United Airlines CEO Quits Over Internal Probe of Airline's Relationship with Dave Samson

Not to worry. Chief Executive Jeff Smisek floated away with a golden parachute. However, that depends upon whether or not Smisek is convicted or if he pleads guilty to a felony.

Just think. The humble orange traffic cone -- through the ongoing connect-a-dot Bridgegate investigation -- ultimately took out a major airline's CEO and the Chairman of the PA of NY/NJ.

Stay tuned.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/united-ceo-quits-over-internal-probe-of-airline-s-relationship-with-port-authority-ex-chairman-1.1405658

Such a juicy story. Is it wrong that I'm smiling?

As a white collar lawyer with experience in exactly this area (not this case), the facts must be truly atrocious for the CEO and other senior management to resign like this. Highly unusual. And, mjh, not wrong at all.

Going to be interesting to learn if Smisek, et al., offered the flight to Samson to get a better deal or if Samson asked for it in exchange for giving United a better deal. Hopefully, this will also kill the PATH connection to EWR.

Maizy said:
As a white collar lawyer with experience in exactly this area (not this case), the facts must be truly atrocious for the CEO and other senior management to resign like this. Highly unusual. And, mjh, not wrong at all.

They did not "resign" they were fired with a bit of face saving. Which is not all that unusual. Clearly United, very dependent on dealings with government entities, wants to put this as much behind them as possible.

Plus Smisek's star has been falling for a long time as there has been one issue after another relating to the United Continental combination. The whole thing has been a mess since day one. So the board is unlikely to be sad to see him go.

The fact that they had an outsider to come in from day one rather than needing an interim head while searching for a permanent replacement suggests the board had been looking for a replacement for a while and that this was not a sudden or surprise event.

Maizy said:
As a white collar lawyer with experience in exactly this area (not this case), the facts must be truly atrocious for the CEO and other senior management to resign like this. Highly unusual. And, mjh, not wrong at all.

Yes, I noticed that the United spokesman did not sugarcoat this resignation at all.

There's a Bloomberg article with more leaks in it describing the specific incidents of what's being positioned as solicitation of a bribe. To me it reads more like a shakedown than anything else.

That said, it'll take open court to sort through it all since what is leaking is in essence the prosecutor's narrative- and I say prosecutor's narrative advisedly. There should be little doubt that indictments will come from this.

Whether those indictments are resolved through conviction or acquittal remains to be seen, but as Maizy implies (I think- sorry if I misread you Maizy) the likelihood is high that the resignation occurred ahead of an indictment and termination. Smisek leaves now with a parachute. That parachute will likely go away if he's criminally convicted, and certainly would have been held back were he fired subsequent to an indictment. Note as support the language United is using in addressing him. They're looking to distance themselves from him, and the only reason big enough to do so abruptly as they have is it's about to get ugly

How can anyone explain away the Newark-to-Columbia route?

GL2 said:
How can anyone explain away the Newark-to-Columbia route?

South Orange Avenue.

Steve said:

GL2 said:
How can anyone explain away the Newark-to-Columbia route?

South Orange Avenue.

"...Close to the same period when United Airlines was negotiating their 20-year, $150 million lease at Newark Liberty Airport, the Port Authority was also trying to entice the airline to begin running commercial flights to Atlantic City’s airport by offering to build a $1 billion commuter subway extension from lower Manhattan to Newark Liberty. On at least one occasion, August 23, 2013, Chris Christie and David Samson together met with United CEO Smisek to discuss this arrangement. Two months prior to that meeting, and two months after signing of the new lease at Newark, thirteen United executives donated a total of $31,500 toward Christie’s re-election effort. The donations all were made between June 5 and June 17, 2013; only two of the twelve contributors listed New Jersey residences. It was the only time that United management collectively donated to a New Jersey political campaign, and in that particular cycle they represented the single largest pool of contributions from a publicly traded company and the third-largest pool overall, trailing a medical group and state employees. Smisek and the two other United executives who resigned today were among those donors..."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/airline-chief-canned-as-probe-of-christie-crony-heats-up

Last week United rolled out a new reservation website. I am trying to put together an end of year vacation so I got the new site. It was not particularly great or cutting edge and already seemed dated, though not as dated as the old site that was inherited from Continental (and long used) but was a little better (except that it was annoying in that returned one way fares to make them look lower).

