt like MileagePlus lost its soul.
Bondar, on the other hand, was charming and polished, the sort of guy I wanted to hang out with, and his tenure included some genuinely positive changes like miles that never expire, PlusPoints, and miles pooling. Still, I did not like the overall direction MileagePlus moved under his leadership. The program became more complex, more opaque, and increasingly divorced from the idea that loyalty should be rewarded in a predictable and aspirational way.
That may have simply been the direction of the entire industry was headed, but the cutbacks and devaluations at MileagePlus under his watch have made me, a once-fiercly loyal decade-long Premier 1K, a free agent.
The Curious Appointment Of Vasu Raja
Perhaps the most eyebrow-raising detail in Nocella’s letter is the temporary appointment of Vasu Raja to oversee Kinective Media during the transition.
Raja, formerly of American Airlines, is best known for his role in dismantling much of what made AAdvantage beloved by frequent flyers. Under his watch, American leaned heavily into dynamic pricing, reduced transparency, and de-emphasized aspirational redemptions, all while insisting the program was better than ever (though I give him credit for not ordering the devaluation of many partner award redemptions). Even worse, his focus on the “Sun Belt” domestic network at the expense of international growth backfired spectacularly. He was properly fired from AA, even if he was just following orders and reacting to the retirement of the A330s, 767s, 757s (coupled with AA’s unwillingness to invest in new longhaul aircraft at the time). I don’t think he’s a bad guy by any means, but he lacked the gravitas to discren and re-direct what was happening at AA.
Now, Raja is stepping into a six-month consulting role at United, reporting directly to Nocella, with responsibility for advancing data, targeting, and personalized marketing capabilities.
This appointment raises questions.
If United’s goal is to rebuild trust with its most loyal customers, bringing in a key architect of American’s decline feels like an odd choice, even on a temporary basis. If the goal is to further industrialize MileagePlus as a data-driven revenue engine, then Raja’s involvement makes more sense, but that’s not great news for consumers.
United says this is a short-term assignment. Even so, leadership signals matter. Then again, this could be another move by CEO Scott Kirby to extract revenge against his former employer, American Airlines. After ex-AA CEO Doug Parker forced Kirby out, Kirby has been adamant about proving that AA made a key mistake. It makes sense that bringing on Raja is meant to signal that the problem was not him, but American Airlines. Maybe that’s true…
What This Means For MileagePlus Members
For MileagePlus members, the key takeaway is this: change is coming, but the direction is still unclear.
Jarad Fisher’s hire suggests United understands that MileagePlus needs to feel like a loyalty program again, not just a payments or rebate platform with miles attached. At the same time, the continued emphasis on Kinective Media and the temporary role for Vasu Raja indicate that monetization and data extraction remain core priorities.
Those two goals are often in tension.
The next year will reveal whether United can strike a better balance than it has in the past. MileagePlus does not need to be the most generous program in the world. It needs to be coherent, transparent, and worth emotionally investing in again. I’m excited for the possibilities and look forward to meeting Fisher, but it’s far too early to predict success or failure.
CONCLUSION
United’s leadership shakeup at MileagePlus marks the end of one era and the beginning of another.
Jarad Fisher is a credible, even exciting hire. Richard Nunn and Luc Bondar leave behind a program that made money but lost a lot of goodwill. And Vasu Raja’s temporary role is a reminder that United remains deeply committed to data-driven monetization, for better or worse.
The real test will be whether MileagePlus can once again feel like a program designed for discerning travelers on the margins (who have discretionary choice when it comes to travel)…we should soon find out.
Raja, AA’s NDC warrior who went to battle with OTAs and lost. Yeah, let’s see how that goes for them…
This tells me that Vasu was given marching orders from Isom to improve margins at all costs. He had to do whatever it took to accomplish that task and we all saw the outcome. Sun belt probably does have higher potential margin impact than Singapore in the short term, and possible that Vasu was given a timeframe that didn’t allow better strategies to deliver results.
He could have been sent on a suicide mission much like Wells Fargo leadership during their own account opening scandal. Kirby could very well see it similarly and view this as an easy way to prove it to the world.
This feels oddly personal and simplistic. You have global organisations with thousands of employees (not to mention an ability to pay ridiculously high salaries for top talent), and they’re seeking to bring about change by replacing this or that director and harbouring spiteful feelings against their CEO’s previous employers.
