United Airlines (UAL) CEO Smisek to step down, successor named. Street Insider
United Airlines (NYSE: UAL) announced that it has named Oscar Munoz as president and chief executive officer. Munoz will also continue to serve on United's board of directors. The board appointed Henry L. Meyer III, United's lead independent director, to serve as non-executive chairman of the board of directors. The company also announced that Jeff Smisek has stepped down from his roles as chairman, president and chief executive officer, and as a director. These changes are effective immediately.
Amazingly, United had another computer error today which is probably a fitting bookend to Mr. Smisek leaving the company. Also amazingly, it doesn't appear that Mr. Smisek is leaving because he's all but ran the company into the ground but because of the on-going Federal investigation into the following (from the first linked article):
The company also announced that its executive vice president of communications and government affairs and its senior vice president of corporate and government affairs have stepped down. The departures announced today are in connection with the company's previously disclosed internal investigation related to the federal investigation associated with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The investigations are ongoing and the company continues to cooperate with the government.
So, United has (really) cleaned house here, which leads me to believe that the Feds are going to drop the hammer on some folks when the investigation is complete.
Unfortunately, the new man in charge is from the old regime so I don't think this will mean that United is going to consider changing their "race to the bottom" strategy, no do I think they'll do much more than ape bad ideas from Delta and implement them 6-12 months down the line. This could then be nothing more than United rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
But, for now, Smisek is no longer in charge. We're putting a six-month statute of limitations on saying the airline has been "Smiseked" or 'Jeffed Up' because of this.
