Welcome, everyone, to what i was informed is the 11th installment of our series on leadership. I think some of you have been with us before, and i think as youve seen from some of these sessions, the meaning of leadership, lots of people have different interpretations, but the sense that theres not enough of it is something that is wildly shared among many of us in washington, and the ambition for this series is to call on leaders from national and local politics and business leaders, folks from education, arts, advocates, to try to understand what are the circumstances and the characteristics that enable some people to overcome real differences and lead. Our imagination at the Bipartisan Policy Center is not that the it was passive cohesion. Democracy is not a gentle game, but weve always had people who have understood how to overcome those differences to kind of reflect on this question on what does enable us to overcome the inherent distinctions in any kind of free society, we are delighted today to be joined by oscar munoz. He was ceo of United Airlines. He is a true american success story, and were going to talk about that a little bit, but growing up with eight siblings in california. First member of his family to go to college. He has had a number of rather remarkable leadership roles. Worked at at t, cocacola, pepsico prior to joining united but i think really the focus of this discussion is going to be a lot about oscars focus on people as i prepared for this discussion, the consistency with which the descriptions of your leadership have been anchored in both your employees and your passengers as really kind of showing through, and i think im particularly interested in a field that is technologically complex. Logistically capricious, to say it pleasantly. Its scary flying. The fact that we dont get scared flying is remarkable, but we take everything that is right and wrong in American Society and jammed it in narrow aluminum tubes and hurled it around the world. Its a pretty remarkable thing we do. The fact that you have been able to at that moment to really change the culture of the company while achieving more than a 50 increase in stock price, is cool. Were going to explore that a little bit. I should close the introduction by acknowledging how pleased we are to be able to have this series and the honor of the Extraordinary Service of bob and elizabeth dole. Bob dole is one of our four founders. Again, bob and elizabeth are proud partisans. These are not folks who go lightly anywhere they travel, but they are people who in their careers understood how to overcome real adversity, and how to build the kind of trust that is necessary to move the country forward, and so this is the one year anniversary. We launched the series on bob doles 95th birthday, and its been a really great experience for us as an organization, and were dedicated. I think were going to have our 12th event this thursday, five freshman female members of congress are going to talk about their shared experiences. Lets jump right in. I think there is a cliche leadership about whether leaders are made or born. My conclusion is the answer is yes. But i guess my question is if we had your eighth grade teacher here and said heres oscar, ceo of united, would they say of course. Or who is oscar . Eighth grade. When did you start we were studying ulysses. The famous quote, im the sum of all the parts i met. I think she might say that. I remember eighth grade particularly. Thats pretty impressive. She would be honored. When did you start to find yourself in leadership roles . If i could, thank you for having me. The concept of partisanship, bridging the gap, conversing, having different points of view and having meaningful debate and discourse is something that feels like weve lost, and in a world thats become increasingly divided, i always like to say we choose a world thats united. Sorry. Thats solid. Im done. But to your point on the fact that its even more of an honor, the fact that its the dole leadership series, all of us remember senator dole standing up with assistance at the funeral of mccain. One of the most poignant, touching moments. It really encapsulates the world that used to be in politics. Thats a meaningful thing. When this came up, i thought it was a great possibility. We think the members of congress are by and large very good people with bad incentives. Talking about leadership is hopefully part of a process. Look, reflecting on a life over a friendly conversation is not a fair challenge, but do you think have there been some moments in your life when you look back and think about your philosophy of leadership . Do you look back to any particular people or instances that you say would really kind of have affected your approach . I would go back to the fact that you are who you are as a product of your environment, the people that you have met along the way, the people you allowed to come into your life and influence. Certainly our parents, our loved ones. But increasingly, in my world, theres always and has always been a cross of people that just you hold up exemplary to light. I had a grandmother who i always get emotional when i talk about her. She lived to 96. She worked her entire life. She was a maid in a hotel for a long period of time and worked well into her 80s with debilitating sort of arthritis. And the one thing about her that i always remember, not a single ever a single bad word about anyone or anything. She went to work every day. And i came up with a concept that says proof, not promise. Its in her sort of giving sort of credence to her, because when she retired, she was, again, a maid at a hotel. So nothing meaningful. But the fact that not only her coworkers showed up but management and even Senior Management from a different city showed up at