Case Studies
United Airlines: The Good, The Bad, and The Not-so Ugly
United Airlines has been one of the front runners in the aviation industry since the beginning of the 21st century, proving year after year that this company is geared towards providing both reliability and innovation within its products and services (Owler, 2020). United has shown that they are able to lead the airline industry, domestically and arguably internationally, through thick and thin revolving around economic recessions and controversial time periods (United, 2020). They pride themselves on providing multiple reliable products for millions to use as part of their everyday lives, like their detail oriented customer service or even their passion for offering affordable flights. United Airlines has been able to adapt to the unexpected events the airline industry has faced within the past year, and have made changes in order to keep the company moving in a positive direction (Glusac, 2020). United has demonstrated and will continue to be one of the top choices for many consumers looking for a company that delivers affordable and reliable flights, thus leading the industry in innovation and ingenuity, ultimately centered around being a successful and sustainable brand for many years to come (United, 2020). This paper will deeply examine United Airlines as a company as a whole, looking at their current threats, opportunities, financials, marketing mix, strengths, weaknesses, and how they can work on improving these aspects of their company.
Current Situation
While the airline industry has been booming for the past decade, this past year has been the worst in airline history, due to COVID-19, forcing United and their competitors to adapt in order to be able to continue business (Mazareanu, 2021). During the first two quarters of 2020, United worked on shifting their practices to allow safe travels to continue, making implementations like no flight change or refund fees and requiring COVID-19 safety waivers (Gilbertson, 2020). In addition to these transitions, the company also credits their “three-pillar strategy of building and maintaining liquidity, minimizing cash burn and variabilizing its cost structure” to their success (United, 2020). While CEO Kirby acknowledges that there are still hardships from COVID-19, the company continues to adapt to the changes needed to continue safe travel (Josephs, 2021). Some of the changes that have been brought to United include requiring all pilots to test negative for COVID-19 before flying, maximizing ventilation systems by running the auxiliary power unit during boarding and deplaning, enforcing that all passengers and crew members wear masks throughout the entire flight and cleaning in between flights (United, 2020). Although United, and other airlines, have made travel safer during these unprecedented times, the airline industry has seen a drop in passengers of around 45% over the past year (Mazareanu, 2021).
United Airlines’ competitors include Southwest, Delta, JetBlue and American Airlines. While all of these airlines essentially offer the same service with regards to domestic and international travel, they offer varying levels of pricing and comfort for their consumers (Schlappig, 2020). United has focused on creating convenience for customers with booking flights and making transactions through their online website or via their mobile app (Desbiens, 2020). Customers can easily access push notifications, view flight status as well as make flight changes all through the touch of button (United, 2020). While having affordable flights for most of their customers, United also is one of the industry’s top leaders in luxury seating and accommodations, a feature many airlines neglect (Stawski, 2020). Even though travel has become a very fragmented component of our society amidst a global pandemic, United has a competitive approach to their competition due to great customer benefit deals and extraordinary ride service. United’s standings amongst their competitors can be partially identified through their COVID-19 reactions and results. Leading the company through all the changes that continue to happen, is their board of directors.
Corporate Governance
United Airlines has a team of highly trained and respected individuals that make up both their board of directors and top leadership positions (United, 2021). As with any company, the board of directors and top leadership roles are intertwined to give an honest and faithful outlook of how a company accepts and promotes various views on improving the entire brand. When evaluating the board members, the top of the list starts with Oscar Munoz, who is the Executive Chairman of United Airlines Holdings, being newly appointed in May of 2020 (Leskinen & Munoz, 2021). While previously serving as the CEO of United Airlines for over 5 years (September of 2015), he has over 16 years of experience serving as a board member in different capacities, sitting on Continental Airways board of directors in 2004 till he became President of United in 2010 where he served on the board of directors till his appointment of CEO in 2015 (Leskinen & Munoz, 2021). He has proven to be competent and reliable in this industry, earning most of his reputation for his fundamental approach of implementing key strategic priorities for improving operations and providing United with essential expertise in all aspects of the transportation industry (Journal, 2021). Alongside his expertise within the transportation field, Munoz has served among the world’s most iconic brands such as AT&T, Coca-Cola Enterprises and PepsiCo (Journal, 2021). He is very knowledgeable about current consumer market trends and financial expertise of fortune 500 companies (Journal, 2021). Munoz is a proven and effective leader, earning his way up the ranks and later employing the very principles that we see today within United Airlines. It's important to mention that Munoz has a participative role on various other board of directors positions such as Univision and CBRE group, and is named one of the most influential Hispanics in America (Meridian International Center, 2018). Oscar Munoz serves a pivotal role in United’s infrastructure leading the company through thick and thin whilst representing a positive image.
