United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby seems to be countering the talking points in the rest of the industry, and is coming out strongly in favor of President Trump’s tariff policies. Is he being sincere, though?
In this post:
United CEO says tariffs good for middle class
Today (Thursday, April 24, 2025), Scott Kirby spoke at Semafor’s 2025 World Economy Summit in Washington DC, and of course he was asked about tariffs. So, what was his response? He stated that “we should all take a breath,” and that “we’ve been through periods where people are unhappy before.”
Kirby described Trump’s recent tariff increases as “the first move in a chess game,” with “a lot of moves left to come.” Kirby argued that “the president has a genuine desire to make things better for middle-class Americans, to create good careers,” and believes tariffs are aimed at middle-class job creation.
He also said that consumers appear to have not cut back on travel spending for the summer, so therefore they haven’t been directly impacted by the trade turmoil — “they don’t actually feel anything in their current paycheck.”
You can see his nearly two minutes of comments below.
Is Kirby playing his own Trump chess game?
No matter how you slice it, instability is bad for the airline industry. Yes, as of now airlines might not be feeling much pain, but as prices for consumers go up in the coming weeks as a result of tariffs (given the delays with imports hitting shelves), more people will at least experience short term financial pain.
So one wonders… does Kirby truly believe what he’s saying, and if so, does he believe that in the context of his role as the CEO of a major, global airline, that’s reliant on a global economy? And if so, what’s his motive? I mean, United has announced it’s reducing capacity later this year due to uncertainty, and has even issued updated guidance based on the assumption that there’s a recession, which doesn’t exactly seem like a business that’s not suffering in any way.
For example, we recently saw Delta CEO Ed Bastian say that Trump’s tariff policy was “the wrong approach,” even if an updated tariff policy wasn’t a bad idea in the long run.
Heck, it’s very interesting how Kirby phrases his statement, in a way that says absolutely nothing negative about the potential impact of tariffs. In the interview, he said, “whether you think it’s the right tactic or not, it’s easy to argue… the tactics,” and he kind of pauses for a moment, as if he was about to acknowledge that maybe the tactics are wrong, but didn’t want to say that.
So all of this brings me to my genuine belief, and ya’ll are free to call me a conspiracy theorist. Kirby is a really bright guy. He’s also without a doubt the most ambitious guy in the US airline industry, and he’s obsessed with bringing “his” airline into the number one spot.
Is it crazy to think that Kirby is just being a good businessman here, and saying what he thinks Trump wants to hear? I mean, we all know that Trump likes people who like him, and it just feels like Kirby is trying to capitalize on that. Just as Kirby points out Trump’s chess game, I think Kirby has his own chess game.
For Kirby, the missing piece of the puzzle for United’s dominance is a return to New York JFK, and the key to being able to accomplish this is to acquire JetBlue. Of course the challenge is getting regulatory approval, without too many concessions.
So I certainly could be wrong, but I’m going to go ahed and assume Kirby is just being strategic here, and is saying what what will position him best for that.
Bottom line
United CEO Scott Kirby is continuing to show strong support for President Trump’s tariff policy, claiming that people need to “take a breath,” and that Trump is doing this all to make life better for middle class Americans. As the CEO of a major airline, instability isn’t good, no matter how you slice it. And Kirby is alone among airline CEOs in being so overwhelmingly positive about the tariff situation.
So, what do y’all think — is Kirby just sharing his sincere beliefs, or is he being strategic, with a bigger goal in mind?
Fly UA, don't fly UA. Whatever. I'm flying the airline that provides me the desired schedule at the best price, and it's often UA. Now if you anti UAers want to donate the cost difference to me to fly AA, please let me know.
I come to this blog to learn about civil aviation …. all I’m getting is U.S. politics and economics on every subject.
Can we please get back to actual aviation topics?
Maybe write Kirby and ask him to stop peddling political BS
@Aero
Ok, Ostrich with head in the sand.
Of course he's not sincere but that's not reserved for just this issue. He's always been a phony, when he would bend over and grab the ankles for his boss at American airlines and then once he left AA he would do the opposite of everything that he previously championed. Or there's the fact that he bails out of a snowstorm in a private jet while leaving his customers to fend for themselves. He's just...
