United Airlines Holdings, Inc. (UAL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the United Airlines Holdings, Inc. Annual Meeting. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Ms. Jennifer Kraft. Ma'am, please go ahead.

Good morning. I am Jennifer Kraft, United's Corporate Secretary. Before Jane Garvey, our current Chairman of the Board, calls the meeting to order; and Oscar Munoz, our current Chief Executive Officer and future Executive Chairman of the Board; and Scott Kirby, our current President and future Chief Executive Officer, deliver opening remarks, we would like to begin with a short briefing about the process for today's meeting. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and for the safety of all of our people, including our stockholders, this year's annual meeting is being conducted in a virtual-only format. We designed this format of this year's meeting to ensure that our stockholders who have logged into today's meeting using their 16-digit control number included in their Notice of Internet Availability of Proxy Materials, proxy card or voting instruction cards will be provided similar rights and opportunities to participate as they would at an in-person meeting. The meeting will follow the agenda displayed on the virtual meeting website. Following the opening remarks, we will conduct the formal business of the meeting and then adjourn and have a question-and-answer period. During the question-and-answer period, we will answer questions that have been submitted by stockholders. Stockholders who have logged into the meeting website using their control numbers will be asked to submit questions by typing them into the Ask A Question field on the virtual meeting website and clicking Submit during the meeting and throughout the question-and-answer session. In order to ensure an orderly meeting, we ask that everyone follow the meeting procedures posted on the virtual meeting website. If you experience any technical difficulties during the meeting, please call the technical support number posted on the virtual meeting website. I'd now like to turn things over to our Board Chairman, Jane Garvey.

Thank you, Jennifer, and good morning, everyone. It's now time to call the meeting to order. I'm Jane Garvey, Chairman of the Board, and I'd like to welcome all of you to the United Airlines Holdings 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. On behalf of our Board of Directors and our officers, thank you all for joining and for your continued commitment to United. On the line with me today are Oscar Munoz. Oscar is our Chief Executive Officer, a member of the Board and also our future Executive Chairman. We're also joined by Scott Kirby, President and a future member of the Board, who will become United's Chief Executive Officer following this annual meeting; and Jennifer Kraft, who will serve as secretary of the meeting. I'd also like to take this opportunity to introduce the other members of our very distinguished Board of Directors who are in attendance at today's meeting, each of whom brings a broad complement of skills and experience to our Board: Carolyn Corvi, Barney Harford, Michele Hooper, Todd Insler, Walter Isaacson, Jim Kennedy, Sito Pantoja, Ed Philip, Ed Shapiro, Dave Vitale and Jim Whitehurst. I have served on the company's Board of Directors for more than a decade now, including the last 2 years as Chairman. This is my last stockholders' meeting as a member of the Board, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow directors, to thank Oscar, Scott and the company's management team. This is an extraordinary collection of men and women, men and women who are dedicated to United's success, and their collective leadership has never, never been more important to United than it is right now as the airline industry confronts the most disruptive crisis in its history. But as I retire from the Board, I do so knowing that the real secret to United's future success lies in the talent and the commitment of United's people. I thank you for what you're doing each and every day to take care of our customers and to take care of each other. I look forward very much to seeing you in the friendly skies again. So with that, I will turn the meeting over to Oscar. Oscar?