If you want to encourage people who ‘roll up their sleeves for innovation’, you need to build a culture that fosters that mindset. Equally, throwing people under the bus and implying you did so due to them not being innovative enough doesn’t seem like a good idea to encourage risk-taking and questioning the status quo. In other words, if the new innovation guru comes up with a stupid idea, those reporting into him may be less inclined to let him know of the possible unintended consequences of its implementation.
From my perspective, the world is continuing its march towards idiocracy, one little step at a time.
1000% true. Very few leaders really encourage innovation and embrace failure as a learning tool.
The Apple card has been a one-way benefit for Apple at the expense of the issuers, first Goldman Saks and now JP Morgan Chase which is already taking write downs.
The principle will be the same with airline cards – and we are seeing it with Alaska. You can’t make a credit card lucrative for one party without the other party gaining comparable benefit. AS is subsidizing the growth of their credit card and UA has found out that copying the DL/Amex model does not yield the same results.
It’s true that Raja made a lot of AA’s redemptions go dynamic, but I actually view that as a good thing. 8K redemptions to Latam and the Caribbean are very very easy to find, and I feel like I rarely pay more than 7.5K for a domestic flight. Often 6K. Does MileagePlus have any redemptions that are actually a good value? I don’t see how they could devalue it much more, so unless they’re going to actually make customer friendly changes, this announcement basically means nothing.
“I don’t see how they could devalue it much more,”
Please don’t say things like that. They’ll see it as a challenge.
Imagine all the interesting information Vasu Raja brings with him and how profitable UA could be if they improve their credit card proceeds significantly given they lead the Big 4 financially flying passengers.
I’m trying to figure how this reasonably would work out better for MileagePlus members but it don’t look good.
“this could be another move by CEO Scott Kirby to extract revenge against his former employer, American Airlines. After ex-AA CEO Doug Parker forced Kirby out, Kirby has been adamant about proving that AA made a key mistake. It makes sense that bringing on Raja is meant to signal that the problem was not him, but American Airlines. Maybe that’s true…”
If this is “revenge hiring,” the joke is on UA. While AA has a way to go in recovering from Raja, it felt almost overnight that the Advantage program improved when he was outed. I don’t care for UA, but I almost feel sorry for UA flyers if Raja is giving key “improvement” input.
Vasu was right – he just wasn’t given the time needed to prove it. Airline selling is antiquated and expensive – the way forward is almost exactly what Vasu wanted to implement and it’s a shame he wasn’t able to carry it through.
Didn’t realize both Nunn and Bondar went to undergrad in the Queen’s empire – UK and Australia respectively
Agreed with Matt’s takes on Luc and Richard. Luc is a charming airlines vet that did a lot of good for the program. The devaluation of MileagePlus miles during his watch was inevitable. On the other hand, Richard was not that impressive. Under the hood, the monetization of travelers’ data is minimal. The customized ads are limited and not truly personalized to the individuals. The technology behind Kinetic Media is more of a patchwork. A more tech-savvy exec could have done more with the platform to benefit both United Airlines and their customers.
Unsure how you can make that statement without really understanding what Kinective Media built which was a global first and generating millions in revenue from what I’ve heard all driven by Nunn’s vision and experience, and with the addition of Starlink which Nunn announced this is just the start of something meaningful for United.
Despite numerous claims that over 130 campaigns and more than 100 brands involved, there were only 5 ads rotating as personalized to customers on their Onboard WIFI via Personal Device Entertainment last I heard. Plus, there were reports of MileagePlus Card ads pulling via seatback channel. I would call United implementations a patch work.
For the projected millions in revenue that you heard, if that number were delivered then Richard Nunn would still be around. United spent significant amount of money on Kinetive media with investment on onboard WIFI upgrade, seatback screens, software upgrade on customization on the IFE, data analysis, and ad tech. As for Starlink , this engagement has been in the work prior to Richard Nunn joining United airlines. It just happened to launch during his time.
To me, vision is one thing, execution and deliverables are another matter.
If by Apple card you mean the one made by the iphone people, I don’t see what you mean. Success? It hasn’t gone bankrupt I guess. Certainly beating the Bilt 2.0 debacle. But I don’t think anyone in the credit card space thinks of it as a success. Didn’t they have to switch issuers too?