Of course he's not sincere but that's not reserved for just this issue. He's always been a phony, when he would bend over and grab the ankles for his boss at American airlines and then once he left AA he would do the opposite of everything that he previously championed. Or there's the fact that he bails out of a snowstorm in a private jet while leaving his customers to fend for themselves. He's just a charlatan looking to pad as much of his bank account as possible for family generational wealth and everything else about him is as fake as the day is long. Nothing unique about this issue. Doesn't matter who's president or what the issue is. If a chameleon and a rat had a baby that would be him. And he's welcome to have his private lawyers sue me for these statements. Bring it Scott.
I don't fly United and knowing the CEO supports Trump means they won't have my business.
When virtually every economist -- conservative or liberal -- is opposed to tariffs, it's hard to characterize a pro-tariff position as anything other than sucking up. I will not fly United.
This article really mischaracterizes what Kirby says. He doesn't express strong support for tariffs, and he doesn't say that they're going to help the middle class. What he says is that he believes the president's motivation to help the middle class through the use of tariffs is sincere. He also says that we're not at the end of the process, and implies that the tariffs are a negotiating position, which is what most of the...
This article really mischaracterizes what Kirby says. He doesn't express strong support for tariffs, and he doesn't say that they're going to help the middle class. What he says is that he believes the president's motivation to help the middle class through the use of tariffs is sincere. He also says that we're not at the end of the process, and implies that the tariffs are a negotiating position, which is what most of the business and political community is hoping.
Now personally I think the tariffs are dumb, and I bet Kirby thinks that too. But while he's careful not to say that, he also doesn't express vocal support for them. There's a lot more nuance in his statement than advertised here.
@SEM for the winning comment of the week! We came for aviation, we got served politics. Every. Day. Almost makes me miss those annoying credit card plugs. Almost.
Mostly strategic but a tiny bit sincere, that's my take.
Some countries are tough negotiators and hinder US imports. The US has a disadvantage in that nobody plays the long game. It is just the 2-4 year game. Some of what Trump says is hot air, but some has merit. However, he has no long game that he can sustain.
The US has a trade SURPLUS with Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain. Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain are lumped in with the EU and are subject to the EU tariff. What the (heck)? The US has a trade SURPLUS with the UK. It is subject to tariffs. It is f-ing stupid.
It's about time someone sees the bigger game here. I'm even more of a fan of Kirby now. I think he is being genuine - time will tell, of course, and if he and I and Trump are wrong everything really will be ok and it can all be undone in a few years and it'll all be ok. But given the chance it could work, and the desperate need for something to change if this country wants to survive another century or two, i'm all for trying it.
You are naive. It can't just be unwound. Economists will tell you that there will be structural shifts that will have permanent effects. Then, there is the damage from changes that are internal to the US.
Strategic. He's too smart to actually support these brain-dead policies.
Very worrisome for United shareholders.
You never ever show weakness and subservience to a bully, as you will be forever known as the one you can reliably steamroll. What Kirby just did is telegraph to Trump that he will be the scapegoat and punch bag for Trump. That never ends well (see Rudy Giuliani, Mike Lindell, various Fox News hosts sued by Dominion, etc.)
And United shareholders will be the one to pay for Kirby's strategic mistake of epic proportions.
Just pleasing the guys in power. Don't forget a few years ago UA was pushing very hard to require covid vaccines and promote DEI, pronouns, etc. to please the Biden admin.
Of course you have to politicize medicine and business.
Not employing a workforce known to run up health care bills to the sky (and to have an extremely high risk of quitting due to death) because they're unvaccinated was a business decision first. And a very solid one; the financial returns of such a decision were enormous and the CEO should have been fired if they decided the expensive route of keeping unvaccinated ones.
I mean, anyone can take a factual, non-political look at what the tariffs do to prices and the only valid conclusion is that it hurts the middle class. Can tariffs be useful? Sure. Will they do anything but hurt the US if Trump implements them the same way he tried to the first time? Nope.
But Trump's a petty, vindictive piece of crap and Kirby thinks it makes business sense for him to kowtow.
I don’t disagree, at all…Just keep in mind, policy having a negative effect on the middle class is a slippery slope to base anything on…
Mainly because many Economists (Left and Right of the Aisle) agree that raising taxes ultimately falls on the shoulders of the Middle Class, no one else…All to often though, that is the battle cry from Washington to punish the 1% …
Policy having a negative effect on the not-upper/donor classes has been the M.O. of the GOP since St Ronald of Reagan dumped that "trickle-down" nonsense on us.