With a determined and knowledgeable Executive Chairman, it's important to have others who are able to keep up with such competent and knowledgeable expertise in this ever improving and innovative industry. Scott Kirby, now acting CEO of United Airlines, exemplifies the importance of implementing a new and creative strategy to better every aspect within the company from revenue maximization to customer retention. His expertise within the airline industry starts with his initial motivation of becoming an intellectual, ethical, and prominent individual by beginning his career within the U.S Airforce Academy. This experience and attentive eye propelled him forward in various leadership positions, most notably for his time as President of U.S Airways (2006-2013) and then president of American Airlines (2013-2016) (Leskinen & Munoz, 2021). As CEO, Kirby has called for a cultural transformation and executed the Company’s strategic growth plan, while maintaining responsibility for United’s operations, marketing, sales, alliances, network planning and revenue management (Leskinen & Munoz, 2021). In all, Kirby proves to be a competent asset to the company and continues to innovate and grow United’s goals and responsibilities within the Airline industry and especially in long haul domestic and international flights.
Another person who represents United in a positive light is Edward M. Phillip. As Lead Director, Phillip’s history can be summarised as a lead innovator in various companies and roles such as Chief Operating Officer of Partners in Health, a global non-profit healthcare organization, overseeing the operations of the Partners in Health projects across the globe (Leskinen & Munoz, 2021). In Addition to his remarkable reputation, he serves on the board of directors of Hasbro, Inc., BRP Inc. and Experience Investment Corp.(Leskinen & Munoz, 2021), which are brands and companies that are diversified across many different markets and industries from consumer goods to financial investments. United has amassed a well versed board of directors that allow for constant change and growth for the company. (Journal, 2021). It’s essential that a competent and structurally sound leadership board are the ones making the hard and critical decisions, as these leaders are the ones responsible for keeping United afloat by maximizing their opportunities for growth and minimizing their overall threats.
The airline industry has had many ups and downs throughout its existence. Currently commercial airlines are experiencing lots of lows due to multiple threats instigated by customer trust and more importantly Covid-19. Therefore the airline industry has to constantly adapt to the new and pressing changes. Moreover, with these swift adaptations, comes with new threats and new opportunities for big airlines to recognize and adjust too. Especially nowadays, as many customers find themselves looking to travel, especially due to the global travel ban now being lifted (Forbes 2021), the airline industry, especially United Airlines, are looking to capitalize on its opportunities and minimize its overall threats.
Opportunities
The primary focus for opportunities nowadays are specifically based around the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, one of the many opportunities that United poises on the airline industry is an overall improvement of online services. (Wood 2020). Since Covid-19 requires people to be socially distant from each other and creates a level of uncertainty within all aspects of the business, integrating better business practices with newer and improved digital technology, will be greatly beneficial for the airline industry as a whole. With better technology implemented throughout its business practices, airlines will better improve both its customer relations and internal processes. For example, airlines have an opportunity to make the process of moving the customer to the gate in a more efficient manner through UI improvements through their own respective app and by limiting the amount of person-to-person engagements (Roque, 2021). Having a well designed app will allow customers to use the app to buy tickets, manage luggage, quickly update the users via push notifications to let the customers know of any changes in flight timings and departure gates (Roque, 2021), limiting interactions between employee and customer. Even though COVID-19 has been a burden to many, there are still many ways the airline industry can take advantage of these rising opportunities.
Another opportunity that United, and other airlines, can expand on is improving the overall trustworthiness of customers through its Covid-19 business practices. By recognizing the impact of social capital within COVID-19, customers are looking to support airlines that are doing the absolute best, by treating members of all levels with equal importance. (Wood, 2020). For this reason, there has never been a better time to give the utmost care towards lower level employees and customers, by providing proper PPE or improving its sanitation services throughout the airline gate or airplane. These opportunities have the potential to differentiate airlines from each other because enforcing these practices will make it more efficient to acquire customers, yet retain their trust by showing that the airline industry is adamant on caring and providing to those who wish to fly and work in this industry. Of course with many opportunities, several threats come to rise as Covid-19 continues to be merciless in regards to determining when we may experience normal life.