her retirement just the kind of person she was and the meaningful impact she had on them. You aspire to be the same kind of person, and its those kind of things. I could tell you 20 other stories about people that have caught me along the way. My high school counselor, mrs. Duckworth who caught me in the hallway one day, not quite when class was out. I thought i was in trouble. And we had just taken the s. A. T. S, preliminary s. A. T. S. She stopped me to ask me where i was thinking of going to college. And, again, i grew up in a relatively low income household, but blue collar where the concept of college and further education wasnt part of the conversation. So my answer was at the time like, whats a college . And she helped me go through the process which got me to go to school, and again, in the environment and the that i grew up in with my latino roots, it wasnt yet a prominent thing. One of my guiding missions in life is i dont want to be the exception to everything. I want to be the expectation. Right . We should have people of all colors and race and sex and positions of authority. We shouldnt question or wonder hey, why are you in that position. Those are the kind of things that drive me. Its always been another human being around me somewhere that has influenced that conversation. I give credit to them. A lot of things i do personally in philanthropy and within our company is just try to instill to people that its important to care for others. Of course, i work in a world where caring for wonderful customers in this room is really meaningful to us. We are going to get there. You give a lot of preamble so i do too. Senators, we have seats up front. If you want to i know you got to run so youre hanging out by the bar . All right. Is that bill . Thats bill. Bill by the bar schuster, just a private guy. I could tell stories. He was wonderful in a time in our life at uniteds life that was dark. Thank you for that. Meaningful balance and support, but it was worthwhile. It was a wonderful experience. So before we go more into kind of the company and theres a lot i want to talk to you about. I mentioned earlier its a cliche, but this is the American Dream story. This is the story we all imagined this country is about. But the reality is that it really isnt so much. Right . If you look at some of the recent data, social mobility in this country is at a lower point now than its been in generations, i think. The chances of moving from the bottom fifth of your economic status to the top fifth is about 7. 5 . It doesnt happen a lot. Productivity increased, almost doubled since 1980. Real wages have stayed roughly flat. As a ceo generally, not even of united, you indicated, i got a good quote from your wonderful staff that you want united to be a company thats profitable and principled. Employees make a living and a great life for themselves and their families. How are you helping people move up that social ladder and is that an obligation of a ceo . Its an absolute and complete and total obligation. Its so easy in this day and age to give that responsibility to others. Not my job. My job is to make money for my investors, and all of it is true. But its an absolutely obligation. Social views. Philosophical concerns. We sit over in my world, over 100,000 people that are worldwide. Our vision in life is to connect people to the things that matter most and then the second part is unite the world. And that comes from our 90,000 people. Thats not a phrase i made up. And that gives me a lot of clarity and support and confidence about having an obligation to do all the right things. Weve taken very strong stances on sustainability, diversity. You cannot find a more diverse set of Board Members or leadership in this industry than united and more importantly, theyre high performing individuals all chosen on merits rather than just the aspect. Ive lived my entire live under the guise of you have to work harder because youre different than other people, and so i did. When i counsel folks and whether its the latino or any diverse space, i just say the fact of life is we do have to work harder. Plain and simple. And work harder we shall. But increasingly, more and more people are getting into positions that dont look like me, that look more like a standard, i guess if you call it ceo. Who are beginning to see the value of the diversity of thought and capabilities. And its really making a meaningful difference. The obligation is to continue to do not only use the words but more importantly, again, back to this proof, not promise. To put people in place and positions and in charge of things that are meaningful, and you watch them grow, and then we have the kind of you said 50 . I think were closer to 90 stock and appreciation. It makes a difference when you have success and again this concept of profitable but principled along the way is meaningful. Yeah. Theres a serious obligation. Lets talk about wall street a little more. When i had the pleasure of talking to a lot of ceos, the basic questions of shareholder versus stake holder is kind of the simplistic frame. Is the obligation milton friedman, every 90 days maximize profits or is it my community and the country and people basically say look, im with you. But, you know, wall street is an aggressive partner. Yeah. And when you took over the company, i think one of the first singles you were really thinking about it differently was executing labor agreements that had been openended for a while. Let me just talk about why that instinct, but you got a cringy response from wall street. The stake holder shareholder question. Im interested in what you think. This is where people i think mistake the emotion and drive and purity around principles as being too touchy feely and soft. That well, oscar just wants to treat people