Oscar Munoz, the beloved former CEO of United Airlines that helped to turn the culture of the airline around after the merger with Continental Airlines, is releasing a book next month about his time at United.
New Oscar Munoz Book Focusing On Time At United Airlines
The book is called Turnaround Time: Uniting an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies and is available for pre-order on Amazon at a cost of $29.99 for a hardcover book or $15.99 for Kindle.
Here’s the description:
Go behind the scenes with the CEO who led United Airlines’ remarkable turnaround.
Around the world and around the clock, the people of United Airlines are locked in a struggle against time to ensure your aircraft lands and takes off for another flight safely and efficiently. This “turnaround time” is the heartbeat of an industry in which the margin for error is nil and success is measured by fractions of a second.
Turning around an aircraft and turning around an airline are very different challenges in most respects, except one: it takes a united team to perform it well.
In 2015, when Oscar Munoz took the helm of this iconic brand, its culture was anything but united and its reputation was in free fall. A merger with its onetime rival Continental had stalled, operational and financial performance was badly trailing those of its competitors, and the bonds of trust with shareholders, customers, and employees had reached a breaking point.
Setting out an ambitious plan to rejuvenate the company, Oscar learned that there was nothing wrong at United that couldn’t be fixed by championing what was right—the employees themselves.
Meanwhile, only a month into the job, Oscar suffered a near-fatal heart attack that set in motion a race against the clock to find a heart transplant to save his life, even as he fought to salvage his vision for United’s revival. The health emergency might have been the end of the story—until employees and union leaders rallied around Oscar, inspiring him to pull through, something he did within weeks following a successful procedure.
Oscar and the people he led, both with new leases on life, would go on to weather more turbulence, overcoming battles with investors and navigating several PR crises—including a global pandemic—to deliver top-tier operational performance, strong returns to shareholders, and ascending levels of customer satisfaction. By the end of his tenure, the people of United were finally flying together as one team, defying pessimism from industry insiders and rekindling optimism from employees and the customers they served.
With candor, humor, and heartfelt wisdom, Oscar reveals how he rose from humble immigrant origins to lead United Airlines through one of modern business’s greatest corporate turnarounds. He offers soulful, much-needed leadership lessons for today’s world: listening with empathy, standing up for employees, building durable cultures that are profitable because they’re principled, and advancing a vision for a genuinely inclusive economy for the future.
I have very fond memories of Oscar Munoz and have enjoyed many excellent conversations with him over the years. It is good when a CEO is approachable, relatable, kind, and caring. While current CEO Scott Kirby (in my estimation) has a much deeper knowledge of the workings of the aviation industry, it was not Kirby but Munoz which United needed most in 2015. And the fact that he overcame a massive heart attack which required a heart transplant makes the story even more special.
I look forward to reading this book.
(H/T: n198ua on Flyertalk)
The good Oscar. Now they’ve got Oscar the Grouch.
This book can be one sentence. “I was not Jeff $misek.”
Sometimes I wonder if that was really why Oscar was so popular. After flyers having to suffer through years of Smisek and the “changes you’ll like” mentality, Oscar was seen as the savior. I don’t discredit some of the improvements that came under his leadership, but the removal of Smisek, the merger mess/integration finally settling down, and pre-Covid the airline industry riding high, UA was pretty much on auto-pilot.
Didn’t he try to downplay the United Express Flight 3411 incident initially even though Dr. David Dao got beat up and forcefully removed from the flight?
Please know that this was a UAX flight-not UA. BUT, because they are a subsidiary, UA got dinged.. UAX employees are not UA employees! Instead of setting the record straight, UA took the hit.
The United Express carriers are not subsidiaries, although UA does have a non-controlling interest in a couple of them. They are contractors.
Munoz originally stood by the employees because they did everything by the book, but when the p.r. disaster occurred in the early days of internet outrage, he hung them out to dry.
It was City of Chicago security people that removed Dao when he refused to deplane. They got him off, but then he bolted and ran back on and had to be removed by force.
This occurred 6 years ago, back when there were still rules.
It was under Oscar Munoz that United reneged on lifetime club membership for United Club members. Before Oscar, United lifetime club members could enter with a boarding pass of any airline.
Liar$.
You didn’t used to have any boarding pass. All this has gradually been tightening down as the number of travelers grows and real estate at the airport does not.
I was on the same flight as Oscar a couple months ago. The crew treated him like a celebrity and had a group photo with him in the galley. (They asked me to take the photo as I was at the front of the J cabin).
Just saw Oscar last week in the EWR Polaris lounge…..really forward to his book!
He was the right guy for the time, but 2017 showed some really big weaknesses. Gotta give the United board full credit for putting Muñoz in after Smisek and Kirby in after Muñoz. Great stewardship there.
A real hero in my book. A truly decent man and dedicated human being who set the path to United’s impressive turnaround. He charted the path the airline is currently on, and mind you, to all the UA haters out there (wink wink, LEFF) look hard in the mirror, you’d rather be UA than AA in a second. Remember, UA growing, AA shrinking and aimless!!
Spot on! Big kudos to Oscar for getting the airline to where it is now from a culture perspective, and for bringing in Kirby to really build up the network side of the business. AA is a disgrace of an airline these days.
The Comeback Kid…..We could all take lessons of his people skills.
When you care more about your employees and customers than you do about your shareholders, the shareholders will eventually be very happy with the results. Gordon Bethune, IMHO, performed one of the greatest airline turnarounds of all time with Continental. Oscar did the same with United. I don’t think Scott Kirby has seen the light yet.
One leader can make a huge difference.