On this episode of our “Reinventing Customer Experience” podcast, ZS Principal Arun Shastri and Associate Principal Gopi Vikranth chat with Michelle Brown, vice president of digital products and analytics for United Airlines, about how digital and tech have evolved prior to and during the pandemic. They are also joined by ZS Principal Kajal Narasimha, who worked for United for nearly two decades.
On this episode of our “Reinventing Customer Experience” podcast, ZS Principal Arun Shastri and Associate Principal Gopi Vikranth chat with Michelle Brown, vice president of digital products and analytics for United Airlines, about how digital and tech have evolved prior to and during the pandemic. They are also joined by ZS Principal Kajal Narasimha, who worked for United for nearly two decades.
Gopi Vikranth:
Hello and welcome. This is Gopi Vikranth and I lead personalization and customer experience analytics at ZS.
Arun Shastri:
I’m Arun Shastri and I lead the artificial intelligence practice at ZS.
Gopi Vikranth:
We both work at ZS where we use our industry expertise, cutting edge analytics and technology to create real world solutions for our clients. In this Executive Series, we’ll be talking to leaders about how they’re re-imagining customer experiences at their organizations and the role personalization plays to drive customer loyalty. Arun and I are quite passionate about this topic as it is one that our clients often wrestle with and as consumers, we are constantly re-imagining how businesses can do a better job of engaging us.
Gopi Vikranth:
With us today is Michelle Brown. Michelle handles digital products and analytics at United Airlines. And United, is one of the largest airlines in the world. And it’s close to a hundred-year-old corporation with more than 90,000 employees and seven hub locations in the U.S. We also have Kajal Narasimha, Partner in Advanced Analytics at ZS. And prior to this role, she worked closely with Michelle at United.
Arun Shastri:
It’s a pleasure to talk to you Michelle. Michelle, for those of you who don’t know, has had an amazing journey at United and has worked across multiple roles, including operations, finance, and now digital. I’d love to, at some time, Michelle, talk to you a little bit about what it was like to manage Chicago, because I think that was, must have been a fairly challenging role. An interesting fact about Michelle, Crain’s Chicago, recognized Michelle as one of 40 under 40, and more recently, Global Business Travel Association recognized her as one of the top 50 women in travel. I can’t wait to hear from you Michelle. Welcome to the podcast.
Michelle Brown:
Well, thank you for that fantastic introduction. I’m also really excited to be here, so I appreciate Arun, you and Gopi, and being reunited with Kajal, we worked together at United. This is an exciting time for me.
Arun Shastri:
Michelle, can you tell me a little bit about your role as VP of Digital and Analytics at United Airlines? What is your remit?
Michelle Brown (United):
My remit is one of the best jobs, if not the best job at our company. It is my job all day long to obsess about the customer experience. I have the privilege of creating really exciting and engaging, personalized digital experiences for our customers. We support both commercial and kind of consumer facing applications. And we also think about, how can you integrate customer information and insights into our operational channels? And so, it is a lot of fun being in digital, working with data and creating all these interactive experiences.
Arun Shastri:
Michelle, how has your philosophy and approach to digital experiences? And then perhaps you can also reflect on United as a whole. How has your philosophy and approach to digital experiences and operations evolved over the last decade?
Michelle Brown (United):
Wow, that’s quite a question. If I think back, like 10 years ago, it was around the time I was joining United. I’ve been, on March 1st, was my 11th anniversary of United. I’ve been in the industry for about 20 years. But at United, 10 years ago, actually in, I started in the Loyalty Department. And at the time you were thinking about how do you use data to target offers? And the primary channel we were using was email. Not long after that, United and Continental were one of the first airlines to launch a mobile app, actually was Continental at the time and then soon after we merged, so it’s our consolidated industry app. And if I think about the evolution of that channel and the way in which we use data over the past decade, now being an industry leader and starting with the mobile app. So being the first in the industry to allow our customers to engage with us in this new channel, to check in for a flight, to book, a reservation seemed revolutionary.