Thank you, Jane. Members of the Board and directors to all of you also our stockholders and stakeholders of United Airlines, good morning, and welcome to our 2020 annual meeting. My remarks will be full of thank yous and remembrances. And as I prepare to step into this role of Executive Chair, I want my first act to be one of tribute to you, Jane, my partner and CEO and now my predecessor. So many wonderful things that we can say about you, but no one can fill your shoes, but I do hope to follow in your footsteps. I've said this many times before publicly, if there's a Mount Rushmore of women aviation pioneers, Jane Garvey is on it. You've been a pioneer and a trailblazer, not only breaking glass ceilings, but soaring well above them. You were the first woman to lead America's aviation authority and led it through its most trying time, 9/11. The first woman in the history of our industry to serve as the Chairman or Chairwoman of the Board of Directors for an airline. So on behalf of a grateful United family, thank you for your incredible service and for your legacy. I also want to congratulate our new President of United Airlines, my friend, Brett Hart. When you look at the combination of Scott as CEO and Brett as President with their incomparable and complementary skill set, we have a formidable team as we continue to face this crisis head-on. As for myself, while this may be my final annual meeting as CEO, it is not my last as a member of this United family and team. And as I begin my new role as Exec Chair of the Board, I will work tirelessly in support of this all-star group of leaders across the airline. They have made United an immeasurably better airline, and they have made me a better and wiser leader. Bringing this collection of world-class talent together and aligning them towards a common vision has been the work of several years, and it is a legacy I am incredibly proud to pass on. So now it's time to rally around Scott and Brett's leadership during this crucial moment for our airline, and we will continue to work on behalf of our customers, employers, stockholders and all we serve and will not rest until we return United to where it needs to be: better than ever, and importantly, stronger for having weathered this storm. And while my confidence in this team is without exception, we're also without any illusions about the challenging path forward. Scott will speak more in detail about his immediate plans and longer-term vision for the future. But in order to get to where we're going, it is important to remember where we came from. When we announced our transition plan back in December, United had successfully attained a level of strength and success like nothing before. That's the very reason why we chose that point to begin a stable and planned transition from my leadership to Scott. There's the culmination of a massive turnaround story, 5 years in the making, to allow what's transpired over the past 5 months to be eclipsed. The 5 years of demonstrable progress would be remiss in several ways. First, it would fail to fully pay tribute to the enormous, sustained dedication and effort of the people of United Airlines who work so hard and achieved so much. Second, it would fail to recognize the commitment of our stockholders and stakeholders who invested in us, kept faith with us and helped make that success possible. Finally, it would cause us to forget the important values that were at the heart of that progress and will be crucial to getting us back to where we want United to be. Those are earning and maintaining the trust and engagement of our employees, focusing on our customers, putting caring at the center of everything we do and demonstrating a relentless commitment to innovation through technology and running the most efficient airline possible. Those are the priorities that in a few short years put United in a commanding position amongst our competitors. And while the path back may be different this time, the North Star values remain fixed. We have a greater obligation than ever to live up to those values because of the faith and support provided to us by the public we serve. I know I speak on behalf of every member of the United family when I say thank you to our fellow Americans and to our partners in public service for standing behind the U.S. airline industry. I also want to thank our customers for allowing us to earn your trust, your loyalty and your confidence and know that we are working hard to ensure your safety as you fly with us in the short term and to ensure that, when demand returns, we are there to welcome you back to the friendly skies. Leading this company as CEO over the past 5 years has been the honor and privilege of my professional life. Yet, today, the title I take the greatest pride in is in simply counting myself as a member of this United family and team. So now there's no one I trust more to lead that team than my colleague, friend and the next CEO of United Airlines, Scott Kirby. So with that, she's all yours, Scotty.

Thank you very much, Oscar, and many thanks to all of you for joining us today. As I told our employees this morning, I woke up today energized to start my first day on the job. My career began at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and I've spent my entire career in aviation, with nearly 4 decades in the business until I landed my dream opportunity here at United 3 years ago. I've had jet fuel in my veins for as long as I can remember. And all that time, I've experienced several industry-wide challenges but never could have predicted a crisis of this magnitude. Today, I inherit this job from an incredible leader. Since we announced this transition 6 months ago, I've had the pleasure to thank Oscar for being a role model, a mentor and a friend. The culture at United was transformed during his tenure at the top. And when we overcome this crisis, and we absolutely will overcome it, we'll know it would not have been possible without the foundation that was built under Oscar's visionary leadership, years before anyone had even heard of COVID-19. And as our Chair, Jane's unwavering leadership in the airline industry throughout her storied career and her robust contributions to United Airlines have played an unmeasurable role in our success. Jane, we've been so fortunate for your leadership. Thank you on behalf of United Airlines and from me, personally, for guiding us these past years. Lastly, I want to acknowledge all of you, our shareholders. I thank you for your continued faith in us and our important role in serving the global community. Many of you are customers and employees and have heard me say many times that I pledge to be as transparent as possible now and in the years to come. What has always set United apart is our people, and I couldn't be prouder to be a part of the team and the work you're doing across the network to serve our customers and take all the necessary precautions to keep them and each other safe. To be certain, this is the worst financial crisis that our industry and our company has ever seen. We've already had to make some tough decisions and even tougher decisions may lie ahead. We've seen in the headlines our competitors preparing to furlough thousands of employees. At United, we'll be taking time in the months ahead to work with our union partners on creative ideas that would involve reduced hours and leaves of absences instead of furloughs. I recognize that even though those options are difficult and will need to be widely shared by everyone here at United, it would save jobs, and most importantly, it would allow us to bounce back quickly, which is the best way to ensure everyone's jobs and stability for our company for years into the future. From the beginning, I've been very vocal about the seriousness of this crisis and its impact on our company and often talk about planning for the worst, but understand we're also planning for the best. While technology allows us to connect with all of you today, we're all eager to get back to travel. Nothing can replace the human connection and being there in person. That's what the people of United Airlines love, and that's what we do better than anyone else. We connect people and unite the world. I can't help but again cite the words of one of my heroes, Winston Churchill. In the darkest days of World War II, he said, "When you're going through hell, keep going." And while we are going through hell right now, I hope you've all witnessed the character of the men and women of United Airlines over the last couple of months. There is no other team I would rather go to battle with. Today, as I begin the role of CEO of United and I'm determined to protect, as best I can, our company, the safety of our customers, employees and as many jobs and people at United Airlines as possible. I'm also determined to make sure that once the virus is defeated and demand begins to recover that United can bounce back more quickly than anyone and continue on our path to become the best airline in the history of aviation. While this is not what I envisioned as my first day of CEO would look like, I'm honored to lead this company even through the tough times ahead. Jennifer, I'll turn it back to you.

