United tied CEO’s bonus to customer satisfaction

NE W YO R K Angry United Airlines customers can now vent their fury at a juicy target: the chief executive’s pocketbook.

United ties about US$500,000 of CEO Oscar Munoz’s annual bonus to customer satisfaction questionnaires. The manhandling of a doctor dragged off an overbooked flight in Chicago — and Munoz’s response, widely viewed as ham-handed — doesn’t figure to help his cause.

Each day, United collects about 8,000 customer surveys on items such as legroom and the quality of in-flight coffee. Flyers were already pretty disgruntled. In 2016, researcher J.D. Power rated United dead last of North American carriers. Early returns are now less promising.

“United Airlines just sent me a customer survey about my flight yesterday,” Meredith Tucker deadpanned on Twitter after the overbooking episode. “Looking forward to sharing my thoughts.”

Of course, Munoz won’t cry poor if he’s docked the half a million. The CEO has 2016 target compensation of about US$14.3 million, according to his employment agreement. The actual amount for last year is expected to be disclosed by month’s end.

The United board mentions “customer satisfaction” in the pay filing no less than 20 times. The company didn’t specify exactly how that’s calculated, though the bonus is tied to improvement of the survey results.

Presumably, dragging customers out of their seats won’t help. A Twitter wag named Joe Householder wrote, under the hashtag, #awkward: “Based on experience, the guy on the #united flight is getting his, ‘tell us about your trip,” email survey about now.”