United CEO Munoz to step down, 5 years after leading turnaround

Oscar Munoz, who helped to steady United after a troubled 2010 merger, but not without the occasional public relations crisis, will step down next year as the airline’s CE. In May, J. Scott Kirby, the airline’s president and a veteran of the industry, will succeed Munoz, who will move on to the position of executive chairman of the airline’s board for a one-year term. Analysts said they were unsurprised by the leadership change, which had been predicted since Kirby was hired in 2016, shortly after Munoz underwent a heart transplant. Munoz, a first-generation college student from an immigrant family, had also been expected to assume the role of chairman several years ago, but the promotion was scuttled in 2017 after the airline stumbled in responding to public outrage when security officers dragged a passenger off one of its planes in Chicago. “While the timing of this transition was always a key topic, this has been largely expected by investors ever since Oscar Munoz hired Scott Kirby in 2016,” Andrew Didora, an airline analyst with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, wrote in a research note. Didora added that he did not anticipate a change to the airline’s strategy. Story has more background.<br/>