well and thats all were going to do. We from almost day one have had a definitive structured Strategic Plan of attack about what we needed to accomplish in order to get where we are today. Youve got to have that plan. That takes care of all your constituents. Not only your community, employees, customers but of course wall street. And sometimes not everyone understands what youre doing because in this world theres no good deed that goes unpunished, certainly. And so having the plan that we all hear it in order to take care of your customers, youve got to take care of your people first. How many books have been written about that . Everybody says the words. Who does it . Well, our team at from the onset said theres the problem in our company. We have grown disengaged, and therefore, we need to regain the trust of our employees and one of the mechanical things was taking care of at one point in time a fivesixyearlong contract disputes with our flight attendants. Five, six years in we havent treated them like meaningful, valued part of the family. You have to fix those things and yes, theres a cost to it. Wall street wants know the return . You fast forward to today, heres the return. We have a better customer experience. We have better profitability. Were able to invest in things like sustainability, the community, talk about things like diversity with meaningful proof as to who has accomplished that. And so its not this feel good thing. You have to have a definitive plan. We laid out a plan last january about our growth strategy, and you talk about wall street going a little crazy. They went crazy, but we put together a team. We vetted that plan for months on end. When we launched it, we had every expectation that it was going to do exactly what its been doing. Nobody else knew. And all the people but you have to have this conviction about everything that youre doing with a fairly strong laid out plan. Its not just about hoping its going to go well. We work very hard to get to those things. So talk to me a little bit about youve watched and youve been a ceo for many years and youve been in csuites of companies. It seems to me the role and expectations of ceos is changing quite dramatically. The expectation youre a public figure, that you have views on policy issues. As you have been in these roles over the last decade, is that a fair assertion . Do you feel like the public expectations of your role is different now than it would have been a decade ago . Accountability, transparency, have all increased mightily, and i think rightly so for investors and businesses. A lot of us grew up in a different world. Being a ceo in the old days youd look back fondly on those times. It is different today, but thats just the times have evolved. I dont look at it i look at it as the new reality. And its an important one. And i think most of the folks that sit in our roles today i think embrace it as well. Its the right thing to do for where we have developed as a social community here in the u. S. So one of the places where i think we have seen a change is think weve seen a change is the expectation that companies are Public Policy agents. Youre not just about air travel. I guess Peter Drucker said management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things. You and delta took a pretty strong position after the parkland shootings which everything about that was controversial. But, you know, why . Youre in airlines. What role did you have in that Public Policy issue . So, the facts behind it all are very simple. One of our pilots lost his daughter in that shooting. I mean, it that puts a whole different aspect on anything youre talking about it. I actually flew down to miami to see them, you know, a few days afterwards. We had our annual meeting the following week and the stance we took is there was a big nra convention. We were offering discounts like we do to any large group. I think we felt that there was not the appropriate thing to do given the circumstances that had just happened. And so, you know, as an industry to a degree, we banded together. I was the first one on the on the podium, so to speak, to be asked the questions because the nra, of course, took a strong stance about that and accusing me of political buy yaiabias. I dont have a political view. I lost a family member. Plain and simple. So it did become personal. Of course, the media picks it up, like munoz says it was a personal decision to stop the nra which wasnt the full context of it but its those kind issues that we have to do the right thing. So we have parkland, we have the separation of children. Remember, my vision, its unite the world. What part of unite the world allows the separation of children from their families regardless of the circumstances . So we took a strong in fact, we went a step further, we ended up flying people to actually reconnect people that had been separated so those are the kind of things that i think are important and if you look at the broad nature of our United Family, you ask about these decisions, theyre fully supportive. They gave me that clarity and that conviction and that confidence when they came up with the term that says we unite the world. So lets talk a little bit about the world and an issue that youve been very focused on, which is environment, Climate Change. United has made a commitment to reduce emissions by i think 50 by 2050 which is a tough thing to do if youre fighting gravity. Right . I mean gravity being 4. 