Thank you, Scott. Only matters for which notice has been legally given in accordance with our bylaws may be brought before the meeting. Those matters are set forth as proposals in the proxy statement relating to this meeting. This meeting was called by the Board of Directors on December 4, 2019. All stockholders of record at the close of business on April 1, 2020, are entitled to vote at this meeting. We will begin by addressing the 6 proposals to be voted on by stockholders, after which we will announce the preliminary voting results. Stockholders attending the meeting virtually can vote their shares online, beginning when the polls are opened, through the closing of the polls, by logging into the meeting website as a stockholder, entering their 16-digit control number and clicking the Vote Here button on their screen. If a stockholder has previously voted by proxy and does not wish to change the prior vote, the vote will be cast as previously instructed, and no further action is required. As noted earlier, stockholders who have logged into the meeting website using their control numbers will also be able to submit questions on the virtual meeting website through the end of the question-and-answer session. Broadridge Financial Services has been appointed to act as the inspectors of election and to tabulate the vote of the stockholders. The oath of the inspectors of election will be filed with the minutes of this meeting. The affidavit of mailing, establishing that notice of the annual meeting was duly given, will also be filed with the minutes of this meeting. If a stockholder would like to review the list of stockholders eligible to vote at this meeting, it is accessible on the meeting website. We have been informed by the inspectors of election that the owners of more than a majority of the issued and outstanding shares of common stock as of April 1, 2020, are present today, either virtually or by proxy. Therefore, we have a quorum. Holders of all shares of the other classes of stock eligible to vote at this meeting are also present today, either virtually or by proxy. Since legal notice of this meeting has been given and a quorum is present, the meeting is properly convened and open for business. It is now 9:16 a.m., and I would like to declare the polls open for voting. As I mentioned previously, common stockholders who have voted their proxies by Internet or by phone or who have sent in their proxy cards by mail do not need to vote again, unless they wish to change their earlier votes. Due to the requirements imposed by the trustee of the United 401(k) plan, shares held through those plans cannot be voted during the virtual meeting. Our first item of business today is to elect the directors of the company to serve until the 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. The common stockholders of the company will elect 11 directors. The following are the directors who have been nominated for election or reelection by the vote of the holders of common stock of the company: Carolyn Corvi, Barney Harford, Michele Hooper, Walter Isaacson, Jim Kennedy, Scott Kirby, Oscar Munoz, Ed Philip, Ed Shapiro, David Vitale and Jim Whitehurst. In addition to the 11 directors to be elected by the holders of common stock, the holders of junior preferred stock will elect 2 directors. The director to be elected by the holder of the Class Pilot MEC Junior Preferred Stock is Todd Insler, and the director to be elected by the holder of the Class IAM Junior Preferred Stock is Sito Pantoja. The Board recommends that holders of common stock vote for each of the 11 director nominees. The second matter to be voted on at the meeting is the ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP to serve as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the 2020 fiscal year. The Board and the Audit Committee recommend that stockholders vote for this proposal. The third matter to be voted on at the meeting is the advisory vote approving the compensation of the company's named executive officers as presented in the 2020 proxy statement. The Board recommends that stockholders vote for this proposal. The fourth matter to be voted on at the meeting is the stockholder proposal by Mr. John Chevedden regarding stockholder action by written consent. I would like to introduce Mr. Chevedden, the proponent, who would like to make a statement. We ask that you limit your statement to 2 minutes as provided in the rules of the meeting. Operator, please open the line for Mr. Chevedden.

