No Excuses - Scott Kirby ’89

Scott Kirby ’89 grew one of the world’s largest airlines by doing something many leaders struggle with: changing his mind.

“When the facts change, I change.”

SUMMARY

From anticipating the impact of COVID before most experts to making bold bets when others pulled back, Kirby shares why adaptability, curiosity and a willingness to challenge assumptions are essential leadership traits.

SCOTT'S TOP 10 LEADERSHIP TAKEAWAYS

1. 1. Lead with Vision, Not Just Management
      Management ensures compliance; leadership inspires people to believe in a shared destination.
   2. Practice “No Excuses”
      Whether or not a setback is fair or your fault, take responsibility for addressing it.
   3. Build a Complementary Team
      Bring in people whose strengths offset your weaknesses.
   4. Look for Intellectual Creativity.
      Seek people who can simplify complex situations and find better ways to do things.
   5. Change Your Mind When the Facts Change
      Don’t cling to an old position just because you’ve already committed to it.
   6. Take Calculated Risks — and Plan Your Off-ramps.
      Pursue opportunities when the potential reward outweighs the risk, while preparing alternatives if things go wrong.
   7. Keep Learning
      Reading across subjects and viewpoints can help you connect ideas others may miss.
   8. Make Space to Think
      Protect time for reflection and decision-making instead of filling every day with meetings.
   9. Listen to Understand, Not Just to Agree.
      Invite input, especially from more junior people, and make sure the team feels heard — even when you choose a different path.
   10. Stay Open to Unexpected Opportunities Love Your Work
       A rigid career plan can make you miss a path you might find more meaningful.

 

CHAPTERS

00:00:00 — Introduction: Scott Kirby and the “no excuses” principle

00:01:18 — Arriving at the U.S. Air Force Academy and aspiring to become a fighter pilot

00:03:13 — Childhood, family and the opportunities that shaped Kirby

00:06:40 — Leadership versus management — and building a shared vision at United

00:10:24 — Choosing a complementary executive team and practicing “no excuses”

00:15:05 — Accountability, empathy and doing the right thing

00:18:18 — Changing course when facts shift: lessons from COVID and other crises

00:22:14 — Calculated risk, off-ramps and United’s pandemic-era aircraft orders

00:26:35 — Reading widely, connecting ideas and questioning experts

00:33:11 — Applying lessons from books to suppliers and company culture

00:37:37 — United’s next vision: using technology and AI to reduce travel stress

00:43:23 — Career advice, family life and making time for what matters

00:47:06 — Listening, inviting dissent and closing remarks

 

ABOUT SCOTT

BIO

Scott Kirby ’89 is CEO of United Airlines and a longtime leader in the commercial aviation industry. He joined United in 2016 as president and was named CEO in 2020. Before joining United, Kirby served as president of American Airlines and US Airways and held leadership positions at America West Airlines. He began his career at the Pentagon after graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy with degrees in computer science and operations research and later earned a master’s degree in operations research from George Washington University.

Throughout his career, Kirby has developed a leadership approach grounded in analytical thinking, accountability, adaptability and trust. He credits the U.S. Air Force Academy with instilling discipline and a “no excuses” mindset that continues to shape how he leads, while his early work alongside experienced economists at the Pentagon helped develop the problem-solving approach he carried into aviation. As United’s CEO, Kirby emphasizes listening to employees closest to the work, building teams with complementary strengths and creating an organization its employees are proud to represent.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

OUR SPEAKERS

Guest, Scott Kirby ’89, CEO United Airlines  |  Host, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz ’99 

Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz 0:02
Scott Kirby has been known to make a hard right when everyone else has turned left. But today’s lesson isn’t just about going against the grain. It’s about weighing possibilities, challenging assumptions and being ready to change your mind if the facts shift. His guiding leadership principle: no excuses. I’m Naviere Walkewicz, Class of ’99. Long Blue Leadership starts now. I’m joined today with Scott Kirby, USAFA Class of ’89, CEO of United Airlines. Prior to joining United, he was the president of American Airlines and U.S. Airways, which spans now a career of 30 years in the airline industry. We’re going to talk about that. His early days were at the Pentagon in operations research, working with some of the most brilliant economists, which probably shapes some of the way you do things today. But you can see he’s Team Air Force today.

Scott Kirby 0:53
Exactly.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 0:53

We’ve got matching bombers on.

 

Scott Kirby 0:54
Looking good.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 0:56
That’s right. So we’re going to have some fun today. Thank you for being here.

Scott Kirby 0:58
Glad to be here. Looking forward to it.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 1:00
Wonderful. So this is not new to you. You were on so many interviews: Bloomberg, CNBC, Face the Nation, all of that, and you’re the expert in the room on aviation and leadership. Today, we want to take a little bit more and peel more into your personal leadership journey. So I’d like to start, Scott, in the summer of 1985. Tell me about the young man who showed up in Colorado Springs.

Scott Kirby 1:21
It’s a very different person. I was 17 years old. I had decided for many years before that I wanted to be a fighter pilot, and so I came here intending to be a fighter pilot. Amazingly, the first time I ever got on an airplane was when I flew here to the Air Force Academy.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 1:37
Oh, wow!

 

Scott Kirby 1:38
I’d never set foot on an airplane before that. I do remember landing at the Colorado Springs Airport. I don’t know what they do now, but back then, there were cadets, upperclassmen, that met you off the airplane. I think they waited until they got to the bus to start screaming.


Col. Naviere Walkewicz 1:52
They were still smiling then at the airport, probably.

Scott Kirby 1:54
Yeah, I don’t really, I don’t remember that. But I remember being on the bus and like, “Holy cow, what is going on?” And then getting dumped out, you know, getting dumped in here. But, and you know, the first couple weeks were a shock to the system, were hard. But, you know, it was probably within the first week or two you start to realize that the people that you’re meeting and the experiences you’re going through, just basic training and out in Jacks Valley,  are going to be— you know, maybe I didn’t realize it then, but the people that are the best friends, you know, still my best friends and, you know, I like, last weekend went to breakfast with my freshman roommate.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 2:35
Oh, I love that.