5 billion gallons of jet fuel per year. Yeah. So talk a little bit about your thinking there. Airlines is not as an industry, the airlines has not been a leading voice in the climate debate. I think rationally because it doesnt see a lot of options. Batteries are pretty heavy. Electric planes seem unlikely for the near future. Why were you motivated to do that . And how do you think about the ability to achieve whats a pretty bold commitment . Back to the issue of reality, you have to and i heard this, and this is not a Political Support or debate, but a former Vice President whos very involved in the area of sustainability, i heard him say these words dick cheney . [ laughter ] different environmental issues. But the concept was, do you believe that Climate Change is real . All right. You just have to ask yourselves the questions. Theres much debate. Doe you believe you see the facts and if you do, or dont, thats the first question. The second question is, can you do something about it . And all of us can do something about it because the third question is the most important. Will you do something about it . And i think as we face that question inside our United Family, i think generally, we felt that the facts are increasingly more obvious, that Climate Change is affecting us and different parts of the world. Can you do something about it . Its like, yeah, but, its going to be expensive, going to difficult, going to be hard, its going to take a long time. We have to make all these changes. The question became, can you do something about it . This is who the United Family is. Yeah, you know what, we will do something about it. We started easy with straws and the to the concept of biofuel, which we think is big. Weve taken a pretty big investment, the Largest Investments in the waste energy manufacturers. Were exploring all these capabilities. More importantly by us leading the industry, and from the planet perspective, we now have more traction. We have people, i believe, deltas come out recently with a similar pledge. We i just was working with what we call iata, which is the International Association of airlines. Were working that. Just as were beginning to do that, the whole concept a lot of you know about is beginning to rear its head. Its wonderful to be ahead of that with known focus, known sort of lines in the sand, about this. Its an important topic for us, so, again, we can only bury our heads so long. And, again, we have to be mindful of 4. 5 billion gallons of jet fuel that i burn every year. Just, i mean, i know everybody appreciates it. We like to get to our places. But we have to do something to move forward. I think thats what weve been doing. You dont think the Green New Deal is going to be a giant boon for amtrak . No comment. Had to get one or two of those out. Youre going to have them this week or later this week. Ask that question then. So why not really turn to this question, kind of people, so you have 90,000 or so employees, 160 million passengers, and you made a strong point that you thought that the kind of the ethos of the company and the airlines were a little out of whack, that the focus on safety and efficiency had led to kind of a protocoldriven culture that kind of took some of the humanity out of the process. You came up with these core four principles. The second of the four being caring. This has clearly been kind of a central thesis, but talk a little more about when you joined the company, what were you perceiving that had been lost and what have you tried to do to bring it back . I think its a big operation. U. S. Customers, if you think about your last flight or next flight, you think about one thing, is it going to leave on time and get me where i want . That reliability is very important. We dont, to your earlier point, im told, recently, think a lot about safety. Because we expect that out of the training. Out of the regiment. Out of the great Regulatory Oversight that we have with regards to that. Over time, when you run a really big operation like we do, the concept we cant have anarchy and chaos. You have to have order and process. You cant just jump up to a, you know, go to the airport and go to whatever line and everybody say, just get on the airplane any time you want. I think southwest tries to do that. But thats we dont have quite that luxury. So you need policies and procedures in order to ensure, again, your safety and your security. Thats why we do that. But once weve taken care of the issues of your safety and security, then we have to learn to put the customer at the center of things that we do. How do you feel about flying us . How do we take into account things you want to do . I know you want to fly with the sixfoot peacock. The answer is going to be no. Someone did bring an emotional support peacock they tried to. We stopped them ahead of the gate. I was also told, i want to see if this is true, someone brought an emotional support dog for their emotional support monkey. Yes. Unclear if the monkey was for the dog or vice versa. You cant make this stuff up. And so because because as you think about all of the logistical things that have to happen, right, to get a flight in the air, we have a lot of rules. Right . If you sit outside and watch the gate a gate as a plane is being boarded, youll hear many people come up with, hey, can i sit next to my friend . Can i bring this . Can i bring this, you know, 30pound bag thats, you know, my third and our answer is, and has to be to a degree, no, not because we dont want you to but because somebodys already sitting next to your friend. In order to move you, we have to move you know, theres all these practical things. Over the course of time with the volumes we have to generate, we lost that caring feeling. Where its, like, you know, how do we tell people no and explain to them in a meaningful sort of impactful personal way they can do that . At the same time, create an environment where we dont always have to say no. Were Building Digital tools. Were building all these different things. But at the heart of the matter, the heart of the matter, the interaction you have with us is with