Airline Weekly Lounge Episode 7: Checkmate for United? Not Quite

Can United Airlines’ new CEO overcome the carrier’s inherent challenges? United is big, powerful and, at the moment, very profitable. But it’s also underperforming Delta and American. When United and Continental merged, it was supposed to be “checkmate.” And so far it has been—but for the wrong team. Does it matter that the new CEO is not an airline guy? He’s not the first CEO with a railroad background, but still, all the other U.S. carriers have industry veterans at the helm. Plus, in this week’s Airline Weekly Lounge, we look at “hybrid” airlines, we digest our quarterly earnings scorecard and we discuss why Delta and American are—surprisingly—ending their interline agreement.