Threats
This past year has created many new threats to not just United but the airline industry as a whole. United specifically, has observed a decrease in passenger air-travel, both domestic and international, and experienced a fall of airline ticket prices. “According to IATA, the International Air Transport Association, passenger air transport measured as revenue passenger kilometre was down 90% year-on-year in April 2020 and was still down 75% in August”(OECD 2020). Although the end is possibly near for COVID-19, airlines will still have two major factors that will create uncertainty: the cost of health-related measures and the shape of the recovery for commercial flights (OECD 2020). “Operating costs are likely to increase in the short-run for both airlines and airports because of additional health and safety requirements”(OECD 2020). Additionally, “ social distancing measure could force reduction in the passenger load factor by up to 50%”(OECD 2020). The threats of declining sales and customer retention are proving to be increasingly burdensome. However, as the pandemic continues, United and other competitors are still selling tickets to fully filled flights, almost reaching max occupancy. As of December 2020, “United is no longer blocking middle seats and instead booking capacity” (White 2020). The only major airline that continues to have middle seats blocked, until at least April 2021, is Delta (Stouffer 2021). In short, the airline industry’s most influential threats are airlines' adaptation to Covid-19 practices, thus reinforcing the concept of adapting to the needs and desires of customers, especially during a global pandemic. It’s important to note that the Huffington Post reports “ passengers are willing to pay nearly 17% more to fly on a plane with a middle seat blocked off” (Blum 2020), where maintaining socially distancing practices ultimately plays a role when deciding what airline to fly. In all, the major threats recognized by the airline industry are the severity of the airline airline companies' eagerness to implement and sustain safety protocols and an overall operating costs’.
American Airlines is one of the largest competitors to United Airlines in the long-haul market segment, due to its overwhelming presence within the United States, being classified as the ”United States largest airline according to fleet size” (Mazareanu, 2020). With fleet size of 1300+ aircrafts (Mazareanu, 2020) and expanding its ever growing presence throughout the U.S and the overall world, “American Airlines routes its nearly 200,000,000+ annual passengers through its ten major U.S. hubs, following its merger with US Airways in 2013” (Radka, 2019). This illustrates how evident it is for American Airlines to be labeled as both United's largest competitor and most valued threat across the airline industry. This may not be the case in the short-term future, however, taking a closer look at American Airlines exhibits the importance for United to analyze its competitors strategy and environment.
Furthermore, when analyzing both the environment and strategy surrounding both airline entities, it's important to note that American Airlines is composed of “17.6% of the Airline Market Share, per Revenue Passenger Miles from Feb 2019 - Jan 2020, while United consists of 14.9%”(Hendricks, 2020), where this position reaffirms that American and United go hand in hand when competing for the average consumer dollar and airfare travel. Moreover, when evaluating how United addresses its threats “United is giving American a run for their money on the traffic front. United has said it plans to grow capacity by 4-6% year-over-year in 2020, while American aims for slightly more moderate 4-5% capacity growth” (Russel, 2020). This statistic demonstrates that United is wary of the traffic loss caused by the COVID- 19 pandemic, yet recognizes the threat that American poses to them by strategically implementing various capacity growths to account for the loss in total revenue across the board.
With the general precontext in mind, both airlines have prepared and adjusted to the global pandemic in different capacities. As United and American continue to adapt to the constant changes to health policies, federal administration mandates, and the evolution of COVID-19, drawing the distinctions between the two airlines will provide a general outlook of how both companies are adapting to the increasingly new policy changes. Both Airlines suffered irreparable damages in terms of revenue loss as early as March 2020, causing the entire airline industry to adjust its practices, methods, and techniques to overcome these current obstacles. As many arguments are made for both airline companies to decipher on whether or not that these airlines, United and American, are doing their due diligence to appeal to the customers needs, a further examination upon their response to the pandemic is critical.