another human being. And how they treat you, how they react to your question, how they answer your question, is a really important part and that comes from the core. Right . It has to be and so giving our folks this core four principles of, you know, youre always safe first, and the other two are dependable and efficient. What you would expect a big company to say, right . But the second most important thing is caring. So when you see a mother of three running down the terminal to make a connection and its the last flight of the day but your policy, our rules, my procedures, says, you know what, it is 5 30 and the gate gets closed and shes close by, but im going to get in trouble if i dont close it at 5 30. Thats when care comes in. Its like, you know what, you know, im a mother of two. Whatever, its like, im just going to wait a little bit and allowing that in a culture thats been so fixated on following rules and procedures, it thats why we put that into place. It took us, its taken us to this point, a con stapt a fstan affirmation, explanation, of what it. Weve become so entrenched in policies and procedure, people wanted to know in that example, oscar, how many minutes can i care for, two minutes, six minutes . All that sort of stuff. Something called connections matter, we actually built technology, big data a. I. Kind of things, we know where these aircraft are going. We know wind patterns. So we know how long a plane can delay and still make the further connections. Right . Because, you know, in a plane of 130, 150, 160 people, most of them are onboard. That family of three is the small number compared to the rest. So our policies always, lets let the masses get to it at the point in time. If we have room, we know we have room, lets wait for the plane. Now, that hurts us because our ontime mettrics will decline. You will read from the press United Airlines service degrades. You know what weve been doing in two cities today and we have save ed 25,000 connections. Now, that may not be a lot in the world of 160 million people, but you know what, if youre 1 of the 25,000 people, you care a damn hell lot about what that is because made you feel good, hey, somebodys waiting for me, and we still our average delay is 4 1 2 minutes and were always getting there on time because we know, our mechanics, big data kind of work knows what we can fly and helps you as a customer. Thats the right thing to do. But, again, the metrics, well have to educate all of the world that the metric, alone, doesnt tell the whole story because connections do matter. Two anecdotes. I have a seared memory in my mind of seeing the door closed with two kids and two strollers and it was not united flight. I will not mention who it was but we have not flown them since. And as i share with your staff, i actually just was on a flight last week from denver to d. C. With my 13yearold sitting next to my 11yearold and she generously shared her earpads with him so he could listen to the same video and he managed to drop it in that invisible depth between the seats. We dont make money by the things we find, by the way. Thats one accusation. Which was about to create a generational fissure between my two children. And one of your flight attendants saw this happening and got she took the seat she literally took the seat apart and managed to do it in a way my daughter was very humiliated. It was a remarkable thing and my children still love each other. He told me the story earlier, ill reiterate what i said then. So that flight attendants decision to assist in that manner did not come from a digital tool, an investment in a class that we sent them to or anything, right . That came from a pure unadulterated personal desire to care for someone else. Allowing people toothers, is th give people the freedom to give a crap about someone else. Its a very meaningful thing. Its exciting to see that. Exciting to hear those stories. Youd be amazed at how many hero ek sto ic stories. Were trying to publicize how important the industry is, more importantly, how much good we do for so many people and that story times a thousand, every day it happens. You dont hear about any of those thing. You hear about the ants i clicked the four stars after that so i were going to open it up to questions in a minute but i wanted to ask one other question. This is the kind of question of leadership in crisis. I know you yget asked this a lo. But you had a heart attack shortly after becoming the ceo and as the story goes, found out you had to have a heart transplant, had a meeting with your staff, im going to be out for a few hours, at which point you went and had a heart transplant. Obviously this is a hugely i dont mean to make light of this incredible experience, but im interested in it, begagain, as relates back to your imagination of leadership. One of the notions of leadership is this prujesumption of instability. A lot of politicians, ceos, like to create this aura of just, you know, being above it all. Your mortality was put right in front of you in a very dramatic way. Has that affected your leadership, your approach to your job . Yeah. I think in my case, clearly, theres an effect. There has to be. Right . When you go through Something Like that. But not i am pretty much the same person i was before. Again, this sum of all parts that we talked about at the opening continues to drive me, but it has it has helped me understand not just mortality but the importance of as an example that not invincibility but whats a good word for it, that we all as individuals, we all are going to face obstacles, were all going to face issues. Some seem so death defying, disastrous, that our life goes sort of topsyturvy. With what the right level of support from family and loved ones, the right mindset about these things, i mean, during