Anyway the site soon crashed. I went to do some more research today and see that they have now rolled back to the old site.

This is just symptomatic of the issues United has had and why I think that the board was planning a change independent of these legal issues. As I said before, you do not have an outsider ready to go if there is a sudden change. You need to name an interim and then start a search. United must have been out there searching.

Sorry, my bad, I said "resigned" but I meant "fired" -- but in many years in this business I've not seen anything like this.

Nothing to see here folks. There is no fire, or smoke, or anything else interesting.

It is purely coincidence, that NJ politicians & Big Business had lunch together. It has absolutely no connections to any other events, payments, or anything else.

GL2 said:
How can anyone explain away the Newark-to-Columbia route?

Because the Columbia, South Carolina stop is near Dave Samson's home in Aiken, SC. It's pictured here in the DM article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3226989/United-says-CEO-Jeff-Smisek-effective-immediately.html

I guess he won't be visiting his SC home too much for a few years

The timing couldn't have been any worse for Smisek and his two henchmen. The Justice dept apparently intends to go after individuals and not just after companies in corporate criminal cases.

nytimes.com: One More Hard-To-Believe Scheme from the Bridge Scandal State

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/nyregion/from-the-bridge-scandal-state-another-hard-to-believe-scheme.html

Flashback to a May, 2015 report written by Andrea Bernstein , of WNYC. Bernstein has done some of the most detailed, fly-on-the-wall, kick-a$$, reporting on Bridgegate, et al.

(The "gentleman" in the pic behind Dave Samson's left shoulder is Bill Baroni.)

http://www.wnyc.org/story/christies-other-port-authority-problem/

xavier67 said:
The timing couldn't have been any worse for Smisek and his two henchmen. The Justice dept apparently intends to go after individuals and not just after companies in corporate criminal cases.

Good, good, more good.

DottyParker said:
Flashback to a May, 2015 report written by Andrea Bernstein , of WNYC. Bernstein has done some of the most detailed, fly-on-the-wall, kick-a$$, reporting on Bridgegate, et al.

Yes, I've really appreciated WNYC for this coverage. She's really good.

Christie is a fraud

bramzzoinks said:
Last week United rolled out a new reservation website. I am trying to put together an end of year vacation so I got the new site. It was not particularly great or cutting edge and already seemed dated, though not as dated as the old site that was inherited from Continental (and long used) but was a little better (except that it was annoying in that returned one way fares to make them look lower).
Anyway the site soon crashed. I went to do some more research today and see that they have now rolled back to the old site.
This is just symptomatic of the issues United has had and why I think that the board was planning a change independent of these legal issues. As I said before, you do not have an outsider ready to go if there is a sudden change. You need to name an interim and then start a search. United must have been out there searching.

All organizations have succession plans. Boards require it.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/chris-christie-united-bridgegate

Don't read the papers, trust me. I hold people accountable: when they get caught I cut them loose.

Woot emergency succession plans do not include outsiders. Maybe an interim and a search but not an outsider set to go. There was a search, discussions and negotiations.

Is he done yet?

What a great campaign over the past few weeks:

Punch teachers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3L1AeyWP1A

Booed at a horse race:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuyDqLGwWTw

Laughing at transgender people:

http://www.advocate.com/politics/politicians/2015/08/13/chris-christie-laughs-about-veto-trans-birth-certificate-bill

Bullying a young girl at a Town Hall:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWn2k_SX7tc

And now this.

bramzzoinks said:
Woot emergency succession plans do not include outsiders. Maybe an interim and a search but not an outsider set to go. There was a search, discussions and negotiations.

The moment Uniteds BofD identified that they didn't have an internal successor they likely did an external search. It is less ideal, but not uncommon to have an external succession plan. It is one of the primary functions of a Board (succession). I will agree that the timing may have been managed.

They could have started the search as they caught wind of the Port Authority scandal. I'm sure they first learned of the potential problem a lot sooner than we did.

yahooyahoo said:
They could have started the search as they caught wind of the Port Authority scandal. I'm sure they first learned of the potential problem a lot sooner than we did.

It's not important to this story but publicly traded companies always have a succession plan (internal or external) regardless of scandal

Oscar Munoz has been on United's Board of Directors for years. How is he an outsider?

yahooyahoo said:
Oscar Munoz has been on United's Board of Directors for years. How is he an outsider?

There you go with your "facts" again.