 

Scott Kirby 2:36
One of my favorite stories at United Airlines when I first showed up, I would do, I still do, in fact, I’m doing one later today — captain leadership. I go talk to all the captains when they upgrade to captain and at the back of the room was someone that I recognized. But you know, I meet so many people, and he walked up to me and he says, "Do you remember me?” And I recognized him, but I hadn’t immediately placed him. I looked down and saw Braxton, and like, “Braxton, we were at Jacks Valley together!” You know, and so you know the connections you make with people is one of the best things, you know, about here, and the experiences that you go through are so unique compared to what other people do. And you know that’s how it started for me in summer of ’85.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 3:13
Oh my goodness, I love that. And I’m imagining, you know, coming to the Air Force Academy. You said you want to be a fighter pilot, so obviously that was something in your, you know, you’re aspiring for. As a young boy, were you always into things like, you know, going fast, you know sports? Like, what were you like as a boy?

Scott Kirby 3:29
Yeah, I think— I like, I love sports. Before I decided I was going to be a fighter pilot, I thought I was going to be a professional athlete.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 3:38
OK. Which sport? It didn’t matter?

Scott Kirby 3:41
I preferred football, but I like all sports. But, you know, I realized I wasn’t going to be a professional athlete earlier than I realized I wasn’t going to be a fighter pilot.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 3:51
Sometimes it’s good to learn things early.

 

Scott Kirby 3:52
But, yeah. But I guess, I mean, I did always like— I’ve always been aggressive, I guess. You say go fast, but aggressive. And I grew up in a small town, Rowlett, Texas. I had two great parents. Like, I have the jackpot on parents. A mom, we had five brothers and sisters, but you know, she didn’t work and stayed home. And, like, her life— I remember in fourth grade, a teacher told me that she was going to call my mom because I was arguing with the teacher, and I told her, "Well, you can, but you’re the one that’s going to be in trouble,” which is what happened. My dad spent every weekend with me, you know, out hunting, fishing, golfing. The amount of time they gave was pretty incredible. And then my mom, after the kids got older, at age 40, went back to college and graduated summa cum laude law school and became a lawyer.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 4:42
Amazing! I think that’s always like, it’s always— there’s always the right time to continue to learn and grow. Well, you know, I’ve listened to you recently on a couple of things, and you had mentioned not too long ago that America— I heard you talk about, you love our country, right? We have the best country, and its superpower is freedom, and because it unlocks human potential. Can we jump in, Scott? What’s your superpower, by the way, and how have you unlocked that?

Scott Kirby 5:07
I’ll start with the country. It’s unique in the history of human experience. I’m an avid reader. I love history. That’s how I wound up wanting to be a fighter pilot. I love reading about World War II. And, you know, you just read and study or look at what’s happened around the world. In history and today, it is a unique place. It’s— nothing like it has ever existed anywhere around the globe. It’s freedom. It is the place where anyone can do anything, unlike others. And look, some people, it’s harder for some. People start with advantages and disadvantages, but it has more opportunity than anywhere else around the globe. By the way, I think of my own responsibility as giving opportunity to people, and I often tell people like, "We’ll help you get to the first rung on the ladder. From there, it’s going to be up to you.” Right. But I think we have an obligation to help people get to that first rung and give people a chance and really realize the opportunity of this country. And being here at the Academy earlier today, I was up speaking to cadets, and you know it’s inspirational. And I spent a lot of time in D.C. a lot of times with reporters. A lot of these people are sort of pessimists and negative about the country and about the future, and I’m an optimist, and I believe in the country, and I tell often tell them, and I can say it after being there again today, if you just go spend a day at one of the military academy with, you know, 4,000 young men and women who’ve raised their hand and volunteered to serve the country, you’d have faith in the future.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 6:38
Right, you can’t help but be optimistic.

Scott Kirby 6:40
Exactly.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 6:40
Wow. So pulling on that that superpower of the country, I think about, you know, all of the lives that you have the opportunity— the ability to create opportunities for at United. What would you say is your superpower, and how do you turn that on at United?

Scott Kirby 6:53
You know, I think— well, I’m talking about myself, but I think I’m a good leader and I realize that people often confuse management and leadership. They think they’re the same thing, and they are two totally different things. Management is about compliance. It’s about checklists. It’s about, “Did you show up to work on time? Did you go through the checklist?” It’s really important, by the way, especially for our pilots. It’s incredibly important. You do a lot of checklists. Air Force does a lot of checklists. It’s really important. But leadership is about how you make people feel. It’s about inspiration and vision. And, you know, I’m just one person at the 120,000-employee company, but if I can get 120,000 people believing in where we’re going and wanting to go there with me, it’s incredibly powerful. And then they take care of everything else. And so, the job of a leader is actually pretty easy. The job of a leader is to make people, to inspire people, and get them to believe in the vision and where you’re headed, and if you do that, they’re going to take care of everything else.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 7:51
And that sounds wonderful. So I want to pull on how we do that because, you know, when you stepped into United, you know, the years ago, I would say you probably had to create that vision. And so when we think about a lot of our listeners and viewers that are in that context of how do I create that, where did you start? Where did you start first to build that vision and inspiration?

 

Scott Kirby 8:08
You know, so I came to United— I knew a lot about United without having been there. It’s funny: When I first got to United, an investor told me that, you know, 15 or 20 years earlier, when I was young in my career, people thought I was an up-and-comer, investors. And I was on an elevator with some of them. Somebody asked me, like— and I was at American West, like, small little America West. “So if you could go to any airline in the world, you know, where would you go?” And I didn’t remember this, but I said United Airlines because it has the most untapped potential. I just thought it was undermanaged, and, you know, had incredible potential, but had been poorly run. And so when I got there, I, like— I’ve the vision that, like, where we are today is just over 10 years since I’ve been there. Where we are today is, like, where I thought we would be in 10 years, and, you know, I said it to people when I first got there. What people often tell me today is, like, they could say, “I remember, like, you coming in, you telling us where we were going to go, and I thought, ‘Well that’s nice for him to say,’ and, ‘Boy, I wish that was true.’” But, like, they’d been there for a long time. They’d seen all the failed promises, and like, there’s no way that’s going to actually happen. But it actually has.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 9:13
That’s right.

 

Scott Kirby 9:14
And so, the sort of, the underlying like where the airline would be, I, you know, there’s been additions and modifications, but the general direction was the same. What I think I underappreciated was how powerful it would be to get employees believing in that future. I believed in it, you know? I didn’t— but I didn’t fully appreciate, you know, how much untapped the potential was, how much desire there was to be on the winning team, to be the best. And when they started realizing it was possible and that it was happening, and then it happened, like it’s just, it’s fun and it — and they do amazing things for customers, and, you know, they want to keep winning, and it’s, you know, it’s a flywheel that just keeps getting better and better and better. The more you win, the more you want to win, the harder you’re willing to work. And I knew that that was important, but I didn’t really understand, I think, how much untapped— I knew how much untapped potential was in the route network. I didn’t know how much untapped potential there really was in the people,  but that’s been even bigger.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 10:24
Exponentially, when you think about that. And so I think about, you know, when you said a little bit ago that, you know, you have like the easiest job, right? Because you’re making, like, the big decisions that only you can make. But I’m curious on how do you then choose, maybe, like, your executive team around you? Because they are the ones making those decisions, I think, that are affecting that human potential. How do you do that?

