00:47:31 · Scott Kirby, John Collison
[00:47:31] S0: Yeah. [00:47:31] S1: So how should we feel about the last few decades of, you know, the actual airframe advances, where everyone likes to talk about, you know, the seven thirty seven first flew in 1967. It flew at Mach 0.78. Yeah. And the seven thirty seven Max today flies at Mach 0.78 ish. Yeah. Now, we... It does burn 50% So, less fuel, the latest that's like a significant improvement. It is 30 to 40 times safer. So, that's a significant improvement. But at the same time, people feel like, again, it's one of these examples people trot out of stasis. How do you feel about the rate of technological improvement It's in [00:48:11] S0: maddening that we haven't done more. In fact, this book, where is it? Impossible Factory. [00:48:20] S1: A skunkworks book. I want [00:48:21] S0: to read this. Yeah. [00:48:22] S1: Had not known there's a new [00:48:23] S0: skunkworks book. Clarence Kelly Johnson, you know, and developing, you know, the SR-seventy one, you know, the U-two, you know, in a couple of years from start to finish. I think the fundamental problem is Boeing and Airbus have a global duopoly and they have quietly, not officially agreed, but they have quietly agreed neither one of us will invest in new airframes. [00:48:43] S1: They're pacing the frontier. [00:48:44] S0: And if no one had, if you don't have an option, you know, like, we need a third aircraft manufacturer, to be blunt. [00:48:50] S1: Okay, so you think there's basically a breakdown of competition
00:48:50 · John Collison, Scott Kirby, Ben Thompson
[00:48:50] S1: Okay, so you think there's basically a breakdown of competition [00:48:53] S0: in the so neither one of them, their investors don't want to reinvest and so they just won't do it. I've been begging them to vote for twenty something years to build a seven fifty seven replacement. Begging them, and they just won't [00:49:03] S2: do it. I am on a seven fifty seven, but actually Chicago. I'm little nervous about it. Plane. The takeoff's amazing. A cool airplane. [00:49:09] S0: It's a cool airplane. [00:49:11] S1: Speed is obviously one thing and obviously you guys are working with Boom. But speed is also hard and it requires much Other more than speed, what improvements would you like to see? [00:49:21] S0: Well, a couple. The next generation, I think, of airframes you could build on the current airframes. I think the biggest thing is probably gonna be blended wing bodies. So, think of the B-two bomber. It's a much more efficient airframe for flying. And so turning that, we're an investor in a company called JetZero who's trying [00:49:40] S2: Is that an airport challenge though too? [00:49:42] S0: It's airport challenges. Yeah, it's bigger, so airport space. But that's really a gate challenge. You've to regate. Cool. I think that's an example of something. Engine technology, I think, can advance as well. Another cool thing, by the way, we're starting the relax road next, later this year or next year, which is in Coach, you can put three seats and a bed comes out and you can lay down on them. [00:50:03] S1: Oh yeah.
00:50:03 · John Collison, Scott Kirby, Ben Thompson
[00:50:03] S1: Oh yeah. [00:50:03] S0: But we have little United stuffies, airplane stuffies. And it's already got some for my kids. My kids love them, but that's another [00:50:10] S2: cool I mean, that an example of, like, basically a lot of the economic outcomes that you're looking for? I sort of pushed you on this with the premium question. [00:50:17] S0: Yeah. [00:50:18] S2: Is how can you take a large fixed capital product and basically deliver infinite numbers of strata of, like, pricing [00:50:26] S0: Yes and no. Like, I think of this as, I don't think of it that way. I think of we are trying to build a brand. We're trying to build a great brand. And something like Relaxer Oil, I think will be profitable but it's gonna not even be a rounding error in our financials. Right. But it's cool. Yeah, I just And it's good to do stuff that's cool. Good for families. Like I also, I said earlier, I have seven kids and I think of air travel through the lens of a parent traveling alone with a couple of young kids. How do we make it easy for them? If we can make it easy for them, we're going to make it great for everyone. And Relaxed Room is perfectly consistent with making it easy. Starlink is great for them, seatback entertainment. Like I love walking through our airplanes when we have, you know, with seatback entertainment and which a lot of airlines went away from. And you'll see kids watching and parents just totally relaxed because their kids are watching buoy. Like it just makes [00:51:20] S2: How pretty you now watch Cheeky Pint on there.
00:51:20 · Ben Thompson, John Collison, Scott Kirby
[00:51:20] S2: How pretty you now watch Cheeky Pint on there. [00:51:21] S1: You can now watch Cheeky Pint on the in flight entertainment. So, it's pretty cool. So, people are [00:51:26] S0: probably watching this. Maybe I'll watch this. [00:51:28] S1: Exactly. You can just pull it up. So, when you're saying like with things like RelaxRow, social media has almost changed airline marketing where there could be things that are maybe not the biggest from a ticket booking perspective, but if it gets people broadly excited about United, that is valuable. [00:51:46] S0: Yeah. And I do, I look at, we're trying to build a brand. You know, all the Starlink stuff that's happening, like, you know, I'm kind of feeding it. Kind of feel bad for Ed. Just kind of, you know, getting into a fight with him, but like, love it for us. Like, we were actually, we had a big push that was coming. Like, we were obviously I was going [00:52:04] S2: ask one, how'd you decide to run those ads, right? We were already prepared.
00:52:04 · Ben Thompson, Scott Kirby
[00:52:04] S2: ask one, how'd you decide to run those ads, right? We were already prepared. [00:52:07] S0: We were waiting to actually, we're going to cross the 50% threshold next Friday. And so we're waiting till then to sort of like, if we're going to really push that going, so we're going to do it anyway. But that was a moment to like, because our team is great. Maggie Schmarin, who's our VP, runs that, like it's awesome. And you know, did, and one of things, this is another advice to companies that she tells me is like she did it without, she didn't ask me, she knew she didn't ask me, like no approvals. She's awesome, I trust her. And that creates speed. Companies that, you know, most companies, especially big traditional companies, you know, have 16 layers of approvals. You can't do stuff fast or creative or fun or interesting because it just gets watered down. And she just went out and did it. Knew that she had support from everyone at the company to go do it and did it. You know, I was at a CVS board meeting because I'm on the board of CVS Health and started reading about like, well, this is pretty cool. And people were asking, actually, didn't read it. People were asking me like, this is cool. Like, oh, what do we do? Like, that's cool.
00:53:09 · John Collison, Scott Kirby, Ben Thompson
[00:53:09] S1: As we think about the airline business in The United States, you know, pre 1978, everything was very heavily regulated. Yeah. United flew on routes set by or approved by the government with fares set by the government. So I think people don't realize when they look at those old timey sixties photos of like, you know, someone coming along with a lobster cart and everything so brilliant. It's because at that time airlines could not compete on price and therefore competed on perks. And we're much better off these days when you actually have like a real market and real price competition. One of places where we have less of a free market in air travel is the slot system. Yeah. And there we have very limited number of slots in airports. I actually don't fully understand how slots are granted, but do we kind of have a breakdown of competition in certain airports because you have this, like, wacky slot system? [00:54:01] S0: Yeah, but I think it's sort of at the margins. What's bad for customers is scheduling more flights than an airport can handle. That's what's really bad [00:54:09] S2: for Well, that happen in Chicago though? [00:54:11] S0: It was, maybe it was gonna happen. It happened in Newark historically. And we finally got it effectively slot controlled in the airport. It's now the most Oh, [00:54:19] S1: we wanted slot controlled because it's bad for customers. [00:54:22] S0: It's horrible for customers. Like, I begged the FAA and we finally did it.