United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has just published his July 4th message to employees at the airline, as shared by Live and Let’s Fly. To Kirby’s credit, he’s consistent in his messaging. That being said, he sure takes some liberties both with how he views his airline, and how he “ranks” the United States…
United CEO Scott Kirby’s July 4th message to employees
Here’s the message that United CEO Scott Kirby shared with employees for July 4th (and it’s a “special” one, as the United States is celebrating 250 years):
Happy Fourth of July everyone! I’m coming to you on our nation’s 250th birthday, standing in front of this cool airplane on what is actually my favorite holiday. And the reason it’s my favorite holiday is because I truly love this country and everything that it stands for. The level of freedom that we have here is just unprecedented around the world. And at United Airlines, we’re a huge part of what it means to be the United States of America.
We talk about connecting people and uniting the world. Every year we take millions of US citizens around the globe to see other perspectives, other cultures, and understand what the globe is like. We also bring millions of foreign citizens here into this country to see the culture the tradition, the values, the opportunity what this country truly stands for. And so what we’re doing at United Airlines isn’t just flying people around the globe, it really is spreading the culture and values that have made this the greatest nation on earth.
So all of you, thank you for everything that you’re doing in this busy summer conversation. This is the busiest season we’ve ever had in our history, doing it and all the storms and all the weather that happens every year in the summer, so thank you and I’m very proud of what you’re doing. I want to say thank you for making United Airlines not just the biggest airline, but the best airline in the history of aviation.
I’m always conflicted on Kirby’s over-the-top comments
Kirby is quite the character, and he’s extremely committed to making United as successful as it can be. While he doesn’t particularly strike me as a “people person,” I think he does as good of a job as he possibly can to connect employees with United’s mission, and make it clear how each person plays an important role there. That’s commendable, and it’s quite a contrast to the lack of vision at the top at American.
Now, when it comes to the actual substance of what Kirby is saying… well, oy. Kirby has repeatedly peddled the claim that United is the best airline in the history of aviation, and that’s just absurd. I don’t know how anyone can make such an absolute claim. By what metric does he think that’s the case? Profitability? Customer service? Passenger experience? Breadth of route network? Network out of Newark?
But I find his comments about the United States to be equally cringe. Look, I might be a liberal guy, but I’m not someone who wants to pretend that the United States is some awful place, and we should all move. Quite to the contrary, I think the United States is pretty great on balance, despite who may or may not be in office at any particular point.
That being said, Kirby’s patriotism here is just so over-the-top. He loves *everything* that America stands for? Our level of freedom is *unprecedented* compared to anywhere else in the world? And United is “spreading the culture and values that have made this the greatest nation on earth?”
The irony here is that Kirby’s comments come across exactly like what you’d expect from someone who has barely traveled outside the United States. He believes the United States is the center of the world in just about every way, with no consideration for the rest of the world.
If there’s one thing that travel has taught me, it’s that we’re all more similar than we assume, and there are pros and cons to each place. Does the United States afford a lot of freedoms to citizens? Absolutely. But it also has a lot of areas it falls short, in my opinion — freedom from gun violence, autonomy over one’s own body, a framework that somehow allows American citizens to be deported incorrectly to other countries (rare as it may be), etc.
The Human Freedom Index ranks the United States as the 15th freest country, with countries like Switzerland, Denmark, and New Zealand, ranking higher. Can I personally say “oh yeah, those places definitely have more freedom than the United States?” No, not really. But I also am not arrogant or proud enough to declare that *my* country has more freedoms than those places, when I can’t authoritatively say that…
Bottom line
United CEO Scott Kirby has sent out his July 4th message to employees, and he’s at least very consistent with the claims he makes. Kirby says that United is the world’s best airline, and that the United States is the world’s best country.
While I’m all for talking up your own airline and thinking positively of your home country, Kirby definitely takes it to the extreme.
What do you make of Kirby’s comments?