Scott Kirby 10:45
So, the first thing I’d say is, I’ve learned that you’ve got to have complementary skills. I have weaknesses, and I need people that complement those weaknesses. If everyone was like me, like I always have, I have lots of ideas, and “let’s do this,” and I’m sort of missing the risk gene in some ways. If everyone was like me, we’d do some amazing stuff together and then we’d probably drive off a cliff. So I need some people that are complementary. And there’s things that I hate to do, like the compliance stuff. Like, I hate it. It’s important to do. Like, we have to have an audit committee. God, I hate going to audit committee. I hope not— Michelle, please don’t listen to this. Michelle, please don’t listen to this. She knows I don’t like it. But I need people that are complementary, so that’s point one. And then I’m going to say two other things. No. 2 is I have absolute requirement that everyone on my executive team buys into “no excuses.” I think it is the most important lesson I learned as a cadet. It is perhaps the most important life lesson you can learn. Bad stuff is going to happen in your life, in your career, in business. Often not your fault. Sometimes not fair. Often not fair. It is irrelevant whether it’s your fault, whether it’s fair or not. Irrelevant. It’s your responsibility to overcome it. And if you can have that mentality, you can just do anything. And, you know, like people can come to me and say, "I have a huge problem. This is happening. I don’t even know how to fix it.” And I’m going to be with them to try to help and try to figure it out and fix it. But you cannot come to me and make excuses, you know? And my previous employer, the person that was the chief operating officer at the time, I had banned him from using the word “weather” in my presence. Just couldn’t use it because it’s just too easy of an excuse. And so one requirement is that you buy into the no excuses philosophy, and then a second thing that I, another thing that I really value that I think is probably the most rare talent, is true intellectual creativity, and by that I mean being able to look at a situation, simplify it, and say, "Can we do this better?”  But those two go together. People that can do that are also really good at looking at things and seeing them simply, instead of making things incredibly complicated. Looking at the world through a simpler lens and figuring out how to do it better, and not everyone does that. Not everyone on my team can do that. You know, I think it’s like one in 1,000 people that can do that and do it well. And you need a few. You don’t need tons of those people around, but you need a few of those people around to drive kind of creativity. But mostly, I try to build a good team. That complementary point goes back: a team that works well together. I’ll say another thing that I do that’s I think different than most is my executive team: We meet three times a week for two, we have two hours scheduled three times a week, and, you know, together. We’re not doing PowerPoints. On Mondays, we have the first 30 minutes is, like, what happened last week. Other than that, there’s no PowerPoints. We’re talking, talking about what’s going on. Meetings for me are about conversation and bringing everything up, and so we’re all on the same page. We know each other, friends. We can have debates. You know, it’s a different environment than most companies have.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 14:03
I think that is, that’s fascinating, actually, because when you think about time and bringing that team together that often, you don’t see that everywhere. But it seems like it’s working out very well.

Scott Kirby 14:12
It has worked well, and it started during COVID. I became the CEO writes during COVID, and it was seven days a week. And I can remember the first day that we missed a meeting. That was an existential risk. The first day that we missed a meeting, was— I had a call from our head of HR, which part of her, she’s sort of a consigliere. She’s, when I’m doing something wrong, she’s generally the one delegate to call me and tell me Scott, you got to remember. So I also know to listen to her when she calls me. But she called me and she said, “Scott, you know, Sunday is Mother’s Day.” I’m like, “Yeah, I know. I got something for Kathleen. I’m gonna call my mom.” I wasn’t getting it. “Do you think maybe we should cancel that ET meeting on Mother’s Day?” Like, “Oh, that’s a really good point. I should have thought of it. But thank you for calling me.” But anyway, that’s the first day that we canceled it. Right. OK. Now we do three days a week. Now we do three days a week.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 15:06
I love that. Well, let’s talk about the no excuses, sir or ma’am. Right. Either way that it’s going, one of the things you always talk about is you know taking well safety first. Like there’s no question that I hear Scott Kirby, it’s safety first. But then also, like, taking care of our people and our customers. How do you walk the line of no excuses, sir or ma’am, and not also the not being empathetic because I feel like if I’m telling you no excuses, like, I also want to be thoughtful of like how we got there and grace and that sort of thing.

Scott Kirby 15:36
Well, I also think about doing it, doing the right thing. So my test for you know like talking to an employee about something is, am I going to be if they don’t like a policy or something we do? Am I going to feel good about telling them why? And if I can feel good about telling them why, then I’m happy doing it. Even if they don’t like the policy, I’m happy doing it. Like one easy example, I get lots of questions from employees about changing the boarding priority for standby flight benefits. And I tell all of them, like, “Look, you probably have a good point, but it’s a zero-sum game.” If I make the flight benefits work better for a retiree, then I’m taking it away from active employees, or vice versa, whatever it is. And that’s a zero-sum game, and everyone has a good point. So I’m simply not going to change it. That kind of generally, you know, and you need to be able to explain it. And so policies, you know, I’m willing to talk to employees about anything, and I think they know that. And because of that, that’s my standard. I think the other thing is like I, you know, I’m a positive person, and I’m also, I guess, intolerant of you know whining. And if I if somebody’s complaining about something that I don’t think is a fair complaint, I’ll tell them I don’t think that’s a fair complaint. That’s right. And I’ll be straightforward with them. And so I get a lot less of it than most people. You know, over 99% of my feedback with employees and customers, employees and customers is positive, and you know I’m focused on the positive, so I’m not the kind of person that you know people are likely to come up and you know complain about you know whatever but also try to do the right thing. You know, like if I walk into a break room and it’s a crappy break room, like, somebody in the management team is going to be in trouble. Like, I don’t need somebody to tell me, like, we should have a nice break room for people. Like, I don’t need to be told that. And if you set that standard, like, and people feel like you’re doing the right thing all around, you’re just not creating an environment where most people are going to complain about the day to day because they know you’re trying to do the right thing and they see evidence of it.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 17:45
Yes. Well, asking for all the parent listeners, does this translate to home as well? The no excuses, sir or ma’am?