Finance
During the past year, the stock market has experienced a terrible crash due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic, in March, “in barely four trading days, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 6,400 points, an equivalent of 26%” (Mazur, 2020). Prior to the pandemic, United Airlines stock was trading consistently between $70 and $80, however, as other countries limited travel and COVID-19 made its way to the United States, the stock price dropped from around $50 to $28.81, as of March 17th, 2020 (Morningstar, 2021). By December of 2020, United’s stock price started to stable out, not growing but also not falling. It has been shown that “just under half of American travelers expect to travel for leisure in the next three months” (US Travel, 2020). United’s current stock price of $59.81(Morningstar, 2021), is the highest price in the past year. According to analyst Burkett Huey, “we’re maintaining our $41 per share fair value estimate on the assumption that as COVID-19 vaccine will be well distributed by mid-2021 and that the vaccine distribution coincides with a release of pent-up travel demand and that business travel recovers in late 2021 through 2023” (Heuy, 2021). Although there is a light at the end of COVID-19 tunnel, the hardships caused by COVID to the airline industry has impacted companies’ profitability, liquidity, activity and financial leverage.
A company’s profitability can be measured by how the company uses their assets and resources to pay their short-term debts. This past year has created challenges for the airline industry and many companies have seen lower levels of income than in past years. United’s operating profit margin, based from the last quarter of 2020, is -35.4% (Morningstar, 2021). This implies that United was not generating profits this past year, but in 2019 it was 10.5% (Morningstar, 2021). This has been because of the lack of travel during the current pandemic: “Passenger revenue declined 75.7% and the passenger load factor declined to 55.65%” (Heuy, 2021). This means that only 55.56% of passenger carrying capacity was filled during flights (Morley, Daniel, 2016). It is clear that the reason United’s operating profit margin declined so heavily in 2020 was because of the lack of flying done by customers, and they ended up spending more on maintaining and adding safety precautions to their aircrafts, than what they were making from offering flights (Duncan, 2020). Contrary, United’s main competitor American Airlines had an operating profit margin of -65.2%, which is twice as low as United’s (Morningstar, 2021). The previous year of 2019, American Airlines had an operating profit margin of 8.1%, still lower than United’s but much more competitive. As fore-mentioned, travel and the use of the airline industry hit a quick decline when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, because of this American was only filling up at 64% of their flights that used to be booked (Singh, 2020). Additionally, their passenger revenue declined by 87% (Ciesluk, 2020). Although American’s losses are less than those of United, “U.S. domestic passenger revenues account for roughly 73% of American Airlines’ total passenger revenues” (Team, 2019), they ended up losing more money because of how dependent the company is on passenger travel to earn money. By looking at other important financial ratios we can gain a better sense of how each of these companies use their assets to create financial stability.
There are many financial ratios that are important to examine when determining United’s financial health. The quick ratio for United and American Airlines are 1.02 and .50 (Morningstar, 2021). United has a much higher quick ratio than American and is becoming more financially stable; for every one dollar of liabilities, they are able to pay $1.02 (Morningstar, 2021). On the other hand, American Airlines struggles to pay their debts, for every one dollar of liabilities they can only pay $0.50 (Morningstar, 2021). From observing this ratio, United has more financial health than American Airlines. United’s debt-to-equity ratio was 5.04 at the last quarter, this is the highest debt-to-equity ratio since 2011(Morningstar, 2021). This indicates to shareholders that at the moment, United’s stock price is unstable and would be a risky investment. However, American Airlines’ debt-to-equity ratio sits at 7.53%, almost two percent higher than United’s. This implies that there is more risk when investing in this company over United (Morningstar, 2021). According to Morningstar, there is a very extreme level of uncertainty when it comes to the consistencies of American Airlines stock. (Morningstar, 2021).For both United and American Airlines, the company’s major assets consist of airplanes. The asset turnovers are 0.27 and 0.28, respectfully, which is not a surprise. Even though these numbers seem low, that are still efficient for the airline industry, they are slowly turning assets into sales but it will take until after the pandemic to increase the turnover. United’s financials are more than steller for their industry, it is due to their marketing and promotions that help them continue to sell flights, even when times are hard.
