United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby Details His Daily Routine

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Scott Kirby, the 59-year-old CEO of United Airlines, who is based in Dallas. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I went to the Air Force Academy, but I realized I couldn’t be a fighter pilot because I had an inner-ear issue that kept me from flying level with my eyes closed. Instead, I worked at the Pentagon and earned my graduate degree in operations research.

I wanted to do something in math, but I didn’t want to live in a big city — I’m a country boy — so I moved back to Texas and joined a technology subsidiary of American Airlines. I later moved to America West, beginning a career that eventually took me to American Airlines.

I came to United as president almost 10 years ago and became CEO in 2020. It’s been a fun ride. United is headquartered in Chicago, but I wanted to stay in Texas, where we’ve always lived, and my kids go to school.

I joke that the industry is never boring — occasionally I wish for boring — but it’s always stimulating. Here’s a day in my life.

5 a.m. — wake up without an alarm

I sleep eight and a half hours and wake up between 5 and 5:30 a.m. I don’t set an alarm. I can count on one hand the times in my life I’ve woken up to an alarm; it’s an awful experience.

6 a.m. — workout and read the newspapers

I have an apple or a banana, and then I start my workout. I have a rotation of four workouts: upper body weights, kettlebells, running, and core. Sometimes I have to skip it when I’m traveling. I also read emails, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times between sets.

My favorite place to think is when I’m hiking and running. I don’t listen to music — I think.

7 a.m. — breakfast with my kids

By the time I’m done working out, my kids are usually starting to get up. During the school year, I have breakfast with them, and I often take them to school.

We have a tradition I love, which is particularly embarrassing for my now-seventh-grader, with big hugs and kisses. Everyone thinks it’s hilarious, and he actually thinks it’s funny, too.

I usually have a business breakfast meeting once or twice a week. If I’m on my own, my go-to is First Watch for their omelets. All the staff know me.

8 a.m. — work begins, with no more than four hours of meetings a day

I’m home and starting work by about 8 a.m., though I’m available earlier when I need to be for international calls. When I’m in Texas, I work from home.

I have a guideline that’s pretty well enforced: no more than four hours of meetings a day, ideally around two to two and a half.

I’m allergic to the kind of meeting where people just go through slides. I only have one meeting a week where the first 45 minutes is that kind of review.

The executive team meets three times a week for one to two hours at a time. We all know what’s going on in each other’s groups because we spend so much time together. We’re not going through decks — we’re just talking.

12:30 p.m. — a five-minute lunch

I’m not a foodie; it’s just fuel for me. I eat very quickly. If I’m at home, I’ll DoorDash or eat something we already have in the fridge. I usually eat lunch in five minutes.

I also call people a lot. If I’m in the office, I go see them, and I have more meetings because we’re together. When I’m not, I’ll randomly call someone and talk about what’s going on, or about something that piqued my curiosity while reading.

2 p.m. — reading while walking

I read for about three hours a day. I’ve developed the habit of walking when I read. This will be the fourth year in a row I’ve averaged over 20,000 steps a day.

I probably read one and a half books a week. Science fiction is my favorite. I think reading is one of the best ways to understand the world. I feel like I have a better assessment of what’s happening, especially when crazy stuff happens.

When COVID-19 arrived in 2020, I was a week and a half ahead of the news, as two months earlier, I had read a book on the history of pandemics. I said to our team, “This is a pandemic, I don’t know why nobody else has figured it out yet.” We went off and raised $2 billion in unsecured financing two days before the NBA walked off the court. Two days later, it would’ve been impossible to get terms like that.

5 p.m. — hanging out with my kids

By the time the kids get home, I try to be ready to hang out with them. During the school year, I’m often shuttling them around to practices and other activities.

6 p.m. — dinner and hide-and-seek

We have dinner as a family, and we go to bed pretty early. I do a routine with them that lasts about 45 minutes. I say it’s putting them to bed; my wife would say all I do is rile them up.

The routine includes hide-and-seek and chase, and then we read at the end of it to try to wind down.

9 p.m. — time for bed

I like to get to bed early. I’m probably the least stressed person you’ve ever met. I think it surprises people that my schedule isn’t nearly as packed as they assume.

I think that’s a huge mistake people make. A lot of executives judge their self-worth by how busy their schedule is, but when you’re sitting in meetings, you’re rarely thinking. I’d say my job is not to work hard; it’s to think hard. I detest wasting time.

I average at least three flights a week

I’m usually away a couple of nights a week, so my routine often changes. I spend a lot of time in Chicago and in D.C. I take about five overseas trips in a normal year, and the rest is pretty random — New York, Boston, the West Coast, out to all of our hubs.

When I book ahead of time, I book first class, but my schedule changes and I need to be flexible, so I’m booking late a fair bit, and I wind up in coach because of that.

I like to fly other airlines to see what it’s like and test the technology. Mostly it’s about the convenience of the schedule — I live in Dallas, so I fly American and Southwest a fair bit.

Going down to Austin from Dallas, I’d have to connect through Houston on United. That’s just impractical. I’ve flown Delta several times in the last year, and I was on LATAM within Brazil last week.

I think AI is useful for things we can’t do, not for doing things that we already do

I have a different view of AI than most people. I think it’s going to be really powerful — but what everyone says they use it for, I think, is ridiculous. Instead of summarizing an email, why not read it? That’s mind-bogglingly wasteful to me.

Any time I’ve asked an AI tool about something I have expertise in, it’s almost always wrong. Nobody should trust AI answers, because all you get is all the crap from the internet. If you have bad input, you get bad output.

I don’t think there’s going to be a job apocalypse — the cost of tokens would have to come down by a factor of a thousand to make that economic. What it’s really powerful at is programming. One of my degrees is in computer science, so I know how to program. I hired an AI tutor and spent three hours in lessons. In the end, I could write programs for myself to do things I would never even have contemplated trying before.

We’re doing that in a big way at United — writing programs to do things that would’ve been impractical or impossible to do before AI.