Jordan Parker
The Dallas Morning News
(TNS)

HOUSTON — United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby may run a Chicago-based company, but his roots are firmly in North Texas.

Kirby grew up in Rowlett, about 20 miles east of downtown Dallas, bordering the shores of Lake Ray Hubbard. He got into the airline business years later after earning degrees from the the Air Force Academy and George Washington University. He has also held various leadership roles since joining America West when it existed in 1995.

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IN THE KNOW: Kirby's Favorites

Favorite Dallas restaurant: First Watch

Favorite aircraft to fly: Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Favorite vacation destination: Lake Louise, Canada

Window, middle or aisle seat: Window

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In 2013, Kirby became president of Fort Worth-based American Airlines following the merger with U.S. Airways, where he also was president. Just three years later, he was fired and joined United, which has become a profit powerhouse in the industry under his leadership.

United does not have a large presence at DFW International Airport, American’s fortress hub, but it does operate one of the largest U.S. hubs at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. United last week unveiled a new Terminal project at Bush that includes 22 new gates and could grow capacity at the airport by 40%.

The project was completed in just 33 months.

“There are very few places … very few states in the country where you can do things that fast,” Kirby said in an interview last week. “So it's a huge asset for the state. It's an example of why so many businesses are moving to Texas.

“Everything’s big in Texas, so it’s a great place for us. We’ll continue to grow, but Houston will be our only hub.”

Turning a ‘betrayal’ into opportunity

In 2016, Kirby, a Dallas resident, was blindsided when former American Airlines CEO Doug Parker informed him that he’d no longer be with the company. When asked why he recently described the exit as a "betrayal," he elaborated with his view of what happened.

“Three months before I got fired, Doug took me to dinner, down in the Design District, to say he was going to retire on a certain date, and I would be CEO on that date,” he said. “One day he walks in, stands in the doorway, and says ‘I’ve changed my mind, and you and I can’t work together anymore.’ ”

Around the same time as Kirby’s firing, colleague Robert Isom was promoted to president, Kirby’s old job. Isom was American’s president for six years before he ascended to the top job following Parker’s retirement.

Kirby said that following his departure, he was “extremely motivated to prove something.”

He was swiftly brought in as president of United the same day he was fired at American. In May 2020, Kirby was elevated to CEO of United after his predecessor, Oscar Munoz, retired.

Ten years later, he views his firing in a more positive light than when it first occurred.

“Going through thinking you’re on top of the world and everything’s great to the experience of getting fired forced introspection for me,” Kirby said.

He has since reconciled with Parker, and the two remain friendly with each other. He also described Isom as a friend.

He added: “I’m a better CEO of United than I would have been CEO of American. There were things, particularly about how to bring people along. … I don’t know if I would have learned them. I might not have if I’d have just stayed at American and never had to go through that.”

Vision for United

In a room inside United’s new Terminal B at Bush Intercontinental, Kirby outlined how he’s trying to build a “great airline, nose to tail, for customers” and how his airline differs in its approach to the word "premium."

He said the the definition of a premium carrier can be boiled down to four things: "You've got to have great product. You have to have great reliability. You have to have great service from the employees, and you have to have great technology."

“You have to do everything,” he said. “You can't take a Four Seasons room and put it in the middle of a Motel 6 and expect it to be Four Seasons just because the room is the same.”

The airline recently reported $1 billion in profit in the the third quarter and, combined with Delta, represents most of the profit among major U.S. airlines. Its success this year comes amid soaring jet fuel prices caused by the Iran war.

United is racing to install Starlink’s high-speed internet across its entire fleet, which Kirby said was a “transformational difference.” United has installed and activated the service on 44% of its fleet, with completion fleetwide on track for the end of next year. Starlink is free for members of United’s frequent flyer program, MileagePlus. United recently rolled out a Starlink tracker that allows customers to check whether the service is available on an upcoming flight.

Seatback entertainment is available to all customers on a large number of the airline’s aircraft.

The Chicago carrier has committed to making its app one of the best in the business with features like recommendations for travelers to United Club lounges, mobile bag tracking, reminders for travel documents and more. The app also provides real-time updates about how many people have boarded a flight.