Marketing
United’s marketing mix begins with its overall product. While some may argue that its planes are the sole selling point behind United’s products, this assessment does not encompass the big picture. United’s product starts with selling a variety of passenger seats, depending on the different luxurious and amenities that are included within that seat. United’s seats include its United Airlines First Class, United’s Business Class, and United’s Economy class (MBA Skool-United, 2019). Some additional benefits range from lounge facilities, to beverages and multi course meals, and to priority baggage handling. United also sells different business packages and credit lines, where these products are tailored to not the average consumer, but rather the frequent flyer. The business plus package and the MilagePlus credit line are designed for consumers that frequent the airport more commonly, meaning these flyers, according to their membership status, will be able to receive additional luxuries when flying United such as, skipping the line, being able to access the lounge, better ticket discounts, and able to use their credit line to earn points in order to redeem free flights (United Mileageplus, 2021). In comparison to United’s largest competitor, American Airlines, the marketing strategy in terms of products are generally consistent and embrace very similar characteristics such as, “Business Class, First Class, Premium economy class and choice class” (MBA Skool-American, 2019). The only relatively big difference, aside from its overall pricing, is the difference in lounges and amenities that are associated with its frequent flyers and AAdvantage Executive Platinum flyers (MBA Skool-American, 2019). The difference lies in the idea that these frequent flyers and AAdvantage Executive Platinum members have better odds at finding deals for “Hotel room booking, Cars, Vacations, Activities and Cruises” (MBA Skool-American, 2019). Unlike United, American focuses its effort on securing partnerships with other brands to further spread its presence and likelihood of attracting a common consumer.
United promotes their doings by advertising a variety of ad campaigns such as Fare Deals, which sometimes provide promotional prices that are relatively cheaper in terms of flying a round trip or one-way trip (MBA Skool-United, 2019). United also uses their Mileageplus Program which provides better incentives to flying such as priority boarding, first-class upgrades, and access to various United lounges. This can be earned by being a member of Mileageplus and/or spending credit on various activities which applies bonus miles for every dollar spent (United Mileageplus, 2021). This is extremely important because in comparison to American and their AAdvantage perks, each company associates with different activities such as dining experiences, sports games, cruises and so on, demonstrating that each company has their own set of perks every dollar spent using their company backed credit card programs/membership status (American AAdvantage, 2021). While looking from United’s perspective, United focuses on catering “to customers belonging to various financial backgrounds” (MBA Skool-American, 2019), which is a better strategy at capturing the common flyer. Overall, United has a much stronger marketing mix, as it proves to be well balanced and competitive with other large airline companies like American. While United demonstrates its competency in regards to its marketing mix, United’s efficient and sophisticated flightnetwork are able to use these attributes to its advantage in regard to the company’s position and strengths within such a large and diverse industry.
Strengths
In addition to their financials and marketing strategies, United Airlines has many other strengths. United has created a highly complicated and efficient travel network whilst providing a plethora of benefits that their competition often struggles to compete with. These actions have formed into very tangible strengths that allow them to operate even in times of struggle, like COVID-19. One of the more objective strengths United exhibits looks at the number of flights held every day. Roughly 5,000 flights are held every day arriving in over 360 locations on six continents (United, 2018). Although not the largest number in their industry, American Airlines flies roughly 6,500 flights per day (American, 2019). United has also founded Star Alliance, this airline alliance allows for United customers to fly to a total of 191 countries whether it is through United or a subsidiary of United (United, 2018). Alongside the sheer number of locations United flies to, they offer some of the longest flights in the industry allowing for overall quicker travel to these far away locations (Desbiens, 2020). United has very clearly put their focus on the Customers and their needs with a focus on revenue passenger miles coming second. Overall, United has created one of the world’s most comprehensive flight networks allowing for a wider selection of travel locations and niche opportunities that smaller airlines do not have (MBA, 2020). In order to be a powerful airline, being able to fly to multiple countries, United must maintain a strong brand image for their customers.
United has formed their greatest strength through their brand and marketing mix. United has one of the strongest brand images, due to their intense marketing, in their industry and has won awards for many consecutive years to prove so (United 2020). Brand loyalty has become a strong suit for United and they have done so through a variety of appealing functions and features of their airline (Sumers, 2020). With over 100 million members, the mileage program is incredibly popular and contributes greatly to brand loyalty (United, 2020). Compared to an airline like American Airlines, United has taken a much more business and professional orientated approach which has benefited them in a variety of ways. United has put much of their focus over the years into providing the most enjoyable flying experience that they can and although some individual aspects are out performed by other airlines, the combination of every luxury has set their brand in stone with the consistently flying professional market (Dey, 2020). Although United continues to be an industry leader, there are many weaknesses that come with having a strong and powerful company.
