United CEO to skip bonus, chairman will step aside

United Continental’s top executive is giving up his bonus and its chairman is stepping aside. CEO Oscar Munoz asked the board not to award him the payout for 2017, the airline said in a regulatory filing. Chairman Robert Milton, a former Air Canada CEO, will be replaced with another independent board chief. Laurence Simmons, a director who joined the oversight council in 2010, also plans to step down. The announcements came a year after United sparked a public-relations fiasco when a passenger was dragged off a plane. The carrier’s image took another hit last month when a dog’s death on a United plane generated an outcry. In a letter to employees Monday about his bonus, Munoz acknowledged shortcomings last year while vowing to continue his effort to turn the company around. “I felt it was important to send a message about the culture of accountability and integrity that we are building here as a United team,” Munoz, 59, said in the letter. “We had some incredible successes in 2017 but also some setbacks.” The board plans to select a new independent chairman to succeed Milton, and to reduce its roster from 16 to 14 directors, United said. Last year, after the dragging incident, the directors reversed a previous plan to name Munoz as head of the oversight council.<br/>