that whole health crisis, i never, ever, ever once thought that anything bad was going to happen to me. And thats not ceo invincibility. That comes from a lot of peoples hearts and minds and, you know, United Family was amazing. The quick story is i was only on the job for 37 days before i got stricken with a pretty massive heart attack that would have killed most people. And the level of support from the United Family was immense. Again, 37 days, but the amount of mail and gifts and flowers and things that came in from that from that community for so many my children opened the bags of mail and read them in the morning to me. So that, for me, like, coming back from that event was never a conversation and a question, but it does help me help other people. I go to a lot of hospitals. I speak to a lot of patients. And its important for them to see someone, you know, running around doing what i do that, you know, your life doesnt have to be narrowed down to something just because you have a transplant. Its an amazing process of technology. I will tell you all that the psa that i always give to folks, its really simple. There are so many, many, many, many symptoms of heart attacks and the difference between men and women that are immense, but the advice i got from someone by the way, i used to run marathons and triathlons and i was a vegan when i got mine. So your lifestyle probably dont recommend any of those things for anyone. But one of my mates that we run who happens to be a cardiologist, would always say, you know, some of the youngest and fittest people that die on my operating table have heart attacks and simpymptoms they ne managed. He said if you ever feel anything weird or strange, we know what that is, immediately call for help an assistance. He said that, which makes it obvious, right, but he said something that always stuck with me was the fact that he said, and when you call 911, he said, immediately tell them where you are. Okay. That makes sense. Because you may not make it past the phone call. And that was a dramatic thing. I remember exactly where we were when he said it. This was probably two years before my event. So one morning, in chicago, by myself, my apartment on the 50th floor, i just worked out and i felt something weird. My legs gave out of all things. And his words came rushing back to me, said, get to the phone, call 911 and tell them where you are. 50th floor of a highrise in a big city, theyre not going to find you. Most of the deaths occur when people say, you know what, im going jump in the shower, ill feel better, im just going to lay down. I told the story so many times and constantly tell it because we have received so sh litery thousands of notes back from people that heard this story, i told this to my dad, my brother. I had someone stop me in airports in tears telling me how meaningful it was. It helped me make the decision to call 911. I tell it all to you so you can tell it to must give you some perspective when the crisis is whether you bring back tomato juice or not. We have time for questions. Im looking over to the cheap seats. Shuster, youve thought about airlines im leaking over here. Secretary glikman . First of all let us know who you are, please. Dane glikman. A compliment and a question. Theres no question that your service has materially improved in the last couple years and thats not just because i was my Global Services renewed. Its because in truth theres a remarkable difference in how people are treated on an airplane. So all the carriers, but i fly united more than anything else. Id like you to comment on kind of the elephant in the room, the 737 max 8. And how you as an airline responded to that when you were so reliant on getting these new airplanes and that they were certified by the faa and how youvecrisis. Its been the most serious this is swen things like the core four, safety first, Flight Safety in particular. There really is absolutely no disagreement on how important that is. Any airline, certainly in the United States, anything that can affect Flight Safety is immediately dealt with. Once we had i think the decision prots was do we have facts and data that support a grounding . Thats important because to return an aircraft to flight you have to use the same fact and data. There were emotional issues around the world saying soandso did it, you should do it as well. The faa did the right thing. As weve always done. We had the best Safety Record in the world here with the faa. They were doing their data and their analysis. Once through all that analysis, once we learned the right facts and data, we had that thing grounded literally in five minutes the decision was made and ready to go. Thats how we dealt with it. How we deal with it going forward, this aircraft will return to flight at the right time with all the right level of support from not just the u. S. , not just all the u. S. Airlines, but around the world. So that everybody feels comfortable. Its important for people to feel comfortable going back and flying. So, yes, we take a hit. Theres all sorts of issues but, again, remember, profitable but principled. Theres no bigger principle than you would have us have other than your personal safety. Thats the way well follow. Yes, sir. Peter with capital intel. This is sort of a bipartisan issue with started with balm marx still goes on with President Trump now regarding gulfairlines flying into the u. S. I just flew to jfk an emirates. Qatar airways has controlling stake of air italy. Alitalia for now. How big of a problem sththat fo you . Also the second part of the question, do you think we should get rid of our former ownership barriers allow crossborder mergers, luftansa, british airways, and america. All my people are like, ah, dont go there. I think the ongoing debate with