And I think about it today, not only can you do those things, we were the first in the industry to give you contextual information. So what you saw on your homepage changed based on what we knew about you, if you’re looking to shop, or if you had an upcoming trip, it told you all the details. We have been the first in the industry most recently this year, as part as the time I’ve been on the team, we were the first to design an accessible mobile app.
Michelle Brown:
So imagine if you’re visually impaired, our mobile app works with screen readers and making things accessible really helps all customers. I mean, so it’s just exciting to think about the evolution over the past decade. Using the mobile app is one example, but I think about all the places now as an organization, as a company, we are tailoring experiences, not just on the app, also on United.com in the digital channels, again, that our agents use. So when a customer is interacting at the airport or calling our contact center, that kind of omnichannel, consistent information threaded across all those digital experiences, it has been kind of quite a ride and seeing how far we’ve come over the last decade, it makes me really excited for the work that we do.
Arun Shastri:
The pandemic has hit travel really hard. And if you look at worldwide travel today, it’s a fraction of what it was in 2019. And I’m sure you and United, have had to adapt. You have to pivot to safety and more. What role has digital and technology played in keeping customers and employees safe?
Michelle Brown:
Digital has been at the forefront of this. I’m proud to say, I think, or I know, I work with the best digital team in the business. Many of the ways in which our company has responded, how we pivoted have been enabled by digital technology. So when you think about keeping people safe, and safety is always at the forefront of everything that we do as an airline, but certainly in a COVID environment.
Immediately, we pivoted. How do you make our experiences touchless? So I think we were the first airline where you could have a contactless kiosk, where you didn’t have to touch the kiosk to check in. Where you could print out your mobile, print out your bag tag using digital, using your mobile app so that you didn’t have to touch anything to manage those transactions. We played it forward and now we have contactless payment on the plane. So, you’ve eliminated the need to swipe a credit card by allowing people to store their form of payments and the interaction between customer’s mobile device and the in-flight devices that our flight attendants use. Like digital has been a big part of keeping our customers safe, particularly, as we think about contactless.
Michelle Brown:
But another great innovation that we launched at the start of this year, is we realized just with the pandemic, the amount of information that customers needed to navigate was incredible. Regulations were changing in terms of, when you needed the test, what type of test needed to be? How many days before departure or how many hours before departure did your test results need to be valid? And we created what we call our Travel-Ready-Center. And it’s the perfect intersection of a really important and needed customer experience. Plus using the data and information that we have.
So imagine, you book a ticket, after you book your ticket, either if you go to United.com or on the mobile app, you get a link to what we call our Travel-Ready-Center, you click on it and it tells you everything that you need to do to be travel ready to go to the destination that you just purchased.
We’ve even taken a step further that says if a COVID test is required, some of our airports, you can test on location, you can schedule your appointment, integrated direct, no need to go to a third-party. All end-to-end kind of customer experience. Same thing, if you decided to get a test at a different location, we have given you the ability to upload your COVID test results. And we are working, it’s a really cool application of machine learning. Whereas, people are uploading their COVID documents. They take a picture of it. We’ve created models to read it, to tell you, yep, it meets the criteria or no, this isn’t what you need in order to go where you need to go. And it’s seamless, it takes seconds. People are able to do it before they get to the airport. It’s another thing just eliminating the stress, but another kind of really meaningful and important customer experience that’s digitally led but that happened as a result of the pandemic. But it’s a capability that when I think about travel, and as I think about, like even after the pandemic is over and things start to return to normal. This capability that we’ve enabled, has so many use cases and applications, but it’s an example of how we responded, given the situation that we were in.
Arun Shastri:
And I, as a United customer can vouch for that. I flew recently from New Delhi to Newark and I did use the Travel-Ready, and I found it to be a very informative, very functional. And as you said, it did put my mind at ease because I logged in and could upload the negative COVID test. I knew I was ready to travel and minimize the stress at the airport in New Delhi. So that was a thing, I can also see the advantages of that firsthand.
Michelle Brown:
I’m glad to hear it. Do you have any suggestions for, like new features or functionalities that you’d like to see us add to it?
