The announcement comes five years after the Continental-United merger.
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Just three weeks into the job, CEO Oscar Munoz acknowledged in full-page newspaper ads that “the journey hasn’t always been smooth”.
Despite reporting a record second quarter net profits, the airline continued experiencing shortcomings from lengthy flight delays, system outages to a sour labor relationship under the command of former CEO Jeff Smisek, who assumed the role once the merger between both carriers was made effective on October 1, 2009. He has said that the way to improving customer relations was by fixing employee relations first, adding that he realized the level of discontent after talking to a few of the airline’s 84,000 employees. “We hoped to see a change in the airline’s attitude toward its workers under the new leadership of CEO Oscar Munoz, but that has yet to be seen”. The message, posted on unitednegotiations.com, said the company offered significant pay increases, but a deal that the Teamsters reached Wednesday with American Airlines Group Inc “reset the market”. Smisek is now facing a federal corruption inquiry into whether the airline had traded favors with the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
In the advertisement, Munoz said, “Simply put, we haven’t lived up to your expectations or to the promise and potential of that day”.
“Let’s be honest, the implementation of the United and Continental merger has been rocky for customers and employees”, Munoz says on a video greeting on the site.
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Munoz has also written a letter to the airline’s employees, promising to give them the “right tools to deliver the service and reliability the airline is capable of”.