the qatar and the emirates i think has been chronicled well. Our point is that we dont mind a competitive playing field. We live in a competitive world. When its so uneven with subsidies, thats the thing weve been working with. Its like we can i think the number was 50 billion over a decade that those airlines have been subsidized. Def everybody disagrees with the number. I say, cut it in half. Theres a reason why no u. S. Airline flies to any of the gulf carriers. We cant. Its fisal. It is real in our minds. We continue to debate that. Well continue to have those conversations. Them trying to take stakes in airlines like an italy and flying them, in essence, surrogates. We have a bit of an issue. We think thats cheating. Again, weve been very prominent in those debates and conversations. Well continue to do that. That conversation will lhappen again. Qatarry government was all here last night. Did not get an invite to that dinner. Nevertheless, well continue with regards to the broader issue of ownership, thats an issue for governments to deal with. We have our views, certainly, but, you know, fair and balanced competition and access to everyone is something that we all actually sort of support. What else . Please. Hello, my name is maria. I come from spain. Sorry for my accent. [ speaking Foreign Language ] first of all, id like to thank you for this amazing conversation. Id like to ask you as you come from a company that i love, i am working at the Coca Cola Company for 23 years in sprain, and you work now in a company that i also love because it brings me to my country directly, which anyone i have to jump when i want to go to spain but now i can go next week with united to spain. The question is, what did you learn from coca cola to bring it to the airlines . Yeah. I think one of thank you. Thats a great sort of attention. One of the things i missed after i left coke and did a couple of other jobs is that direct consumer branding capability. What i envision for our united, and its a difficult a more difficult issue is the same emotion. If you could see her smile, when you think of coca cola, we get all warm and gushy about it. We all remember the old ads. Coke and a smile and all these different things. You know, thats the kind of feeling we want to bring to your flying experience with united. So those are the things i learned. How important our consumer is. How our brand is. We didnt become the friendly skies overnight. Weve earned that the moniker over the last couple of decades. To live up to it, thats the standard, thats the drive, that were working for to regain. So, thank you. One or two more questions . R im going to ask one on behalf of senator crowley. Leading one of our infrastructure efforts. Its on this question of next gen and that technology and the partnership between the government and the private sector. I know its probably the assertion theres more navigational capacity on my iphone than some airplanes, you know, probably a little bit of an exaggeration, but whats going how can we not figure this one out . I mean, what is it going to take to bring modern navigational capacity to our air Traffic Control system . You know, everybody faces this dilemma in this city, how we move things that have meaningful improvement and meaningful advancement to our way of life. Air Traffic Control, in our world, is so outdated and so obsolete in some degrees. It is still safe, but we have to slow everything down. So we talk about sustainability, you know, the big manufacturers are building these aircrafts that are, you know, the equivalents of ferraris, but then with air Traffic Control here, its the equivalent of making those ferraris run around on gravel roads up. You take away all the joy. You know, fuel savings and fuel efficiency in the big aircraft, when you have to slow them down all the time, you burn more fuel. Thats one possibility. What happened before, this is partly the solution, and bill and others know this, this became politicized. We started using the word, privatization. Next gen is the next generation of air Traffic Control that aligns its with 65 other countries that use it. Were behind 65 other countries just to put it if perspective. This word became privatization and that became the operative world. And we triied so hard to fight o say that shouldnt be the word. The objective should be modernization. Thats what were trying to accomplish. How best do we accomplish that as a nation . Support on both sides of the aisle, with both sides of a public and private sector. Thats where we sort of failed. I think it became too politicized and became divided and became a point of debacle and went across party lines so we lost that battle. Well go back after it. As i said to certain leaders on one side of the aisle, all right, great, you won. Now what . We still have the problem. So who really won here . And so we have to just keep at this. This ones on our todo list here at the Bipartisan Policy Center as well. Look forward to working with you on that one. Thanks go ahead. I was going to say thanks. Its your show. I forgot. This is a ceo trait, unfortunately. Michelle, do you have a last question . Well, i run the Infrastructure Project here. Thank you for your comments about Public Private partnerships. Weve been waging that battle for a couple years now. More specific to the d. C. Area, we are finally getting a metro out to the dulles airport. I understand that you all are doing a lot to enhance the airport and potentially make it a northeast hub or i guess not northeast but midatlantic hub. So can you expound a little bit about what you all are doing out at dulles . I mean, tel aviv was a great way of just explaining the things that were doing. Connecting traffic that we flow into here for a lot of the local community to come into that