Arun Shastri:
You know, no, I thought it did everything that was supposed to and more, so I really appreciated it. And I think that, what I find fascinating is that it really evolves, depending on where you’re going. And so it’s able to tell you exactly, and it is able give you links on where to go to find more information and so much more. And of course, if you go on the website, you have even more data on many of those things and more than even what’s on the app. So I find that to be very useful as a customer.
Michelle Brown:
Well, I’m glad to hear it. If your story helps emphasize, like we focus a lot on the team and listening to the customer. We do obsess over it. We’re always mining the data, understanding, like what are people saying in surveys? We watch to see how people interact with the products we launch. We create feedback loops with our contact centers where people are calling in for different things. And so I’m glad to hear that it met your expectations, but continually building on these capabilities. Staying, keeping the customer front and center is what drives what we do and how we think about it. So that’s a... Great.
Gopi Vikranth:
And Michelle, as we speak about the customer experience that you’re delivering, what does personalization mean at United? And what is the role your team plays in driving this?
Michelle Brown:
Personalization is such an important part of what we do at United. Personalization, is about, when customers come, they know that you know them, and that you get them, and that you’re meeting their needs. And that’s the place where we want to be. As I mentioned, our personalization journey probably started when we thought about like marketing offers. But we are now creating solutions that go to end-to-end where it’s very personalized, but it’s about your travel experience. It’s not, we’ve gone beyond the flight and thinking about, when you want to build a connection, when you are in the business of helping people experience travel, how can digital support that?
Michelle Brown:
But such a big part of our personalization journey is Kajal, your partner at ZS. Kajal and I, we worked together from my first day at United, and then we had the privilege of working together in our digital organization. And so much of what you see in market today was because of the great strategy and implementation that she initiated. She actually was the first person to build our personalization team, when we kind of carved it out as a discipline. So I’d love to let Kajal maybe talk a bit about how she thinks about personalization, the approach that she brought when she was starting this team and giving us that focus in the organization, because it laid, it has laid the foundation for what we do today.
Gopi Vikranth:
So Kajal, reflecting on some of your past experiences can you tell us a little bit more about the elements of this journey, what drove the success at United?
Kajal Narasimha:
Thanks, Gopi. And, Michelle, I couldn’t agree with you more on this being my best job at United Airlines. We realized when this group was forming that we had all those amazing insights that our customers had given us, both what they told us directly and what we thought through their behaviors on different channels. So one of the biggest tenets for the personalization team was to use these insights to create all these amazing products, services, experiences that would delight and cater to our customers. We also knew we wanted to focus on the entire customer journey from when they started thinking about travel to when they actually flew with us. And really getting into the rhythm of using those learnings every single time they traveled with us.
You know, one of the first ways we brought this to life was through hyperpersonalizing our offers. In the past, as you mentioned Michelle, offers for often constructed at a segment level and really were focused on the email channel. They often, these offers did not have actions or incentives that were tailored to your needs or served up to you in a way that you were able to consume them.
Kajal Narasimha:
You know, we all know from our own travel experiences that no two trips are alike, let alone the trips of two different customers. So what we really focused on was creating a strategy and a platform called My Play that allowed us to tailor to the needs and motivations of different individuals, and really reach them where they wanted to be reached, whether it was the mobile app or website or through email. So where previously maybe an item was sending out less than 100,000 different offer combinations, we were now sending out more than a million different offer combinations. And we got great feedback from our customers, great engagement on all of these offers. You know, and this thinking really wasn’t just limited to offers, but extended through everything we did. And, you know, how we thought about products, how we served up those products. You know, we saw a lot of our customers looking for ways to buy Economy Plus Wi-Fi, upgrade their seat when they traveled. So we looked for ways to make this easier for them and just reduce the effort for them to find these products and buy these products. We gave our customers tailored recommendations based on products that they might enjoy, flexibility to buy a la carte or as a bundled option. We introduce products across all of our channels so that customers could easily access this. I think you know what’s interesting is, over time, we became part of our customers journey with us in big and small ways, whether this was wishing them on their birthdays, anniversaries, serving up inspiration for them for where they could travel next. We really made it easier for them overall to interact with United. And I think what I’m really proud of is what really started off as small pilots, a lot of experiments is now really infused in every part of the customer journey and in every channel that United has.
