Oscar Munoz

Oscar Munoz served as CEO of United Airlines from 2015-2020, and eventually retired as Executive Chairman in 2021.

Oscar took the helm of a United that was flying through very turbulent skies and was anything but United.  Five years after merging with Houston-based Continental, the integration had stalled and the two great airlines were operating side-by-side, but not flying together.

Lagging operational and financial performance, unfinished contract negotiations with union partners, frustrated customers and loss of employee morale, all meant United was in freefall.

Within five years, United was flying high, achieving top-tier reliability and profits, winning back customer loyalty and earning the praise of each of its major union leaders. Most importantly, frontline employees were finally flying together as a team, after the turmoil of a merger that was ratified eight years to the day after it was begun.

Oscar credits his employees for pulling off the airline comeback story of all time, and it began with a Wall Street-defying strategy to put employees first as the foundation of rebuilding.

Behind the scenes, another personal drama was unfolding. On Day 37 of his tenure, Oscar suffered a massive heart attack. He woke from a coma and demonstrated leadership by putting out multiple fires at once, from resolving a contentious proxy battle, to managing public relations crises, all while learning the three-dimensional chess game that is required to obtain a heart transplant.

Near the end of his tenure as CEO, then as Chairman, Oscar helped lead negotiations for the CARES Act, and helped marshal the airline sector’s response to the global pandemic, orchestrating United’s humanitarian efforts to deliver vital medical supplies and personnel where they were needed most.

Today, Oscar remains beloved by the world-wide employee base that makes up the United Airlines family for his authenticity, faith in his employees, and for turning the company around by creating a New Spirit of United.

Oscar Munoz’s first book Turnaround Time: Uniting an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies was released in the spring of 2023 and hit the Wall Street Journal best-seller list within a matter of weeks.

Born in Mexico into humble circumstances, he is the first Hispanic to lead a major airline and was twice named to Hispanic Magazine’s “Most Influential Hispanics.” Oscar graduated from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, and earned an MBA from the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School.

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