Scott Kirby 17:51
Oh, I try. There’s a lot. There’s a lot of excuses, but I do have seven kids, and so I have a fun home life with the kids. Although I’m more primarily the fun play with them, less the disciplinarian. Though when I am the disciplinarian, they’re more likely to listen because it’s more unusual.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 18:17

Right. They’re like, "What’s happening?” Oh goodness. Well, I’d like to talk a little bit about you know the way that you lead, because you said a little bit earlier, you know, you have a complementary team because you’re not afraid of risk, and you, they’re calculated. Like you’ve taken a lot of data from a lot of different sources, and you’re willing to pivot rather quickly in flexibility in your decisions. How does that work with your executive team and those that have to then implement kind of that rapid changing?

Scott Kirby 18:41
Yeah. Well, first, I do think you know one of my strengths is I can do a 180 in a second. It does not take me time. When the facts change, I change. And I can give a good example. COVID was a good example. I give good example.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 18:58
Please give us an example. We love it.

Scott Kirby 18:59
Well, I mean, COVID, you know, was an example where everyone, you know, thought, oh, this is going to be like SARS, you know. It’s in China, you know. It’s not going to be a big deal. And I was following it closely, but I kind of thought the same. That’s what all the experts said. I thought the same. And then I can remember waking up on a weekend morning, and the then-so-called novel coronavirus had showed up in northern Italy and killed several people. And you know I read extensively. I’m better at connecting dots than most people, and that proved you know they’d asymptomatic. So there was asymptomatic transfer because some of the people that died hadn’t been in China.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 19:34
Right. Right.

Scott Kirby 19:36
Asymptomatic transfer, highly contagious, deadly. OK. That was a pandemic, and if it was already killing people in Italy, it had already spread around the globe. I called our chief financial officer that, and none of the experts thought that. At least any that I saw or read. The consensus was not that. Said this is global pandemic. We got to get ahead of it. You know, one of the things we did, we went raised $2 billion unsecured at 3% interest two days before the NBA walked off the court and the world shut down. Would have been impossible. We also had a leadership, all of our top 2,000 people, in Chicago that week. And normally I’d be sitting out in the audience, and you know, and that week I had a little room, and people still tell stories about it. And I was calling different groups in, and I’m sitting at a table, and I had a little speech. “This is a global pandemic. Nobody’s figured it out yet. We’re going to get ahead of the curve. Here’s what we’re doing.” And just shocking, you know, people were just walking out shocked. They’re like, "Is he crazy? But that was, you know, an example. But I could change my mind about anything when the facts change. That does— is sometimes hard for my team because we’re going one way and like, "Oh, like, well, that was wrong. Now we’re going a different way.” And I can be all in, and then all in, all in in a different direction. I mean, we don’t do that too much. It’s usually something in the world that happens. You know, this year the war in Iran was one of those. Like, you know, the beginning I bought into the consensus that this is going to be quick and it’s going to be over, but you know, it started Feb. 28, and I think it was March 11 when I got our team together and said, "This is going to last indefinitely, I think. I hope I’m wrong. I think this is going to last indefinitely, and we’re going to plan for high, really elevated oil prices all the way through the end of 2027.” So another, you know, almost full two full years, and you know, sadly that, at least so far, has turned out to be right. But it’s the ability, it’s an ability to see the facts, you know. And all the experts said I was wrong, by the way. At that point, like I met with several expert groups, you know, and they said worst case over by the end of March. I met with the same people in April, and they said worst case end of April. Like you guys said end of March. I think you’re wrong. But anyway, the ability to quickly react to changing circumstances that goes along with no excuses. You know, you’re not putting your head in the sand. Like, when the circumstances change, neither one of those things were our fault. Right, but they had a huge potential impact. And best thing you can do is accept it. And you know, instead of trying to go through the seven stages of grief, or how many stages there are, and wait to get to acceptance, like, accept it and deal with it. And we’ve been really good at that.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 22:15
So, have you always, even as, you know, a growing leader, have you always looked at things this way? Even as a kid, we’re just taking in a lot of facts and then coming to decisions or is this something you’ve developed over time?

Scott Kirby 22:26
I think I was always, I always thought that way. I think no excuses helped me because it helped sort of codify not making excuses. I probably was more prone to making excuses about things, but also I also have a mathematical mind and particularly understand risk and reward. Yes, it’s another thing that most executives miss. They understand risk, but they see risk around every corner. And I tell people the biggest mistake most people make in their career is never making a big mistake because they never take a chance. And like all the big decisions, none of them are 100%. Like, if it’s 100%, somebody else has already done it. Right. And so the big decisions always have some risk associated with them. But figuring out when the risk, when the reward skews really positive, and figuring out your off ramps, you know, for those risks, and, you know, that’s you know another that that’s thing something that most people that are executives don’t do. They’re afraid to take risks. They’re afraid to make a mistake, and so they just sort of, you know, waddle in mediocrity.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 23:36
I love because I’ve actually listened to you say that before, and I think you talked about having options, right? And so when you know if you take this big risk, you have options A, B, C, D. So if it doesn’t go well, at least you know your offshoot has already been planned, and so that’s how you mitigate some of that risk.

Scott Kirby 23:48
Yeah, and that’s, you know, like, you know, one of the, you know, one of the biggest decisions we made during COVID, you know, after— first everyone was wrong about being, but then everyone decided, “Oh, this travel demand is never going to recover.” All the experts, like literally, like I’m not aware of a single so-called expert that didn’t think travel demand was going to be permanently impaired, most of them thought by 50 percent. So airlines are going to go out of business. They’re going to have to fly a lot less, you know, even if they survive. And literally every single global long-haul airline in the world, except United Airlines, permanently retired some of their parts of their wide-body fleet because all the experts said that; that was the consensus. And I looked at that. We looked at that. Like first, I thought it was wrong. I thought air travel demand. I thought COVID was going to be deep and last a long time, but it would travel demand would end, and travel demand would recover.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 24:35
Did you think that because of what you’d been reading and other things that you had, or why did you think?

Scott Kirby 24:39
It just none of it made sense to me. Like…

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 24:41
Human nature…

Scott Kirby 24:42
Because human nature wasn’t going to change. That’s the point. We were going to figure out a way out of COVID. We were going to be on lockdown until it was safe. But all pandemics in global history had ended, and we had better science today than they had.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 24:53
That’s right.

