The One Line In United Airlines CEO Letter Every Leader Should Steal

More than once, I've sat at a crowded airport gate looking at an empty jetway with no aircraft in sight. Departure time is minutes away, or has already passed, and the flight is still confidently listed as "on time." Even if a plane magically materialized, deplaning, cleaning, and boarding would push departure well past the time on the board. Every flyer at the gate knows it. So do the gate agents. An airline that insists an impossible departure is "on time" looks either deceptive or incompetent. Neither does anything good for the brand or its customer experience.

That sort of frustrating experience is why one line jumped out at me from a letter United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby sent to MileagePlus members marking his tenth anniversary at the airline. Much of the letter was standard CEO fare: more new aircraft, new international flights, even a fantasy football draft conducted in flight. Then came this:

"My goal is to get to the point where we tell all customers in clear, plain, transparent language exactly what's happening with their flight, especially when there's a delay. I'm asking our employees to pretend I'm on the flight and tell you exactly what they'd tell me."

I love the clarity of that statement. Any of the airline employees can understand it. Any business can borrow it.

Vagueness Feels Safe But Degrades Customer Experience

Airlines have reasons for hedging. Delay causes are often genuinely uncertain. Gate agents may know little more than passengers do. Some may fear that admitting a problem before it's official will simply anger customers sooner.

The logic runs the other way. Ask any traveler which is worse: a delay they can plan around or an "on time" status they can't trust. A passenger told the inbound aircraft is stuck in Denver and the realistic departure is 7:40 can rebook, get dinner, or warn whoever is meeting them. A passenger staring at a fictional departure time can only wait, uncertain and frustrated. When the truth finally arrives, the customer now trusts the airline less than before.

The beauty of "pretend I'm on the flight" is that it requires no script and no new technology. It converts an abstract corporate value, transparency, into a concrete behavior any gate agent, pilot, or flight planner can perform. Employees don't have to parse what policy permits them to say. They answer one question honestly: what would I tell the boss if he were waiting at the gate?

Execution is the hard part. A gate agent can't share information she doesn't have, so the test only works if operations centers push accurate, current details to the front line. Employees who stayed vague for years will need explicit permission to be candid.