Weaknesses
United Airlines faces several weaknesses within their business model that are both directly and indirectly crippling their ability to generate more revenue. The most notable factors slowing down United is their high dependence on third-party service providers, strong labor unions denouncing the airline, and reputation struggles from their customers (Cahill, 2020). United relies heavily upon third-party service providers that specialize in specific areas that cater towards better efficiency for their operations. Most of these functions are found under maintenance, repair, fueling of the aircraft as well as outsourced call centers (SWOT & Pestle, 2020). This strategy has a problematic effect on the company as it targets their expenses for areas that constantly need attention.
Another one of United’s weaknesses, enhanced by the COVID-19 pandemic is their employment instability. Employee numbers have been a major concern within the entire airline industry over the past year. In the fall of 2020, United Airlines was forced to initiate furloughs for approximately 13,000 employees worldwide when a $25 billion relief contract passed by Congress had expired (Nastro, 2020). Since then, United has gradually been recalling thousands of employees to rejoin their workforce while also informing many of them they’re on so-called “WARN” notices (Nastro, 2020). Meaning, their current positions are not entirely stable and could potentially be short-term. As a result, various unions have grown as a sign of frustration against United. The Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) is a union that specializes in empowering the voices of flight attendants through the lenses of the media, their roles within the industry, and through legislation. This group has been able to see large gains in areas like raising wages, benefits and working conditions (United AFA, 2020). Recently, they’ve reached out to President Biden, urging him and other congressional leaders to develop another federal payroll aid package for workers who would maintain their jobs until the end of September (Nastro, 2020). The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), Professional Airline Flight Control Association (PAFCA), are all other union programs that advocate for legislative protection and workplace equality for pilots, engineers and dispatchers respectively.
Recommendations
2020 was a year full of constant change, not only for United but the entire airline industry. Although there are things that United has done surprisingly well, there are always opportunities for more growth. The COVID-19 global pandemic has exposed some of United’s weaknesses that may have been hidden. United continues to suffer from a tarnished reputation from customers. In an effort to improve their relationship with the public, the high profile airline has adapted to their consumers wants and needs by creating an enhanced sense of safety for travelers during COVID-19. While restrictions and regulations are still subject to change, United needs to continue to listen to how the customers want to travel. This might include reverting back to limited flight capacity, so all travelers feel more safe. As aforementioned, United has much more financial health and stability than their competitors, despite enduring the hardships of COVID-19, therefore limiting flights shouldn’t be too detrimental to their operation. Additionally, United needs to maintain a positive brand image. Over the past few years, United has seen a number of mishaps on flights that have resulted in negative publicity. To limit the negative attention, United needs to do a better job ensuring that all aspects of their flight experience is free of drama and enjoyable for every passenger.
Moreover, as United are inclined to continue to enhance their strengths by providing luxurious and quality flights for their customers. As global travel continues, there is much competition against companies to offer the best flights to their customers. With the ever changing technology, United can offer better entertainment for their passengers. This may look like adding personal screens for every passenger on board. This would allow for passengers to watch movies or shows that consumers would pay for, and stay entertained for the entirety of the flight, hopefully making the time go by faster. By having consumers pay for their entertainment, it would be another inflow of cash that could make up for the losses from limiting flight capacity. Additionally, United needs to be able to keep their current customers by creating and maintaining an experience that makes customers want to fly with them again. This would include evolving customer services, such as on flight food and drinks. During the pandemic, United has continued to provide drinks, while other airlines stopped those services. By creating an environment that people enjoy, they will continue to bring in new customers while maintaining old ones.
United has been able to stand strong against the unexpected events that the company has faced over the past year. United Airlines has continued to dominate the domestic marketplace along with having a substantial stake within the international aviation market as well. United has found ways to adapt to the situation they are currently dealing with by their top of line marketing and promoting techniques. Due to the status of their name and the track record of their company, United has been floating and continues to strive towards profitability within the next two years. Although they were forced to take a step back because of the pandemic, United will continue their longevity through the industry and will most likely stay at the front of the industry if they stay persistent with their business strategies they have developed over the years.
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