Scott Kirby 24:54
With the Black Plague, like it was eventually going to end. And when it did, like human nature will not have changed. And, like. it just made no sense at all to me that people thought it could change. And, like, surveys are a terrible way to make decisions. Like, if you survey somebody when they’re afraid of travel: “You’re going to travel again in the future?” They say no. Like, totally irrelevant because they’re afraid right now. But they’re not going to be afraid when it’s over. So we thought, you know, that it was— I thought travel demand would recover. But also I looked at it like this is the best, literally in the history of the aviation industry, the best risk-reward there will ever be because everyone else is shrinking and turning left. And I even told our board, like, we did the biggest aircraft orders in history in the middle of COVID. But I told our board, like, we don’t have to be right. We just have to be not totally wrong because everyone else is shrinking. And it was also the kind of thing that if travel— if it was totally wrong, like, Boeing wasn’t going to cram the airplanes down our throat. We’d find a way out, so we did have off ramps. But just the reward skewed so heavily because everyone else was afraid and afraid to make— there might have even been some of them that thought travel demand would recover, but the implications to most of them were all the experts say it’s not going to recover. “If I go order airplanes, I might get fired, and I’m wrong, I might get fired.” And so they were afraid to do it. They didn’t do it, and it’s just like, those moments happen rarely, but you got to be willing to jump on them. Like, when they happen, you got to jump on, make a big bet. I’ve done a lot of gambling in my life.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 26:22
We might have read about that too.

 

Scott Kirby 26:24
That’s when you put a big, make a big bet. You know, like it’s not guaranteed, but, you know, like you got a 98% chance you’re going to win the hand. Put as much money on the table as you can get on the table. Like, get it all out there.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 26:36
Yes, gosh, you know, I think there’s probably a lot of people that are kicking themselves now, you know, for not having looked things differently as well. When I think about some of our leaders that are joining us, and whether viewing or listening, you know, you talk about making time to be able to ingest all that data. You read for three hours a day, right? I know you’re walking, you’re doing all the things to do that. How do we help our young leaders find time when they’re still kind of working their way up the chain?

Scott Kirby 26:59
Yeah. So my personal calendar partly is no more than four hours of meetings a day, like—

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 27:07
Period?

Scott Kirby 27:08
Period. OK. I mean, there occasionally days, but certainly averages. I probably average two to three hours of meetings a day.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 27:13
OK. That’s unheard of everywhere else.

 

Scott Kirby 27:15
And because my job is not to work hard, it’s to think hard. And I’m thinking United 24 hours a day. Like, I literally, last night, I’ve been thinking about JFK. We’re going to get slots back in JFK, and I’m trying to get more. And like, I had, like, dreamt about JFK, and woke up this morning like, “Wait, did we get another 50 slots in JFK, or did I dream that?”

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 27:36
That’s good though.

 

Scott Kirby 27:37
It took me a few— but I’m thinking about it all the time. And the point of, you know, one of the things that I’m curious about stuff, and so I read, and I read extensively fiction, nonfiction, periodical, you know, the newspaper, but magazines. I don’t get my news from the internet. Like I don’t read the news on the internet. I can talk about why that’s a bad way to view it. I also I also don’t get it from AI. Like I don’t want watered down summaries. But when you do that, you read so extensively, you can connect dots that other people don’t see, because you’ve got this broad, you know, base of just random knowledge from just reading all kinds of stuff. Like, I had happened, you know, over the Christmas break in 2019, right before COVID, just happened to have read a book about the history of global pandemics and how they had shaped societies. It really wasn’t about pandemics, but it went all the way back, you know, to like 3,000 years ago — a pandemic that I didn’t even know had happened in China and how it shaped, you know, the Ming Dynasty that was to follow, and, you know, how the Black Death, you know, and how all these had shaped society and…

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 28:44
All the opportunities that, yeah…

Scott Kirby 28:45
Yeah, and the changes that had happened, and so, like, just like— and it wasn’t specifically about the, you know, and also about how people had reacted to it, and like a year before I’d read a history of vaccines and how vaccines and, like, how lifesaving changing they’ve been. But guess what, throughout history, every single new vaccine has a whole group of anti-vaxxers, of people that are opposed to the vaccine, 100% of the time. And then, like, 20 years later, they’re all OK with it. But every— because it’s new, right? It’s new. It’s human nature. It’s new. So a lot of people knew it’s bad. And but I’ve read stuff like that, and when you’ve read stuff like that, it just puts you in a position to see things that other people don’t see. And by the way, also be careful of experts. You know, especially in business. Experts — I now codified this in my own head. Experts live within two standard deviations, meaning everything in the world happens— you know, 95% of the time, they’re pretty good. The tails, when the extreme happens, they force fit it back into what they’re used to, and they’ve all only lived in two standard deviations, and so they force fed it back into the average, and so they and all the interesting stuff happens at the tails. All the big things happen in the tails, and the experts almost always will miss it. So be really careful of experts, especially in those two plus standard deviations.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 30:05
That’s right, and I’m really glad you walked me through that because I was a social science major. I did not walk the same analytical line through the Academy, so I appreciate you doing that. But I’m, so I’m thinking about how do you choose what you’re reading? Like you just happen to pick those up, and it was happenstance, or, like, is there something that catches you?

Scott Kirby 30:18
Yeah, that’s hard finding the best stuff. So my reading habits, I read— I started as a cadet. I read The Wall Street Journal cover to cover.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 30:25
You’ve done this since you were a cadet?

Scott Kirby 30:27
Yeah. Oh, I’ve started— I’ve enjoyed like three hours a day when I was a kid.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 30:30
Oh my god!

 

Scott Kirby 30:30
I wasn’t allowed to watch— 30 minutes of TV was all I was allowed to watch when I was a kid, so I’ve read extensively my whole life. But as a cadet, I started reading The Wall Street Journal cover to cover. Ten or 15 years ago, I started reading The New York Times. I don’t read it cover to cover, but probably 10 to 12 articles. Get both sides of articles. Yeah, and I read the opinion pages in both. You know, I tend to agree with the with The Wall Street Journalmore, but I prefer to read stuff that I don’t agree with, particularly on opinion pieces.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 30:58
It gives you some thoughts.

 

Scott Kirby 30:59
And sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they have really good points, but I want to understand both sides. Like, it’s part of the problem with reading on the internet. All you’re doing is reading stuff you already think. Like, well, that’s a waste of time. Like, you already think it. So I don’t do that. But the harder thing is finding books to read, because I read about two a week. So I get them from all— I get recommendations from people. I got, you know, I actually found now, one friend, a guy named Scott Wallace that lives in Dallas, he’s the only person I know that reads more than me and he’s the best book recommender I’ve ever met. Yeah, very similar, and he reads a lot. Like, he gives me great book recommendations.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 31:35
So what is what are you reading right now, or I should say today?

