About The Book

 

Go behind the scenes with the CEO who led United Airlines’ remarkable turnaround.

 

Wall Street Journal Bestseller

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.

About The Author

 

Oscar took the helm of a United that was flying through very turbulent skies, and was anything but United.
A stalled merger, dismal operational and financial performance, tortured labor relations and rock-bottom customer satisfaction and employee morale meant United was in freefall.

Within five years, United was flying high, achieving top-tier reliability and profits, winning back customer loyalty and earning the praise of each of its major union leaders. Most importantly, frontline employees were finally flying together as a team, after the turmoil of a merger that finally was ratified eight years to the day after it was begun.

Oscar credits his employees for pulling off the airline comeback story of all time, and it began with a Wall Street-defying strategy to put employees first, as the foundation of rebuilding.
Behind the scenes, another personal drama was unfolding. On Day 37 of his tenure, he suffered a massive heart attack. He woke from a coma only to fight for his job, fend off a proxy battle from activist investors, manage PR crises, all while learning the three-dimensional chess game that is required to obtain a heart transplant.

As CEO, then Chairman, he also led negotiations for the CARES Act, and helped marshal the airline sector response to Covid.
Today, Oscar remains beloved by the rank-and-file of United Airlines for his authenticity, faith in his employees, and for turning the company around by creating a New Spirit of United.

 

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