Tariffs in particular fall harder on lower-income people, same as sales taxes. Rich people won't care that their next luxury designer couture goodie costs an extra $1,000. Corporate America decided that shareholders were more important than employees and customers and moved all production to China, so let's...
Policy having a negative effect on the not-upper/donor classes has been the M.O. of the GOP since St Ronald of Reagan dumped that "trickle-down" nonsense on us.
Tariffs in particular fall harder on lower-income people, same as sales taxes. Rich people won't care that their next luxury designer couture goodie costs an extra $1,000. Corporate America decided that shareholders were more important than employees and customers and moved all production to China, so let's just keep punching down harder and harder.
@SEM
I think you're oversimplifying that. Blanket tariffs do ultimately fall on the middle class because they raise the price floor for finished goods regardless of where they're made, and increase the cost of inputs for things already made domestically. This is bad policy, pure and simple, since it's a regressive tax that affects the poor, working, and middle class far more than it does the rich. On the flip side, you can implement...
@SEM
I think you're oversimplifying that. Blanket tariffs do ultimately fall on the middle class because they raise the price floor for finished goods regardless of where they're made, and increase the cost of inputs for things already made domestically. This is bad policy, pure and simple, since it's a regressive tax that affects the poor, working, and middle class far more than it does the rich. On the flip side, you can implement taxes on stock and securities that would be primarily paid by the filthy rich plutocrats and upper middle class. You could also go back to taxing corporations' incomes, which have gone from 20-30% of the total government tax revenue bye to just 10% while individual income tax makes up about 50% of government tax revenue.
Harris' campaign actually did propose to increase the top long-term capital gains tax at the highest income bracket, taxing individuals with a net worth over $100 million with a minimum 25% rate on their annual income including unrealized capital gains, and taxing unrealized gains over $5 million passed on to heirs. She also proposed raising the corporate tax rate, among other things. Details are here:
https://itep.org/a-distributional-analysis-of-kamala-harris-tax-plan/
These are increases that would have fallen squarely on the wealthiest people in our society, people who want for nothing and would still live better than all of their peers had these policies been enacted.
I love how you say this and took a political stance. The irony is the left historically has not been for free trade. If you want a non political stance it’s simple. Prices will go up….but long term more jobs will be created. They are literally designed to protect jobs….like the insane tariff Canada has against American dairy (which existed way before Trump).
The Canadian tariffs on American dairy only kick in after a certain amount of product is exported to Canada. US producers have never exceeded that threshold and no tariffs therefore have actually been paid. the information you get from Fox is the "amount" of the tariff, if applied. It has not been applied.
For the record I am not saying that Trumps approach to tariffs makes sense. I mean Bernie Sanders supports selective tariffs to protect jobs. You’re actually proving my point on the tariffs. It protects Canadian dairy by not allowing too much dairy to flow into Canada. If it did not exist Canadian dairy farmers would face mass important of cheaper American diary thus hurting their business.
@Charles S, as @DenB clearly explained, the Canadian tariff on US dairy has NEVER been applied. Therefore, no Canadian dairy has been protected. Your claim is factually wrong.
There's a big mistake in this assertion: the US is at full employment (or at least was, until Trump's taking power).
Quite literally no new jobs can be created, so all anyone can do is shift type of jobs, in this case with more people employed screwing tiny screws and less doing other type of work.
Not the future I want for my kids. I'd rather see them have a wider option of jobs better...
There's a big mistake in this assertion: the US is at full employment (or at least was, until Trump's taking power).
Quite literally no new jobs can be created, so all anyone can do is shift type of jobs, in this case with more people employed screwing tiny screws and less doing other type of work.
Not the future I want for my kids. I'd rather see them have a wider option of jobs better than factory work, just like my great granddad (a worker on the fields, like 40% of his generation) hoped for a better job for my granddad (who escaped manual field labor with an office job). But he was lucky that there were no tariffs to protect agriculture jobs at the time, otherwise my grandfather, and maybe even myself, would be working on the fields all day long.
Also a gross simplification. Quality of jobs matters too…manufacturing jobs pay better. If Apple produces products in the US vs China prices would be higher but higher paying jobs would be available in the US. The whole point I am making is that all of these anti-trumpers in this blog are sound like staunch conservatives. It’s hilarious to me. Open trade allowing cheap products into the US at the expense of jobs is a Regan principle (he campaigned on it).