Scott Kirby 31:39
So, I usually am reading two books at once. I’m usually reading a fiction and a nonfiction. So, right now I’m reading a book called Fire Agent. I don’t remember where— I think I got it maybe from either The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. That’s one place I get them. But by the way, if I also find an author I like, I read everything that they’ve written until I get to a point where I sometimes I don’t like them, but you know, read something that’s great. But that’s one example. So I think I got it from one of those, Fire Agent. It’s pretty good. It’s not great, but it’s pretty good. About two thirds of the way through it. And then I’m reading the Eagle and the Lion, which is a more ancient history of Iran, really. But it goes all the way back to the Roman and the Sassanians, you know, and, you know, sort of, they were on opposite ends, but you know, to cultures and civilizations that you know were strong for a long time. How that— I started reading a lot about Iran. I’d already done a lot after the war in Iran started, but this is just— And then because I did that, other people recommended to me. This is pretty good. OK, but it goes even further back, and you know, it’s actually amazing to read about Persia, Iran, and, you know, the incredible— like it’s Iran and China, you know? Probably the two most, the longest, sort of ,I would call continuous civilizations. You know, incredible history. You know, incredible educated work for— you know, group. You know, sad what’s happened there, but it’s an amazing history to read and understand more about. Amazing people to understand.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 33:12
I just think about you taking this, and do you— Is this part of the United culture? Do, you know, encourage, or is this something that’s required of certain leaders reading?

Scott Kirby 33:21
So, in a small way. I do. So I read a book that I loved called Apple in China.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 33:30
OK. Apple in China?

Scott Kirby 33:31
Apple in China. OK. And the book is— I’m going to take something different away from it. The main premise of the book is sort of about Apple and all that they did in China.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 33:40
Got it.

Scott Kirby 33:40
That China is a high palace manufacturer because of Apple. Right. So it’s sort of negative about Apple, and but that’s not the point of the book that I liked as much. It’s how Apple, who I respect immensely, like that’s the company I respect the most of any other company. And one, they’re great at building simple things for customers, and not just simplicity. I said that earlier. I think they’re awesome at it; they’re better than anyone’s ever been. But the second is from this book and how they manage their supply chain. This is really, you know, I think Tim Cook’s specialty. You know, they were— they didn’t just order something; they didn’t just order an airplane like we do from Boeing and wait for it to show up and then complain about it when it’s late. They were in there with them. If there were a problem, they were— it was their responsibility. They were building it, and I just thought it was awesome. And so I made everyone in our leadership ranks in supply chain and technology. I got them copy that book, made them read it, and we’re doing that now with some of our suppliers. There’s been big engine problems with engines that are all around the industry. There’s some 900 aircraft around the globe that are on the ground because of lack of engines, and we’re in with some of our vendors in a way that no one else— I don’t think anyone else ever been on the ground with them, and it was a little hard at first because they think you’re in there to…

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 34:57
Right, why are you in my…

Scott Kirby 34:57
…Criticizing, you know? But we’ve made huge progress. A guy named Ankit Gupta has led that for us, and he’s been great, and we’ve started it, you know— and when you can have those deep partnerships, it works better. We, you know, with Starlink, like, you know, they want to do it on both sides. Yes, it’s amazing working with SpaceX and with Starlink on what we’ve been able to do and, like, just real time do stuff. And, but anyway, the Apple in China was sort of for me the motivation for doing— I didn’t read it because I thought… I didn’t think it had anything to do with United Airlines. Just a book that someone recommended to me. I don’t know why I read it, but I read it and it was great. And then this year, my friend Scott Wallace actually recommended this book, Unreasonable Hospitality, which is the story of a guy that with partners that built a restaurant that became the No. 1restaurant in New York, in the world, and it’s his story, and it’s an interesting, engaging story. But it’s about, you know, building the culture and how much all the little things matter to customers. And so I have bought that book for all of my officers, sort of officer rank, top 60 or 70 people at the company, and they all have to read that book. So I occasionally do that with people, but you know those are two examples of I’ve read something, and I’ll also often forward articles you know to people that, you know, “Oh, this is really cool and maybe it has applications for us,” or I just want to learn more about it. Sometimes it’s just learn more about this just because it’s interesting. Like, I have no idea if it has applications to United or not, but it’s interesting, and I want to learn more about it.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 36:29
So I think that’s fascinating how you, from the Apple in China, actually took that and brought it into practice. Because I imagine that where you’re seeing that show up is in pride. Like, I can’t imagine how prideful I’d be. Like, I had a hand in fixing this, and it’s better because I was part of it. I think that’s, I mean, a huge…

Scott Kirby 36:47
Yeah, that’s part of it. Like, I mean, when I say I have the easiest job of anyone at United, which I really do, because I only have one responsibility to create an airliner, employees are proud of. And they’re different, that means different things to different people. But everybody wants to be on the winning team. You know, for that group, you know, if you’re, that’s a good example. Like if you’re getting beat up by other people at the company that we have all these aircraft on the ground because of engine problems. You know, you can say, "Well, this is the vendor’s fault,” or you could say, "Well, this happened, and here’s what I’m doing to fix it. Like nobody in the airline industry has ever done this before and look how well it’s working. And there’s pride in that.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 37:19
We need some United no excuses, sir.

Scott Kirby 37:22
At one point in my career I had a sign that said, "No Excuses, Sir," a little plaque, and they made me take it down. I guess I could do it now, but I don’t. I’ll say it enough that everyone knows it.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 37:36
That’s right. That’s right. We’ve adopted it. So you’re constantly taking the information. What are you doing then, I guess, to — maybe this is not the right question — to be better, but you have this growth mindset. What’s next in your vision for United? Like, what’s the next big thing that you are really focused on?

