I’m a day late to the party, but a friend shared with me a Mother’s Day note from United Airlines’ CEO Oscar Munoz that I wanted to share with you.
Here’s the note, in full:
Dear United family,
At this moment, millions of American families are preparing to celebrate Mother’s Day. Young parents will be taking their children, perhaps on what will be their first airplane flight, to surprise Grandma for her special day. College kids and young adults just starting out in life will be making their way back home, brimming with new stories to share at the kitchen table and excited to thank Mom for her example and inspiration through the years. So many new moms will be experiencing their very first Mother’s Day, starting new traditions that will last years, even generations, to come. Maybe some moms in uniform will be returning home from a long deployment and will be greeted at the arrivals gate with kids holding short, hand-written signs; they’re short but speak volumes.
Heartfelt reunions like those will be taking place at arrivals lounges across the country and around the world. What is it that unites all these wonderful memories in the making? Our service, and the role we play in making connections to the people and moments that matter most. That’s why we love what we do. We recognize the special place we occupy within these stories. We’re proud of the trust our customers place in us, and the responsibility we need to live up to.
Perhaps we understand it so well because we are graced by so many mothers here in the United family. We know, maybe better than most, what it means to work long hours and late nights, often separated far from children and spouses, family and friends. And so we appreciate just how important getting back home is, and that the journey itself should be filled with joy as well.
That’s why, when we talk about being the most caring airline in the industry, that aspiration is rooted in our own experience.
This Mother’s Day, I want to thank all the moms in the United family for what they do for us every day to make us better as a company and as a community. I also want to thank all the families for sharing those moms with us, especially when work gets in the way. Finally, I want to thank all of you for helping us to live up to our very best during this busy weekend as we go about serving our customers and each other.
Happy Mother’s Day, from my family to yours.
Warmly,
Oscar
Even reading as a customer, I appreciate notes like this very much. It is appropriate to recognize our mothers, who brought us into the world and carefully cared and nurtured us in our most formative years. Not everyone shares that story, but Mother’s Day is about more than flowers or cooking, it is a day to focus our thanksgiving on our dear mothers.
You can compare this year’s note note to Munoz’s 2017 note here.
image: United
My wife and daughter flew in from abroad to celebrate our first Mother’s Day together and to give my mother her very first Mother’s Day as a Grandmother, ever.
United Airlines remains an indelible stain on what is otherwise a monumental period in my family’s lives. United intended to strand my family in a dangerous area of the world to extort additional fees out of them. When confronted with documentation for the two, contradictory explanations for these fees their expert provided, they informed us we would be ignored. Completely unethical. Totally illegal. Avoid at all costs.