hub and fly internationally. This is a hub that when i first joined the company, speaking of wall street, one of the placeime its one of our more profitable hubs. Were doing at the arirport wha you need us to do. Give me places to go on airport i want to fly. Our business is simple. Unfortunately the aircraft are very expensive. You want to fly to many, many places immediately. We worked it. We introduce add lot of dig different flying. Tel aviv is a perfect example of a flight that matters to a lot of people in this community. The infrastructure at these airports is i wont use the term i want, it is not up to par. Its mature. Its mature. Or its not kpnexistent. We have a train that goes nowhere. We still have the same rental facilities that were generated 20, 30 years ago, that are still there. Weve never connected it to anything. So all of thats got to be done. Unfortunately, that requires a lot of money. And a lot of money thats local. A lot of money so infrastructure is a whole big thing for our country. Then we have the debate, broader debate, about infrastructure for our country. Right . Theres our roads and bridges and such. So i dont purport to be thats the thing we have to fix airports. I think we have to fix all of infrastructure, how that comes into play comes back to Public Private partnerships. Part of partisan sort of Work Together to accomplish the concept of modernization or, you know, gosh, whens the last time we fixed the highway system, right . The 50s or 60s, right . Theres so much stuff for us to do we can do together. This is great nation with great powers and great capabilities but somehow, again, weve become divided. Ill end where i started. We choose a world thats united. That will be the continued effort. That is a great way to close this out. I want to acknowledge we have to close out because oscar has a flight to catch and in a true demonstration of servant leadership, they will not keep the door open for him. No. But i really want to thank you for sharing your thoughts and i think they not only resonate with all of our experience having the kind of contact with your company that we do, but also is says a lot about the way we want to make this country work better. I appreciate thank you. [ applause ] on capitol hill today the house passed a 373 billion bill setting defense programs and policy for 2020. The senate has already passed their own version of the bill so both chambers will now need to go to conference so they can work out a potential compromise. House members also approved additional funding for the 9 11 Victim Compensation fund which was created to provide Financial Support to people suffering from serious medical issues as a result of the 2001 terrorist attacks. The legislation extends funding through the year 2090. That measure now heads to the senate for approval where Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell has said that it will be brought up for consideration soon. This weekend on American History tv, leading up to the 50th anniversary of the apollo moon landing, watch nasas a p appal apollo 11 free launch interviews. The lunar module, charged equally with the lunar mod yule pilot and operation of the lunar module systems. And control of vehicle during e descent and ascent. Neil exiting the space craft first. Arizos he goes down the ladder be taking pictures of him with a 16 millimeter camera through the window. Television camera will also be recording his activities. Should difficulties arrive, my job is to rescue him. I then find myself becoming the active partner in charge of a very complex vehicle with a very complex job. Watch this saturday on American History tv on cspan3. This month marks the 50th anniversary of apollo 11, mans first landing on the moon and a new cspan ipsos poll shows theres still widespread interest in the event. Neil armstrong and buzz aldrin both continue to enjoy broad name recognition. Greater even than more recent famous astronauts like sally ride and mark kelly and nearly threequarters of americans say they either watched the event live on tv or saw footage of it later, but the poll also shows theres little interest to return to the moon. We spoke with florida today space reporter rac krrkrachael t the findings. Americans support nasa, overwhelmingly have a positive and favorable view of nasa but very few really think a return manned mission to the moon is a high priority. Does that number surprise you, only 8 of americans saying a manned moon mission should be a top priority . It feels like its surprisingly low especially on east of the apollo 11 anniversary especially considering that only months ago, you know, the Trump Administration charged nasa with returning to the moon within five years. So theres a lot of talk. You know, theres a lot of press, essentially, about this excitement and this new mission and yet, polls are still coming out showing, you know, very little in terms of support. What was interesting about the poll is that when they phrased the question in the presence of a competition, somewhat similar to what we had going on in the apollo era, it was really the space race between the United States and russia. When that is presented that way nows now as a space race between china or otherwise, support shoots up to 49 . So, you know, if that kind of thinking gets our competitive juices going then we sort of have that apolloera competition, spirit, happening but not right now. You can find all of the results at cspan. Org including the findings on americans attitude toward space force and the privatization of space exploration. Now more about economic and financial sanctions against north korea. This took place after President Trumps recent meeting with north Korean Leader kim jongun. Foreign policy experts look at conditions for removal of sancti