“I think of air travel for customers through the lens of traveling with small children,” Kirby said. “I have seven kids. I know what it's like. I've tried to make it easy for people to travel with young children because if we do that, it's going to be great for everybody.”

At the same time, Kirby’s airline has also gotten comfortable with experimentation with innovative destinations and products unique to U.S. airlines. Next year, it’ll allow customers to purchase an entire row on-board that can be converted into a mattress, a product known as the relax row.

United’s new Airbus A321XLR also features two rows in which the middle seat is blocked off, a concept first adopted by European airlines like British Airways and Lufthansa.

Kirby’s goal is to make United the “best airline in the history of aviation” and the “unequivocal flag carrier of the United States.” He believes that United is the best airline in the world “in totality." However, he conceded that the carrier is “not the best at everything.”

He said carriers in the Middle East (Emirates) and in Asia (Singapore Airlines) offer better service and products than any of the major U.S. airlines.

“I like to be the best at everything,” said Kirby. “If you go to Dubai, people that live in Dubai are proud of Emirates. If you go to Singapore, people (who) live in Singapore are proud of Singapore. I'd like to create a brand in the United States that Americans broadly feel that way about.”

And he acknowledges there are still areas United needs to shore up in order to fulfill that vision.

The airline has no presence at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, but will return next year through a partnership with JetBlue. But Kirby said the airline isn’t going to have as much of a presence as he’d like.

He’d also like to grow United’s service to South America, a region overwhelmingly controlled by American Airlines through its gateway hub at Miami International Airport if the opportunity, however unlikely, ever presents itself. “Will that happen? Probably not, but it might someday, and that’d be good for customers in Miami.”

He also flies competitors to “try to find things other airlines are doing better than us.”

He said he’s flown American, Delta and Southwest each at least three times in the past year. He was so impressed by American’s new electronic boarding gates at DFW Airport that he emailed his team to ask why United hadn’t done it yet, after which they informed him that the airline would have similar gates in Houston.

“I do that all the time,” he said. “We’re doing a really good job, so there’s less of that.”

A bold merger vision

Earlier this year, Kirby had a more improbable idea for creating a U.S. flag carrier after his proposition of a merger between United and American was revealed.

The combination of the industry giants would’ve meant the two airlines would’ve controlled roughly 40% of the U.S. airline market share, according to aviation data.

Speculation about a merger picked up after Bloomberg reported that Kirby had posed the idea to U.S. government officials. American quickly shut the rumors down, saying it wasn’t interested in the idea and it would be a negative outcome for consumers.

Kirby said that he was “surprised” by American’s public statement and explained his version of events. “They talked to us and they hadn’t said no,” according to Kirby. He did acknowledge that he knew American was "skeptical" of the idea.

“I texted Robert (Isom) and he said he was going to call me, and I said, 'I read the public statement,' ” Kirby said.

“We were disappointed that it leaked and then I saw all of the feedback of what people said about how possible it was,” Kirby said. “All of the criticism about this would not get through regulatory muscle was looking at it through a traditional commodity lens, and I am the one person who knows what we were planning to do for 100% certainty because I’m the one that was going to do it.”

In a response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for American said the airline disagreed with Kirby's account of events.

To communicate his vision to the masses, Kirby began working on a message to the public, which he would release to the world just days after American denied the idea.

Kirby began writing one weekend in April while he and his wife were staying at Amangiri, a luxury desert resort in southern Utah. While his wife was at the spa for an hour, Kirby sat down, wrote the message and sent it to his team. The message was posted on Monday, April 27.

“You know I live in Dallas, for the first month [after the message was released] every time I was at my kid’s soccer game some stranger would come up to me and say is it really dead … can you please buy [American].”

“It actually made me even more firm in my belief that there's a hunger (from) customers for great customer service. That deal would have been a home run for customers.”

But ambitious mergers aside, Kirby’s focus remains on preparing United to survive any scenario well into the future.

“I get these big airlines, people get furloughed, talk about concessions, cost-cutting exercises. This year’s been a good demonstration of our ability to not do it. So we carry more cash on the balance sheet, become an industry leader in profit margin and we’re on the brink of investment grade credit.”

He added: "If we do those three things, it gives us the financial resources to manage through high fuel prices or whatever, because there’s going to be something (that happens)."

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