Scott Kirby wants to run “the unequivocal best airline in history.” Will merger talk, spiking fuel prices and turf wars get in the way?
For all the accolades Kirby gets, though, in some ways he’s followed the lead of Delta Air Lines Inc., which pioneered present-day premium air travel in the US and remains the leader. Delta’s revenue last year was $63 billion, compared with United’s $59 billion. Bloomberg data shows Delta had a profit margin of about 8%; United’s was more than 2 percentage points lower. Even so, through late April, United’s shares had outperformed Delta’s since Kirby was promoted to chief executive officer in May 2020.
“United is just running a hell of an airline right now,” says Jay Sorensen, president of IdeaWorksCompany, an industry consulting firm. “As much as I hate to stroke the ego of Scott Kirby, I would place a tremendous amount of emphasis on his leadership.”