Scott Kirby 37:52
So I’ve started with a vision for United to be the best airline in the history of aviation. And, you know, I think we’re not the best at everything, but I think in totality, when you consider, you know, our network, but then you consider the technology, which is by far the best in any airline industry, the service, the reliability, the product that we have on the plane, but in totality we are the best. But I now want us to become one of the best, my most loved consumer brands around the world, and that’s hard for an airline to do because all the stress of travel and you’re part of the stress. Like, even at your best, if you’re perfect, if you’re— which we’re never going to be perfect. Even if we’re perfect, something like 15% of our flights are going to be delayed because of — delayed or canceled — because of weather and air traffic control. And so, how do we say — that’s not an excuse — but how do we say we’re going to overcome that challenge? We’re going to like it’s unsafe, so we’re not going to fly when it’s unsafe, but how do we overcome that? And I think the revolution that we’re going to be able to have is using AI for technology to really communicate with customers in a completely clear, plain-English, transparent way. We’ve started experimenting with it, doing things like sending people pictures of radar maps. You know, “There’s a clear sky in Chicago right now, but your plane has to fly through this line of thunderstorms to the west of Chicago that you can’t see, but it’s at an altitude that it’s unsafe, and so we can’t fly until a thunderstorm passes.” And if we do that, like the NPS scores for those flights are 80 points better than would if we just say it’s weather.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 39:23
Really? Well, I mean, that makes sense to me.

Scott Kirby 39:26
Yeah, because now you understand. Otherwise, you think the airlines... And we’re going to roll out — it may be this week, soon — an option for customers today. You know, we other interrupted airlines will say like maybe weather. You got you’re flying back through Denver tomorrow to Bismarck, and there’s forecast for thunderstorms, so check your flight. You know you may want to consider other options. We’re now going to send you something that has on the if you want it on the home screen of the United. You know on the app. Yes. Like here’s three other options. Here’s a couple of flights that are earlier. Here’s a couple flight you know that are later. Here’s you could stand by for you could switch to this one. This one’s already full. But here’s how many people are ahead of you. If you want to stand by for that flight, you can, and we’re ultimately going to, like, be able to put in like here’s the weather forecast for this time of day versus this time of day. This is just there may be weather tomorrow. We’re not certain, but we’re just going to give you information. And I think we can take if we can take that will take the stress out. People understand if you don’t. They get the weather, like they get it. They can’t stand the uncertainty, you know. Or, you know, we don’t, I don’t think we do this, at least not very often. But, like, I’ve flown on other airlines, and like you walk up to the gate, and it says the gate says boarding in one minute, and there’s not a plane at the gate. You’re like, right? What is wrong? Yeah, that’s right. That’s OK.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 40:46
Did our gate move?

Scott Kirby 40:48
And so I think getting good at that. So I’ve started telling our team, I, you know, today, your vacation for most people probably begins when you land at your destination airport. I want it to begin when you arrive at your departure airport.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 41:04
That’s right. Like the beginning of that travel experience.

Scott Kirby 41:06
Yeah, I want to be, I want United to be good enough that you consider that part of your vacation trip. And you know, another example: We’re going to get to where we can let you— I’ll, I, we talk about premium all the time in the airline business, and I rarely do. I think of travel through the lens of a parent traveling alone with a couple of young kids.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 41:26
This is the nose to tail kind of, right?

Scott Kirby 41:29
Nose to tail, yeah. And how do we make it easy if you’re— and I’ve done that. And I get help. And you know, didn’t always get a lot of help in my career, but I get a lot of help. It’s still hard. How do you make it easy to travel with parents, you know, with a parent with young children? You know, this telling them what’s going on is an example. You know we call it every flight has a story. It’s really important. Other examples are things like, you know, the app. You know, we get off an airplane, like, we’ll text you and say we’ll hold your— you have a tight connection, but we’re holding the connection for you. We hold, you know, a few hundred flights every day. We save about 2,000 customer connections every day. Somebody upstairs or over at the Academy had to stop me and like, “You guys, I was going to miss it. The times the flight was late in Munich, and you were-I missed a flight. You held it for me. Like I ran, and you held it for me. I couldn’t believe it.” Like I get those stories all the time. But we’re gonna— we have a goal. We’ve started an experiment with this in Newark right now, where if you’re coming in on an inbound flight and you’re not gonna have time to get food, you can order food and get it delivered to the gate. You can pick it up, walk down to the airplane, even if you’re in coach. Just— and there’s all kinds of ideas like that. And AI is so good at programming. There’s some things that — I don’t know if we’re going to talk about it — there’s some things that AI is ridiculous that, what people think it’s good for, you should not use it for, but AI is incredible at some things and programming and being able to do this kind of stuff, we can do it, and we can do it, you know, quickly in a way that we would have never been able to do it before. It unlocks possibilities that were not, that were impossible before. And we’re going to do that, and I think we’re going to revolutionize what travel feels like on United because we’re going to be able to use technology to take the stress out of travel.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 43:07
That is huge because literally that’s huge. The transparency, taking the stress out. I think I’m excited to see when that happens. I don’t think it’ll be that far out in the future.

Scott Kirby 43:17
It’s going to be faster than you would think possible because what you can do with AI programming is pretty incredible.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 43:23
So when I’m thinking about those that are— you’ve had you know years of learning this on the fly and making decisions. If someone is new and they’re up and coming in their leadership, what would some advice you might give to them today?

Scott Kirby 43:36
So a couple of career pieces of career advice. I would say, No. 1, don’t have a goal. You know, I started life wanting to be a pressure athlete. Realized that wasn’t going to work. Then I wanted to be a pilot. I came here to be a pilot. Realized I wasn’t going to be a fighter pilot, so I switched. Every big decision in my life was some opportunity that came completely out of left field, completely unexpected, and I made a 90-degree turn on a dime. But if I’d had a plan, I’d have had blinders on and would have missed all of those opportunities. So No. 1, don’t have a plan. No. 2, do something that you love. If you’re watching the clock, you’re not going to be good at it. You know, the last time I had a job in my life was when I was 15 years old and flipping burgers at Sonic. I hated it. It was a job. I was watching the clock. Everything else, like I love what I’m doing. I just said I dream of, I dreamt about it. JFK. Right. Fifty flights today in JFK. I dreamt about it last night because that’s what I’m thinking about, and I love it. And if you like what you do, if you’re passionate about what you’re doing, then you’re just going to be better at it. And so don’t have a plan and do things that you love.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 44:49
Love those. And how do you work in this really important piece that’s called our family? Like, where— how do you navigate, you know, 20 hours of dreaming about the thing that’s not work that you love and the people you love, your family?