Gopi Vikranth:
So, Kajal, just a double click into that journey. What are some, I mean, there have been some major hurdles that you had to cross to get there. Can you tell us, what are some of these hurdles that you had to overcome to get here?
Kajal Narasimha:
This question brings back some really great memories from a few years ago when we started down this path. You know, it seems rather silly to say it right now. But one of the first hurdles we had was really aligning on the definition of personalization for the organization. Did we mean the day of travel? Was it about flight attendants giving a personal touch to our customers? Was it about digital experiences? So really, we were thinking through more broadly, how could we influence the customer journey in a meaningful and differentiated way? I think the next big hurdle for us was really focusing our efforts. As an airline, you have so many different opportunities to influence the customer experience and to add value. But one of the questions we always asked ourselves was, where could we do this at scale? Where can we have some of the biggest impacts to improve the customer experience.
We also had a challenge around utilizing all the great insights we had on our customers. You know, as an airline, we’ve always had a lot of data. But our ability to use this in real time has always been very limited. So working with different parts of the company, we created a data and tech architecture that allowed us to react in real time, that allowed us to use all these great insights and all these things that our customers were telling us in everything that we did.
And, I think, last but not the least. And probably one of the most important things was creating an organizational culture around iterating quickly, testing, learning, learning to fail often. All of these systematic ways and efforts paid off over time. And I think they really ended up in us creating the seamless and valuable experience for our customers.
Gopi Vikranth:
When we look at all these experiences that United is delivering, I assume that there are a lot of partners and collaboration between airlines that is happening. As you look at the time during the pandemic, and as they emerge from the pandemic, and travel goes back to normal. Can you tell us a little bit on what are the different collaborations between airlines and other partners that are helping you guys to do this?
Michelle Brown:
Great question. I think our guiding principle is, as we think about digital and we think about partnerships, it’s how do you pull all that information together to make the experience really easy for our customers? How can we manage it such that you can do everything that you need to do in our channels without needing to bounce around or having an inconsistent experience? Few proof points of this are like in the pandemic, like a big partnership was with the government. United was one of the first companies, or first airlines to have a comprehensive contact tracing program. This was something that had been talked about. There was a need for it, but how the airlines would respond, it wasn’t defined. And we were able to lean in and find a solution, find a solution where customers can voluntarily give this information. But it was, again, integrated in the experience. It was part of the check-in path. We were really transparent in why we were collecting it and how would we use it. We found that people voluntarily provided it. And so we were able to kind of give that back through that partnership with the CDC, it just worked in a really powerful way. And I think that is, that’s the guiding principle.
Michelle Brown:
So much of what we’ve done. The example I shared around COVID testing—we knew getting tested, well, that’s a requirement. Governments and countries everywhere or local municipalities are requiring you have to have testing in order to travel. And so we needed to stand in the gap. How do you help people figure out that part?
And so, not just telling you that you need to get a test, and not just telling you where you can go to get it, but taking it all the way to say, here are the places that you can go to get a test, here’s how you can schedule it and you can do all of that in the United mobile app or on United.com as part of your travel experience, is just how we’re thinking about, with all of our partnerships, how do you integrate it so that it is thoughtful, end-to-end, in that customer experience.
Gopi Vikranth:
And Michelle beyond the aspects that you’re dealing with the customer, what are some other areas where digital is playing a major role at United? Are there other divisions, other aspects where you’re able to drive some of this transformation?
Michelle Brown:
Well, certainly, I’m speaking on behalf of a broad digital team, but there are nice intersections of, like the things that we do for the customer, how it plays out in other parts of our business. And often in ways that customers may not understand or expect from us—which, when people don’t expect it that’s what makes me enjoy it more, is when we’re able to deliver in a way that isn’t what people are expecting, but it certainly delights them.
Digital and data is playing a role in, I think, in every part of our business, but a few kind of salient examples that are unconventional. Have you ever had the experience where you’re on a connecting flight and, or planning to connect your, say your inbound flight isn’t arriving on time and so you’re nervous, you’re not sure, am I going to make it?
