United Airlines CEO tiptoes around US tariffs denting international air travel

The CEO of the world’s biggest airline says Donald Trump’s tariffs are designed to bring high quality jobs back to the US and any negative impact will be short-lived.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has described Donald Trump’s blanket tariffs as “laudable” despite acknowledging the impact of the strategy on international travel to the US.

At a global media event in Brooklyn to unveil new cabin products on 787-9s, Mr Kirby said the president’s goal in imposing tariffs on US imports, was to bring “high quality jobs back to the United States”.

“I think that goal is laudable and many of us here in this country share the goal to create those kinds of careers for people,” said Mr Kirby.

“(But) I think tariffs on their own probably aren’t enough to make that happen.”

He said United was one of the few companies left in the US, that created the sort of jobs where people “could make a six digit income, even if you only have a high school education”.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby showing off the new Polaris Studio seat, which will appear on new 787-9s next year.

His comments were made before a dozen cabin crew stormed the event, demanding better pay from the world’s largest airline, claiming they were the worst paid of any of the US carriers.

On the impact of tariffs on travel to the US, Mr Kirby said “most consumers and companies were taking a breath, and not making big, long term dramatic changes”.

“They’re waiting to see what happens. And they’re waiting until we’re at a sort of new normal to make decisions,” he added.

Chief commercial officer Andrew Nocella said as a result of the pause by some companies and consumers, United had seen a “bit of a decline in travel to the US”.

But he said US consumers were making up for it and their figures on the whole were “really quite balanced”.

“I like to say that the heat around all the tariffs is starting to decline a bit,” said Mr Nocella.

“Our global network is doing incredibly well, and there’s no signs of any type of stress on it at this point and the load factors remain high.

“I don’t think there’s anything really to be concerned about at this point, we continue to track it.”

Mr Kirby said Australian routes continued to perform well for United, which had prompted the decision to introduce a three-times a week seasonal service from San Francisco to Adelaide, from December.

The service was in addition to flights to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane which carried a total of 700,000 passengers between the US and Australia last year.

United remained encouraged by the strength of demand for premium cabins, which had resulted in the decision to increase the number of business and premium economy seats on new 787-9s from 69 to 99.

United Airlines plan to introduce more "premium heavy" aircraft with fewer seats overall.

At the same time economy seats were being pared back from 188 to 123 in a sign of the confidence United had in filling premium seats for at least three times the price.

Mr Nocella said since the Covid pandemic, premium cabins were in much greater demand from leisure travellers in a change he believed was permanent.

“So those that fill up those seats are no longer just corporate customers flying to a business meeting in London or Paris. Quite often they’re going to Tahiti for a vacation or going to Venice to get on a cruise,” he said.

“I think during the pandemic, there was a desire for more space, and more separation for all the obvious reasons and people realised they liked it, and that trend continues to this day and is in fact, accelerating.”

In response to that trend, United planned to install the new “premium heavy” cabin configuration on all 143 787-9s on order from Boeing but was yet to decide whether to retrofit existing widebody aircraft.

The writer was in Brooklyn as a guest of United Airlines.

Originally published as United Airlines CEO tiptoes around US tariffs denting international air travel