@Charles S
Not necessarily. Putting screws in an iPhone doesn't necessarily need education nor would it be a high paying job. Building semiconductors to put in an iPhone on the other hand would. Trump and the MAGAts are dreaming about "bringing back manufacturing" but don't seem to have realized that the US already is the 2nd largest manufacturing exporter in terms of value. This is because today we pretty much only do high end...
@Charles S
Not necessarily. Putting screws in an iPhone doesn't necessarily need education nor would it be a high paying job. Building semiconductors to put in an iPhone on the other hand would. Trump and the MAGAts are dreaming about "bringing back manufacturing" but don't seem to have realized that the US already is the 2nd largest manufacturing exporter in terms of value. This is because today we pretty much only do high end manufacturing. Cars, airplanes, jet engines, heavy machinery like tractors/earthmovers, home appliances, etc. etc. These are all well paid jobs that require skilled and educated workers, and Americans are happy to work those jobs. What Americans don't want is to be making the screws and bolts that go into those finished products for minimum wage.
Long time UA loyalist and OMAAT reader here, always supportive of anything “the Tulip” can do …TBH, I didn’t even read this article…
OMAAT is hands down my favorite points/travel site…I start my day off with it every morning…Increasingly however I am having to skip these very much politically driven/toned headlines …I am not defending our current administration or asking anyone to support something they don’t believe in…I 100% believe that we have conservatives and...
Long time UA loyalist and OMAAT reader here, always supportive of anything “the Tulip” can do …TBH, I didn’t even read this article…
OMAAT is hands down my favorite points/travel site…I start my day off with it every morning…Increasingly however I am having to skip these very much politically driven/toned headlines …I am not defending our current administration or asking anyone to support something they don’t believe in…I 100% believe that we have conservatives and liberals who come here to read about miles/points/amazing trips that the average person never gets to take…A return to the focus on that would me very much appreciated…
Unfortunately, given the outrageous amount of comments that I see as I pass these articles by, I highly doubt that will happen…Comments = Clicks = “Benjamins” …
welcome to the new reality, friend! turns out the bull in the china shop doesn't spare the travel industry from the havoc, and we're all gonna have to read a lot about it given the gargantuan implications for this industry and every other one, them's the breaks
Such a sensitive snowflake
Why is anyone surprised an airline that constantly rapes and pillages its customers (e.g. through unannounced MileagePlus devaluations), supports the Orange Man President that loves to rape and pillage his country?
Vichy Kirby! lol when you're getting lapped by Bastian on public policy, it's time to take a good hard look in the mirror...
Oh please United should not get JetBlue that would create one of the biggest unfair advantages in history. So they are allowed to not only have Newark but absorb all of JetBlue’s flying out of JFK? Making them easily the largest in New York which should not be allowed especially since United gave away slots in JFK.
He’s clearly kissing Trumps butt for a reason but rumor has it Kirby is one of the...
Oh please United should not get JetBlue that would create one of the biggest unfair advantages in history. So they are allowed to not only have Newark but absorb all of JetBlue’s flying out of JFK? Making them easily the largest in New York which should not be allowed especially since United gave away slots in JFK.
He’s clearly kissing Trumps butt for a reason but rumor has it Kirby is one of the biggest jerks you will ever meet. I don’t think United will be number one once they actually pay their employees the rates that Delta and AA are paying.
It's suckholing to the Mad Orange God-King, pure and simple; a pitifully slavish gesture of servility. Pathetic.
To be honest, while I can observe reality and acknowledge UA's rapid expansion and improvements. I am rooting for AA and others to make a comeback.
We generally need more competition and quality within the US airline industry. I've long appreciated AA's partner redemption program and JetBlue's mileage program is actually trending in the right way with adding high value partners like JAL.
Kirby is clearly playing 5D chess, as all corporations ultimately do when...
To be honest, while I can observe reality and acknowledge UA's rapid expansion and improvements. I am rooting for AA and others to make a comeback.
We generally need more competition and quality within the US airline industry. I've long appreciated AA's partner redemption program and JetBlue's mileage program is actually trending in the right way with adding high value partners like JAL.
Kirby is clearly playing 5D chess, as all corporations ultimately do when it's time to cave to power. But I hope that the current administration won't be supportive of a B6 merger for the sake of competition.
I thought the USA wasn’t supposed to have a class system lol. Anyone who supports the USA’s incumbent fascist government is a t—- This coming from someone who earned $11 million in 2023.
He is and you should join the movement too
Nothing lasts forever, Mark. Those in power must be cautious of whom they make enemies.