Scott Kirby 45:03
So usually people ask about that work-life balance. I have seven kids. My day, like I sleep eight and a half hours a night. I read three hours a day. I work out every day. When I’m at home, which is about half the time, half the time on the road, half time at home. Most days, I take the kids to school, to breakfast at school. Our schools, they’re all four, the four that are home are all in the same school now. They have this awesome cafeteria that you can go and eat. Breakfast with kids, I take them every day. I put them to bed at night. Well, it’s called a routine. I get them riled up, and my wife comes behind and complains and puts them to bed, and actually gets them to bed. But I spend lots of time with them. I go out every day. We go out play sports. Great yard and play sports. I spend lots of time. I’m able to do that because I’m really efficient at time management, I don’t waste time in my personal life or my professional life. I’ve talked about meetings. I have a bunch of weird quirks, like I don’t hang my belt up because that’s extra time. I leave it. In fact, my wife, when she we first got married, used to hang my belt up, and I would forget to put a belt on because I didn’t see it. Like my whole bunch of little things, like I don’t, you know, just naturally efficient and don’t waste time. But part of that is I get asked this a lot in groups, and then after saying all that, I say, "How many of you are on social media?” Basically, everybody stands. And I say I would hypothesize that none of you have a work-life balance problem. You may have a social media problem, but if you have time to be on social media. You do not have a work-life balance problem. I also don’t watch TV. Like, a bunch of things that people are doing. Like, you got to choose your time, and I put work and family ahead of social media and TV.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 46:35
I like that. Yes, great lessons. So, is there anything today that I didn’t ask that you would hope that we’ve covered?

Scott Kirby 46:41
No, this has been fun.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 46:42
This has been a lot of fun. Well, Scott, this has been amazing. I already knew that I was gonna learn something, but some of these great nuggets— I think some of my favorites have been you know really just like you said, don’t have a plan, but really be open to seeing what’s coming your way. I think being really open to data and seeking it, not trusting just one thing of information that you’re getting.

 

Scott Kirby 47:04
Don’t trust people’s conclusions.

 

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 47:05
Oh, there you go.

Scott Kirby 47:06
Listen, look at the facts and look at why they got to that conclusion. Like that’s one thing I say. My wife, you know, she hasn’t been a long time, but I’ve been accused before by people of being not a good listener. Like I say to them is, I’m a great listener. I’m a terrible agreeer. I listen and I ask why, and if I don’t, if your arguments don’t resonate with me, then I don’t agree. But I listen intently, listen intently to the why, instead of the conclusion, and form your own judgment about what the conclusion should be.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 47:43
Amazing. I have one last question. If you could go back and tell young Scott anything now that you know what you know today, what would you tell him?

Scott Kirby 47:50
I would go back and talk to myself about how to deal with people. You heard me talk a lot today about how people feel and inspiring people, but when I was young, I thought I knew the answer. I often think I knew the answer. Know the answer today, but when I was younger, I would just like be dismissive of others and like this is what we’re going to do. Let’s move on. And why are we wasting time? And I’ve realized it’s so much more powerful to get other people to have, my goal is to get other people to have ideas. When I have an idea, my goal is to get someone else to have it, to bring people along, and to bring people along in the whole conversation. And I’ve realized that not only is that better for the culture, it’s way better for the decision making because there’s a lot of things I hadn’t thought about. Confident as I was, and there are often actually a lot of times that it moderates or even changes my decision to get that kind of feedback from people, and the further you go in the career, the more important it gets. Because the hardest thing as a CEO is to get people to tell you things when they think you disagree. And so you have to get that to be effective. And just people are afraid to do it, and so part of that is trying to keep your opinion to yourself but also finding ways to elicit feedback from people. And, you know, one of the things I do in complicated decisions is get up everyone in the room, and I, as we talked about, I go around the room and ask each, starting with the most junior people in the room, so that they’re not intimidated. But as you said. What do you think we should do, and why? And it’s often a 50/50 decision at the end. But when you do that, one, I make better decisions because of doing that. But the team dynamics are so much better. And even the people that I wind up going the other way with, you say at the end, like, this is not a— I don’t know if I’m right. This is not a clear. Like there’s good points on both sides. I don’t know what the right answer is, but we got to decide, and we’re going to do this. And if it’s wrong, we’ll switch. But everyone feels heard.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 49:53
That’s right.

Scott Kirby 49:54
And bought in. It’s just such a better way to manage. And I did not do that when I was young.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 49:58
Well, that’s a good lesson in itself, especially because now you’re, you know, you’re more junior, or those that are growing into some of these leadership roles have found their voice earlier, right? And to share it, yeah. So I think that’s wonderful. This has been amazing. Thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely. Today’s conversation with Scott was enlightening in so many ways. I think we can all walk away saying together, no excuses, is something that will bring into our leadership toolbox. But some of the other things that really stood out to me is how he forges the teams around him, making sure that they’re complementing his skills. Right, so looking at where are his weaknesses and how do we fill that with other experts around the room, finding those that can connect the dots with information and being willing to ingest a lot of information. I also really appreciated how he talked about setting a vision and being inspirational, and by bringing people along with those decisions, it that potential completely unlocks. So I think that’s a really worthwhile leadership trait. And then finally, one that really kind of hit the heartstrings, of course, and it kind of ties to not having a plan because it really is about discovering what you love. So by being willing to explore what opportunities are coming your way without having a plan, you might just find you’re in exactly what you should be doing because you love it so much. If someone you know is on their leadership journey and could benefit from some of the lessons learned from Scott Kirby and others, be sure to share this episode with them. You can find all of our episodes at usafa.org/longblueleadership. I’m Naviere Walkewicz, Class of ’99. Thanks for joining us on Long Blue Leadership. Until next time.

Col. Naviere Walkewicz 51:42
There’s another side to Scott’s story in the September issue of Checkpoints magazine. In a feature about Air Force Academy graduates leading in high-stakes industries, Scott talks about risk, expected value, crisis and the thinking behind some of the biggest decisions he’s made at United Airlines. This conversation goes somewhere different. Here, we’re exploring the leadership behind those decisions: accountability, adaptability, trust, self-awareness and what leaders owe the people who depend on them. Together, the Checkpoints story and this episode offer two different views of the same leader: how Scott Kirby thinks when the stakes are high, and how he leads the people responsible for carrying those decisions forward.

Outro 52:23
This Long Blue Leadership conversation was recorded Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026. Long Blue Leadership is a production of the Long Blue Line podcast network and presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association & Foundation.

 

KEYWORDS

Scott Kirby, United Airlines CEO, Scott Kirby leadership, leadership principles, no excuses leadership, Air Force Academy, Long Blue Leadership, aviation leadership, airline industry leadership, leadership vs management, executive team building, crisis management, decision-making under pressure, calculated risk-taking, COVID-19 airline strategy, United Airlines innovation, AI in air travel, airline customer experience, continuous learning, career advice for leaders.

 

The Long Blue Line Podcast Network is presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association & Foundation