The merger between United and Continental has been in existence for five years now and so far, things don't seem to be working well.
Oscar Muñoz, United's new CEO, pledged to turn things around in a bid to improve operations and employee relationship along with regaining customers' trust and satisfaction.
Muñoz succeeded former CEO Jeff Smisek in early September following the latter's abrupt resignation amid rumors of corruption. Smisek's leadership has been tainted with rumors, mostly dealing with missing employee benefits and certain traveling perks that were seen during his term.
Muñoz, on his part, promised to bring a number of changes to reconcile the airline with the public which he expressed in an open letter.
"We are committed to re-earning your trust," wrote Muñoz. "We want to be the first choice for every trip you take. We need to do the small things well. We have to deliver meaningful, everyday improvements."
While it wasn't really clear how he plans to bring in the promised improvements, Muñoz had at least taken the very first step to achieve his goal by creating a website, UnitedAirtime.com, meant solely to gather complaints, comments and suggestions.
In a video, Muñoz is seen as inviting everyone to check out the new site.
"Hi. I'm Oscar Muñoz and I'm the new CEO of United. And that means I work for you. So let's be honest. The implementation of United and Continental merger has been rocky for customers and employees. And while it's been improving recently, we still haven't lived up to our promise or our potential. That's going to change. After joining the team, an employee told me United can be the best airline in the world if we just turn lip service into action. I couldn't agree more. And that's the purpose of this site. I wanna hear from our passengers and employees, your best ideas, and your toughest questions. I'll answer them right here. And most importantly, I promise to report back on how those ideas are being turned into actions."
One of the things he vowed to fix is the flight attendants' work contract. After the merger, these attendants who worked for United or Continental found themselves not working under the same contract. In other words, they cannot be assigned to the same flights.
Another issue that also needs to be focused on is the company's poor on-time rates.
"Reliability has to be the first thing we do," said Muñoz. "If we are getting people from point A to point B more reliably, consistently, that takes care of the bulk of the concerns of the people."