An experience that we launched last year that we continue to iterate on, is this idea of ConnectionSaver. And being able to commute—and ConnectionSaver, what it does is as we build our schedule, things are designed to leave and arrive as we intend them to, but things happen, weather happens, life happens, sometimes it gets off track. But when things get off track, can you still stay on track? You know, we’d probably all have had an experience where your flight was scheduled to land at 1:30, but you actually landed at 1:20. So you got there 10 minutes earlier than we were planning. And so what we did with ConnectionSaver will say, how can we use the data if there’s an inbound flight that is running late, but we know we can hold their next flight and it won’t impact that flight actually arriving on time. We should do that, and we should make it really easy.
Michelle Brown:
This is data that we have access to. We have technology, like we have the technology, both with our employees. All the people work in the flight have the tools that they use to know when they need to do their activities and when flights are supposed to go. Our customers have technology. They use the mobile app, they use United.com. They can use Wi-Fi on the plane to stay connected. How do we use these channels? How do we use these capabilities to deliver a really great customer experience? And so ConnectionSaver was that. You might, if ever you’re flying and you get a text that says, you’re, that gives you context about your connection and gives you a map to where you need to go for your next gate. That’s digital technology at play. We were using the information that we had. We’re using the data that we have. We’re using the channels that we have to create a really great customer experience.
The same thing happens in our employee channel. So for those flights that are ConnectionSaver flights, from the gate agent, who’s working it, to the station ops person, who’s responsible for coordinating the operation. They all know, OK, you can hold this plane for a few minutes, it’s not going to impact that plane arriving more late to their destination. But you have enabled people to make their connection. And so that’s a neat use case that people don’t always expect from us. You might have experienced parts of it but may not have realized that with digital technology in the background. Other things that we’ve done in the operation, or the coordination of the operational experience with the travel experience, is giving people access transparently to information.
Michelle Brown:
A loved feature in the mobile app was this fun feature that says, where’s my flight coming from? The next iteration of that has been, how’s my flight tracking? So now you know your plane’s on the ground, but there are a lot of things that have to happen while your plane’s on the ground before you can board. And so we help people understand. Is your plane on the ground? Is it now being cleaned? Is it done with fueling? When will boarding start? You may have experienced, you’ve gotten a text message that says, boarding has now begun.
That is, again, another application of our operational data, digital technology, both the employee-facing channels and our customer-facing channels to create a great customer experience. But quite frankly, it also helps us in just running the airline more efficiently because now, all parts of our team have access to this information, which is required to get people on the plane and get the planes out on time.
Arun Shastri:
Michelle, as more and more companies are rethinking work from home, rethinking business models and structured around work from home. What do you see as the future of travel? And from United’s perspective, how are you preparing for this changed environment?
Michelle Brown:
I think the future for travel is great. And you might say like, how on earth is she thinking this? We have a few signs that say people are ready to go. So if I think about the amount of capacity we’ve added just for the month of April alone, we have 54% more capacity than we did last year—our booking volumes. So people were searching for tickets and people are purchasing tickets, are particularly for like their summer travel, is up beyond what we would have expected. And so those two things tell me, there’s this pent-up demand. Now, where people go is going to look a little bit different. The types of customer, the types of trips people are booking, you know, like pre-pandemic, there were probably, well, there were people who traveled for vacation and there are people who traveled for business.
I think the nature of the trips is changing, but a way in which we are responding because we know there’s still demand for travel. Like there is, I believe that in my core, there’s pent-up demand and we’re starting to see the data just showing that like, people are searching, people are booking, they’re ready to go. But it’s new places. And so digitally, we’re responding by, a trend we saw was, there was increased excitement for national parks or beaches, like places where you could be outside and socially distance. So what did we do? We started to create a customized landing pages where customers could find one, what the airport code is for these great national parks that they want to travel to, because that’s not always intuitive, and then find the prices so that you don’t have to do a search for every location. You put it on a page to make it really easy—we’ve done the same thing with Latin beaches. Like for the places we know people want to go, which might be a little bit different. How do you serve up that information?
