United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby was spotted flying first class to Dallas on American Airlines, the carrier where he was fired as president in 2016. The sighting put a spotlight on a rare airline rivalry story with a personal twist: the boss of United still has lifetime travel privileges on the carrier that pushed him out.
Kirby did not stay out of the industry for long after leaving American. He became president of United immediately after the 2016 firing, collected $13 million in severance and moved on without a non-compete. He later became chief executive of United and rebuilt the airline's fleet, product and domestic network, turning a bruising career exit into a full-scale comeback.
The Dallas detail is part of why the scene stood out. Kirby continued to live there even as he ran United from Chicago, did not move near the airline's corporate headquarters and often works from home. People who need to meet with him fly to Dallas, and his children go to school there, keeping his day-to-day life rooted in the same city where he was once left behind by American.
That long-running connection to American never really disappeared. Kirby still has lifetime travel privileges there, including unlimited reserved travel in any class of service for him and his immediate family for personal use, access to Admirals Club lounges and 12 free round-trip passes or 24 free one-way passes each year for reserved travel for friends and non-eligible family members. He once summed up the arrangement bluntly: “It’s good to fly the competition.”
The episode underscores how much of Kirby's career has been defined by the airline that fired him and the one he now runs. Doug Parker said American could keep only Kirby or chief operating officer Robert Isom and chose Isom, while Parker was not ready to step down as chief executive. Kirby's later rise at United made the decision look, in hindsight, like one of the most consequential personnel calls in modern airline history.
