Source: Skift
Author: Dennis Schaal
How significant a momentum loss will United Airlines suffer with the sidelining of CEO Oscar Munoz, who reportedly suffered a heart attack and is on medical leave?
In response to an analyst statement and question during United’s third quarter earnings call October 22, Acting CEO Brett Hart seemed to downplay the schism between United’s management and its employees.
The JP Morgan analyst, Jaime Baker, seemed to break some news of his own when he told Hart that “we” met with Munoz, who told them, according to Baker, that “United had lost its frontline” employees and that Munoz, who’d been at his new role for just seven weeks before his illness, would sort out his desired management team by the end of 2015.
Hart cautioned Baker, though, not to misinterpret this sense of urgency as an outright “disconnect” between employees and management. Hart added that he expects to move forward with the employee push that Munoz had in mind, adding that he is “confident” in management’s ability to move forward.
Earlier, in prepared remarks, Hart, who became United’s acting CEO October 19, said it has been “a challenging few weeks for us and we are proud how the United families have come together.”
In the few weeks since Munoz was appointed United CEO on September 8 and began visiting with ramp workers, customer service reps and ticket agents to hear their views, in the wake of the resignation of Jeff Smisek, United has heard from “thousands of employees” on suggestions for improvements and plans to soon announce changes directly growing out of that feedback, Hart said.
If Hart sought to downplay the schism between United management and employees, he also seemed to push back on any expectation of widespread changes in management in 2015.
Hart said every new CEO needs to reevaluate the changes he needs in his management lineup so it was “not out of the ordinary” that Munoz might have been contemplating new appointments.
But Hart said he believes United’s current management team is “fully capable” and will executive the plan for the rest of 2015.
In other words, given the tumultuous events in the C-suite at United over the last two months, Hart, who had been the airline’s general counsel since 2010, is emphasizing stability. That could mean that the sense of momentum that Munoz hoped to generate could be a casualty of the executive changes.