Michelle Brown:
We’ve also introduced new ways to shop. So if you go to United.com, you can still enter your origin and your destination and your dates. Or you can scroll down a little bit and there’s a map. There’s a map that has price points on it.
So just visually, you can to see, okay, for geographically where I might want to go, here’s some sample prices. Well, we did one better. We put filters that say, if you want to just see beach destinations on the map, if you just want to see park destinations on the map, if you want to see ski destinations on the map, you can filter by that criteria and it will show you prices for those locations. So you don’t have to know where you want to go, if you will. You just have to know what the experience is that you want. And we we’re finding new ways to make that shopping experience easier, so that we can respond to the new way or the new needs. The need of the traveler is different. The reason for their travel is different. And so how can we use digital to respond to that need?
Arun Shastri:
Michelle? I, for one, I’m raring to go,
Michelle Brown:
Good!
Arun Shastri:
See clients, and build new relationships and establish and solidify old ones of course, and see loved ones too. So I definitely second that thought.
Michelle Brown (United):
Great. Well, we can’t wait to have you. And I, so get out your mobile app and book today.
Gopi Vikranth:
So Michelle, if I look at the different themes that came across during our conversation today, there are a few that stick, one is around seamless experience and how do you make travel safe and contactless as we emerge from the pandemic. And there are some lessons from the pandemic, which will continue to make the travel experience better. There are a lot of personalized products and offers that United is now customizing and giving to individual customers and the experiences that they’re looking for.
Gopi Vikranth:
Your example on integration between data and operations to bring more transparency on how the flight operations are working, which kind of implicitly enhances the customer experience. That’s a great thing that’s coming in. And lastly, it looks like, there was a lot of pent-up demand and travelers going to come back, roaring to new destinations and new travel types that are emerging in the consumer’s mind. And you guys are all prepared to serve that. Did I get that all? Did I miss something there?
Michelle Brown:
You recapped it beautifully.
Arun Shastri:
Michelle flash forward a little bit and imagine the travel industry a few years from now. What are some predictions that you have about customer experience and personalization and the next generation of travel?
Michelle Brown:
Okay. So if I make a prediction, you have to make a commitment that five years from now, we get to do this again to see if I was right or not. OK?
Arun Shastri:
Absolutely.
Michelle Brown:
Okay. It’s a fun question because I love this business. I love travel. I love working in digital, but it’s also a hard question. Who knows, the world has changed so much in the last year. It’s hard to predict what it looks like in five. But if I had to guess, and I’m going to build on some of the recap that we just mentioned, based on just how I’ve been talking or, in our conversation today. I do think in the future, you’re going to see more of this end-to-end integration of the experience.
For United, we talk about it. We’re not selling flights. We’re selling travel. We’re selling an experience. And so people want that experience. What I want people to feel after they take a United flight, is it invokes a great memory. People today have a good memory of the destination, when you got to national park, you remember that trip. What we want to do is create digital experiences, such that, like even your process of flying with United was an important part of that memory. And to do that, I think it’s, how do you make that whole experience more integrated? I can imagine a world where today we sell hotels, we sell rental cars. You can buy them through our site, but you know, today, you’re not able to get your hotel mobile key, that’s integrated with your United reservation, or are you able to get your rental car key? Assuming you could access a car without a physical key in the application, making your dinner reservations, managing your vaccine records so that when you’re moving across the world and as borders are opening, that’s one less thing you have to carry.
It could also be a digital ID. And those are things that as being at United, I expect, we will be, we will continue the journey that we’ve started and just being like more end-to-end in what people need to have a really great travel experience beyond the flight.
Michelle Brown:
The next prediction is everything. Everything is going to be personalized. Again, we’ve scratched the surface and I think we’ve scratched it in an incredible way with the Travel-Ready-Center. Like all that content that we’ve now personalized was content that existed on United.com. It just wasn’t organized in a way that made it the easiest to navigate. Despite our best efforts for how we placed it. But when you started to curate it and make it very specific, based on who you are, you are and where you’re going and what you needed to do, it unlocks so much potential.
