Former United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz: ‘It’s Never Too Late To Do The Right Thing’

In the national spotlight on Good Morning America, United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz faced one of the ultimate tests of leadership, as he prepared to address a firestorm surround the company. Both he and United were in the national spotlight after the violent removal of a 69-year-old doctor from an overbooked flight, which sparked widespread outrage thanks to other passengers filming the incident and posting it on social media.

Initially, United had issued a statement criticizing the passenger’s behavior, a move that only fueled public anger. “I became globally infamous,” Munoz said on this week’s Corporate Competitor Podcast. “My initial response was, for a lot of different reasons, bad. It was awful.”

But as he readied to face the cameras, Munoz thought back to the values he had learned from his family. 

“I thought of my grandmother and about her values,” he said, “always taking the upper road, honesty, integrity, certainly never, ever blaming someone else….the PR training and coaching I’d gotten the day before was, for lack of a better term, how to point the fingers, how to deflect, and how to do it in a way that was going to be articulate and thoughtful. It just didn’t feel right.”

In the face of public scrutiny, Munoz chose to take accountability during his Good Morning America appearance. “When asked the tough question,” Munoz explained on the podcast, “I said I let the policies and procedures of running an airline get in the way of treating another human being the way they should, and that should never and will never happen again.”

This honest response marked a turning point, not only in addressing the crisis but in helping Munoz reshape United’s approach to customer service. Munoz went out of his way to meet with United employees and hear their concerns, trying to bring some stability to a company that had gone through eight CEOs in a decade. By talking openly with his team and responding to problems, Munoz restored credibility for the public and for United’s employees. “Trust travels at the speed of transparency,” he said. 

The lessons Munoz shared during the podcast extend beyond crisis management, including: 

• How playing football and running marathons made him resilient through adversity, including his recovery from a near-fatal heart attack as he led United’s 90,000 employees.
• What happens when you capture employees’ hearts and minds, inspiring them to go beyond their job descriptions.
• How pushing oneself to explore new ground can motivate others, encouraging a culture of constant improvement and growth. 

Seven years after appearing on Good Morning America and four years after retiring from United, Munoz still thinks about how he responded to the incident and the lesson he learned from his grandmother. 

“The initial response was bad, but the phrase that we’ve learned from that is that it’s never too late to do the right thing,” Munoz said. “It turned out to be not only the right thing to do but also the right thing to do for our business.”