United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said he still believes there is only room for two premium carriers in the US.
“Look at the big metro areas like New York where it’s hard to have a competitive advantage there,” Kirby said during JP Morgan’s Industrials Conference on March 11, 2025. “Here in New York, Delta’s bigger on one side of the river, we’re bigger on the other. We can both kind of be number one, but it’s hard to be number two. You just run out of big cities where you can be where you can be number two.
“You be really big in a place that’s not New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, but it’s hard to be kind of global and comprehensive if you can’t be number one in those cities.”
The comment reiterates his 2013 statement after the American Airlines and US Airways merger closed on December 9 that year.
Kirby added: “I still think there’s only room for two.” His comments implied that American did not fit into this premium carrier economy.
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom responded during the airline’s own presentation at the conference: “In this case, [Kirby’s] dead wrong. American has been around a long time and probably had a weaker hand going into the pandemic and we were certainly hamstrung on the way out… but we’re back at it.”
“Scott said this because he would like nothing better than to not have American as a competitor,” continued Isom. “I guarantee he doesn’t like us being a competitor in his backyard in some places. But to that end, we’re a premium product carrier.”
Isom maintained that the airline is “not going anywhere” and is continuing its recover. He added: “Anything you hear to contrary is just concern that we’re actually making a lot of progress.”