United CEO Scott Kirby Calls Being Fired By American Airlines A “Betrayal”—So He Took $13 Million And Built A Stronger Rival

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby gave an interview to the New York Times where he opened up about being fired as President of American Airlines. Ten years ago, he was let go from American Airlines after being passed over for the top job. He was furious. But after telling his wife, his next call was to a board member of United Airlines. He was hired at United in 2016 and named chief executive in 2020. His goal was to best his former employer. …What was the inflection point? One was going through the experience of being told you’re going to be the C.E.O. and then, “Oh, I changed my mind and now you’re fired.” At American Airlines? At American. The biggest thing I’ve changed is realizing that even when I know the right answer, taking the time to make sure everyone else feels good about the answer is 100 times more effective. You’ve been at United for 10 years. Does how it ended at American still sting? Stinging isn’t the right word. It felt more like a betrayal. I wanted to go somewhere else and prove something. In 2016 American Airlines decided that Robert Isom was heir apparent to then-Chairman and CEO Doug Parker and that left out airline President Scott Kirby so Parker fired Kirby. He said that the airline knew it could only keep two out of three – Parker, Robert Isom and Scott Kirby – so they decided to fire Scott Kirby. Put another way, Parker wasn’t ready to leave. Kirby was ready to be CEO. He wasn’t going to just stick around. My read has always been that Parker wanted another few years at the top, so he kept then-Chief Operating Officer Robert Isom who wasn’t about to go elsewhere. The airline did not have a non-compete in exchange for $13 million and lifetime travel as severance. Kirby immediately became President of United Airlines with a path to becoming its CEO, a role he now fills. As journalist Ted Reed reported at the time, executives at American lacked non-competes because they didn’t have contracts and the airline thought this would be less expensive. They were too cheap, and it cost them 8 figures plus positioned a long-term insider at the helm of one of their biggest competitors. And one that knew their weaknesses and that was driven to beat them. Smart. The real mistake was Parker’s ego and decision to hang on to the detriment of the airline after undermining the product, brand, and employee relationships that became the reason for the airline’s underperformance – and his decision to take on the extra debt that supported $12 billion in stock buybacks. When Doug Parker was planning his legacy, preparing to step down at American Airlines, he’d leaned into woke. Already a Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton donor, he was reading White Fragility and started wearing a Black Lives Matter wristband in 2020 (although until naming a black vice president at Philadelphia in December 2020, didn’t actually have any African Americans in airline leadership roles). But when an executive charged with helping him on the narrative for his career suggested he might step down early from his role as Chairman of American, retaining just his CEO title, in order to appoint a black board member as his replacement – that executive got exited. No airline has improved more over the past decade than United Airlines. There’s a lot about Kirby’s vision that isn’t yet proven (like the massive growth in the airline’s order book) and about his vision for the industry (he’s been talking for nearly a decade about the inevitable increase in airfares that didn’t happen), and a vision for the world he talks about in this interview – wealth taxes, a near-100% inheritance tax, and that AI is useful for programming but not for ideas. However, there’s little question that Parker made a huge blunder for the company, and I believe for reasons focused mostly on himself whether he even realizes it or not. Topics on this page