Turnaround Time

Uniting an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies

By: Oscar Munoz, Brian DeSplinter - contributor

Narrated by: Oscar Munoz, Christopher Salazar

Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Wall Street Journal Bestseller

Go behind the scenes with the CEO who led United Airlines’ remarkable turnaround.

Around the world and around the clock, the people of United Airlines are locked in a struggle against time to ensure your aircraft lands and takes off for another flight safely and efficiently. This “turnaround time” is the heartbeat of an industry in which the margin for error is nil and success is measured by fractions of a second.

Turning around an aircraft and turning around an airline are very different challenges in most respects, except one: it takes a united team to perform it well.

In 2015, when Oscar Munoz took the helm of this iconic brand, its culture was anything but united and its reputation was in free fall. A merger with its onetime rival Continental had stalled, operational and financial performance was badly trailing those of its competitors, and the bonds of trust with shareholders, customers, and employees had reached a breaking point.

Setting out an ambitious plan to rejuvenate the company, Oscar learned that there was nothing wrong at United that couldn’t be fixed by championing what was right—the employees themselves.

Meanwhile, only a month into the job, Oscar suffered a near-fatal heart attack that set in motion a race against the clock to find a heart transplant to save his life, even as he fought to salvage his vision for United’s revival. The health emergency might have been the end of the story—until employees and union leaders rallied around Oscar, inspiring him to pull through, something he did within weeks following a successful procedure.

Oscar and the people he led, both with new leases on life, would go on to weather more turbulence, overcoming battles with investors and navigating several PR crises—including a global pandemic—to deliver top-tier operational performance, strong returns to shareholders, and ascending levels of customer satisfaction. By the end of his tenure, the people of United were finally flying together as one team, defying pessimism from industry insiders and rekindling optimism from employees and the customers they served.

With candor, humor, and heartfelt wisdom, Oscar reveals how he rose from humble immigrant origins to lead United Airlines through one of modern business’s greatest corporate turnarounds. He offers soulful, much-needed leadership lessons for today’s world: listening with empathy, standing up for employees, building durable cultures that are profitable because they’re principled, and advancing a vision for a genuinely inclusive economy for the future.

©2023 Oscar Munoz (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

Good listen.

Amazing story of the turnaround, that you can definitely see has happened to United over the past few years. but also the personal story of Oscar while he was the head of United and all of his challenges such as his heath.

Such a aspirational story

It was a great listen considering the fact that I work for the company. Will totally recommend this book to co workers, family, and friends.

A good and worthwhile listen

The reader certainly isn't an av-geek and the author shows some revisionist history, but it's entertaining and educational

Excellent book!

This is a story of two survivals: United Airlines and it’s CEO. Both fascinating and full of inspirational moments, my favorite part is how both were empowered by Oscar’s incredible culture and values. His family, al the people that raised him, and the millennial traditions he was part of allowed him to see the possibilities others would not have seen.
I recommend this book wholeheartedly!

Turnaround Opinion

Eager to learn about leadership, commercial aviation and a life at the helm of a powerful company, I set out listening to the book. Early in the reading I listened to the part of Mr. Munoz being considered for the head position at United. With prejudice, I assumed his promotion to the top spot had mostly to do with leftist ideals and a example of affirmative action. Did he think his readers wouldn’t see such a clear political agenda. The more I listened, however, I learned that the author didn’t shy away from his Latino origin and the context of his hiring in a time fraught with division. He bravely discussed his Latino background. He delivered examples of how his diverse background provided him a special ability to effectively lead. His authenticity disarmed my prejudice. His story tells about his fighting spirit, his force for change, and his values. The flow of the book worked well to hold my attention. He equips the reader with multiple leadership lessons, heart warming stories and a special perspective of aviation industry in present history. I’m proud of him as a fellow American. I’m sorry for my racist response. I will root out my prejudice and racist thoughts. I would be honored to achieve a small portion of the good he’s achieved for mankind and for America. Only 4 reviews?! Come on, get with the program and check this one out!

Excellent book!!

I read paper copy and also parts on runs on audible so left a longer review on there but it is one of my favorite books of all time. Incredible story - inspirational with a lot of leadership lessons as well! Highly recommended!!

It’s a good book and…

I would love to have heard more about the actual plan he implemented to save the airline. The bulk of the book talked about his heart attack and how that changed everything for him personally—and that’s a significant event in any person’s life. And, I don’t want to diminish the significance.

That said, I’ve listened to other books my former CEO’s and they talked about the strategy and how it was implemented to save or grow the company. He did talk about that, but I would like it to have been more in-depth.

Highly recommend

What an incredible story of a first generation immigrant who led with his heart and transformed the United and the aviation industry

Half about United

Oscar seems like a nice guy but United really isn’t the focus of this book. Over half of this book is about the memoirs of Oscar. For United, Oscar doesn’t really say very much other than investing in employees. He mentions restoring some pass benefit restrictions and getting contracts done but he doesn’t actually mention what some of the issues were. He had a segment where he explained why he didn’t want Gordon Bethune to come back as Chairman and that was insightful but I found most of it to be lacking. He spends a good portion at the end talking about Boom and EVTOL. I have no doubt that one day we are going to see both that isn’t today and it isn’t going to be the near term future either. It also doesn’t give United any type of advantage. United is going to have the same aircraft in the future that everyone else has and he said himself in the book that air travel is too commoditized. He also spent, in my opinion, too much time talking about Flight 3411. It was a PR disaster and sure certain policies needed to be changed but to apologize to someone who refused to comply with instructions set a terrible precedent.

Pure fantasy

Anyone who has flown UA even recently knows that UA is horrible! Munoz says that there is no ‘no’ at UA but that’s not at all reality. When I couldn’t use my PlusPoints because of their issue, I was told ‘no, we can’t extend them’. When they lost my bicycle they told me ‘no, we won’t pay to replace it’. UA is the worst airline in the US!