And I think there, I know, my prediction is there will continue to be just this incredible use of data and information. I think, I would also expect companies like United, we’ve done a lot to build the trust of our customers. When I mentioned working with the CDC and being the first contact tracing, and you’re like, that’s information, it takes setting an expectation with customers for how you’re going to use it, building trust that you’ll keep it safe. And those are things that are at the forefront.
And so I expect that as you see more personalized experiences in everything, like everything you do, being more tailored to what we expect you to need. We’ll also get into new territory around how do you manage data? What are the rules around it? How do you think about privacy? Which I’m excited, like we’re starting that journey, but I—my prediction of the future is we continue on that spectrum.
Michelle Brown:
And then the third is, I expect this industry to continue to change and evolve. So earlier this year, United announced a partnership with Archer. Archer does electric helicopters, right? Who would have expected this marriage between a legacy airline and an innovation like electric air transportation? And I expect more of that. And I expect United to certainly be at the forefront. We have stated our mission around being a leader when it comes to sustainability. How do we create a carbon neutral footprint? That’s our aspiration, our 50% reduction in our carbon emissions by 2050. To do that, you have to find new ways to sequester carbon and new ways of how we innovate in our business. So we’ll do more with sustainable fuels, but I think, by five years from now, Archer is flying, right?
And maybe you’ve taken the helicopter to get to the main airport to go where you’re going to go. I don’t know what that looks like. Or maybe it opens up new destinations that wouldn’t have made sense with our traditional fleet footprint, but it enables us to allow people to see the world in a more sustainable way. And so I’d expect five years from now, Archer is one of many partnerships that we have underway. And one of many ways in which we have, we are, like travel was just different, and different in that it is more sustainable. So that’s, that’s my prediction. You know, what year is it? 2026?
Arun Shastri:
Fantastic. I’ll take you up on it, Michelle.
Michelle Brown:
OK.
Arun Shastri:
Michelle, GBTA recognized you as one of the top 50 women in travel. And this year, the theme for International Women’s Day was, Choose to Challenge. I wonder, did you have a Choose to Challenge this year that you’d like to share with the audience?
Michelle Brown:
What a beautiful question. One, I, continue to be honored that GBTA considered me for that award. The company that I was in was like such an impressive group of women. I did have a Choose to Challenge. I didn’t, I didn’t post it. You saw people posting it on LinkedIn and social media. But when I thought about it, personally, and I did take the picture, I just didn’t post it. I choose to challenge what people expect. And when I say that, like me, as a woman, as a Black woman in technology, digital technology, that’s not always what people expect. And so I choose to challenge like the conventional notions of what people think is possible and what is expected.
Michelle Brown:
I’m so proud. Kajal who was on the call or participated in the podcast, the team that she assembled there are, she created an incredible opportunity for women to lead. She created a new team, a new, when we, we did personalization, but we hadn’t formalized and had to put the resources behind it. And she did that. And many of the people who are driving this forward are incredible women in our organization. And I just choose to challenge the places where people expect us to be represented.
My challenge is, I am proud of what I’ve accomplished. I’m proud of the legacy that Kajal created. I am proud of what we have at United, and I hope to continue it and pay it forward. I want more particularly women, Black women, underrepresented minorities, to know that you can be a leader. Digital technology, customer experiences using data is a place where you can make a contribution. And I hope that if people, if me being in my role is an inspiration, or plants a seed to somebody for what’s possible. I hope we see like a long line of women who are working in roles such as these. And it helps to change perspective where people aren’t surprised to see me on a podcast, it’s what’s expected. And so I just choose to challenge the norms of what people expect and to show them, like leadership comes in many ways and in many forms.
Arun Shastri:
Michelle, your energy is infectious and absolutely enjoyed talking to you. And I, as a customer, I can tell you that your digital efforts really increased transparency, that transparency builds trust. And so, good luck to you and to United. And thank you so much for participating in our podcast.
Michelle Brown (United):
Thank you for having me. This is incredible. So what a thought leadership series, and again, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk a little bit about the United journey and I look forward to keeping this conversation going. So thanks again.
Gopi Vikranth:
Thank you, Michelle. And look forward to the flying car stuff.
Michelle Brown:
Can’t wait, I’m going to be looking for all your reservations, so book a ticket.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai