United Airlines President No Longer Counting on Quick ‘Snap Back’
Photo Credit: If demand does not recover, United would retire its Boeing 757s, airline president Scott Kirby said Thursday. United Airlines
Skift Take
United Airlines is in great peril, losing $100 million in revenue per day. But its CEO-in-waiting is already thinking about how the airline can emerge stronger from this crisis. Let's see if he can pull it off.
United Airlines is losing more than $100 million in revenue per day and making plans to reduce payroll expenses and permanently retire some older mainline and 50-seat regional aircraft if air travel demand does not return later this year, President Scott Kirby told employees Thursday in a town hall meeting.
"While we all think that the Coronavirus will be behind us and recovery is going to be somewhere on the horizon, we can't be too aggressive about assuming it's right around the corner and expecting the so-called V-shaped recovery because if it doesn't happen we put ourselves in even more risk and even more danger," said Kirby, who becomes United's CEO next month.
United is expecting to accept a grant of more than $5 billion from the U.S. government as part of the CARES Act, and the airline will use it to pay staff through Sept. 30. But Kirby made it clear the airline might need to shrink, at least temporarily, when the fourth quarter begins.
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