There was an article in the Sunday NYT a few weeks ago that declared United's CEO Glenn Tilton was drawing a higher salary, by far, than any other major/minor airline CEO. Tilton's direct comp is over a million dollars a year. The article then went on to say Tilton was worth this amount, because he had figured out the ingenious strategy of keeping United in bankruptcy. I would like to point out other ingenious United strategies:
- Continued poor hedging of fuel futures causes dramatic impact on earnings when fuel costs rise, allowing united to stay in bankruptcy!
- New "Buy on board" meals system takes credit cards for the first week, but after that first week, no more credit cards! All the expense of getting in-flight credit card authentication working with none of the long terms benefits allows united to stay in bankruptcy!
- "partial paint" strategy. Start repainting the entire fleet of planes and then stop. Brand confusion allows United to stay in bankruptcy!
It's not easy to keep coming up with new ways to keep your company in bankruptcy, but Tilton is proving up to the challenge.
Posted by Dick at May 30, 2005 09:53 AM | TrackBack