This is John Chevedden. Can you hear me okay?

We can hear you, Mr. Chevedden.

This is proposal 4, adopt a mainstream shareholder right to act by written consent. Shareholders request that our Board of Directors take the steps necessary to permit written consent by shareholders entitled to cast a minimum number of votes that would be necessary to authorize an action at a meeting at which all shareholders entitled to vote thereon were present and voting. Hundreds of major companies enable shareholder action by written consent. This proposal topic won majority shareholder support at 13 large companies in a single year. This included 67% support at both Allstate and Sprint. This proposal topic also won 63% support at Cigna in 2019. This proposal topic would have received higher votes than the 63% to 67% votes at these companies if more shareholders had access to independent proxy voting advice. The right for shareholders to act by written consent is gaining acceptance as a more important right than the right to call a special shareholder meeting. This also seems to be the conclusion of the Intel Corporation shareholder vote at the 2019 Intel shareholder meeting. The directors at Intel thought they could divert shareholder attention away from written consent by making it less difficult for shareholders to call a special meeting. However, Intel shareholders responded with a greater support for written consent in 2019 compared to 2018. After a 45% vote, which is less than a majority vote for a written consent shareholder proposal, the Bank of New York Mellon said it adopted written consent in 2019. This proposal is especially important to UAL shareholders because we may have a right to call a special meeting in theory only. A shareholder right to act by written consent is necessary to make up for the current inadequate shareholder right to call a special meeting. Under the current UAL right for shareholders to call a special meeting, it could take an overwhelming 75% of UAL shares to actually call a special shareholder meeting.

Mr. Chevedden, we've reached the 2-minute limit. If you could please wrap up your remarks.

Yes, I'm just wrapping up. If 75% of shares took on the administrative burden of requesting a special shareholder meeting, then 1/3 of these shares could be disqualified because they were held for less than 1 continuous year. Then another 1/3 of shares could be disqualified because they fell short on meeting just one of the tedious requirements in Roman I through Roman VIII in the UAL bylaws. Only then would 25% shares...

Thank you, Mr. Chevedden. We'll need to move on. We'll need to move to the next proposal now. Thank you, Mr. Chevedden for presenting the proposal. The Board of Directors of the company recommends a vote against the stockholder proposal as set forth in the company's statement and opposition to the proposal presented in the company's proxy statement relating to this meeting. The fifth matter to be voted on at the meeting is the stockholder proposal by The Nathan Cummings Foundation regarding a report on lobbying spending as properly presented at the meeting. I would like to introduce Meredith Benton, representative of the proponent, who would like to make a statement. We ask that you limit your statement to 2 minutes as provided in the rules of the meeting. Operator, please open the line for Ms. Benton.

Hello. Can you hear me?

We can hear you, Ms. Benton.

Wonderful. Fellow shareowners, members of the Board. I speak on behalf of The Nathan Cummings Foundation, and I present proposal #5, requesting a report on lobbying expenditures. I hereby formally move this shareholder proposal. This proposal asks United to prepare an annually updated report disclosing its lobbying expenditures and the policies and procedures governing these expenditures. This resolution does not seek to restrict, direct or condemn any of United's lobbying decisions. Instead, it asks that the company release data that would allow investors to understand what United is spending, where it is spending it and why it is spending it. According to OpenSecrets data works, United spent over $40 million from 2010 to 2019 on federal lobbying. These figures do not include lobbying to influence legislation in states where required disclosures are challenging to collect and analyze nor do they include trade association memberships or payments. The Nathan Cummings Foundation is concerned that United Airlines conducts much of its political spending in secret, an action we believe is at odds with the preservation of a fair and functioning society. Strong oversight and disclosure policies from the Board would help ensure that corporate political spending supports both long-term shareholder value and fairness in our democracy. We believe that transparency and accountability about United's spending to influence public policy are in the best interest of the company and its share owners. This is particularly true now with companies like United that receive billions of dollars of federal bailout funds are likely to face increased public scrutiny. Further, we believe that a system of accountability and public disclosure is essential to maintaining trust with customers, employees and other stakeholders as the stimulus package funds are released. Transparency around lobbying communication also helps investors assess if corporate assets are being used to promote public policy objectives that align with the long-term needs of our company and its publicly stated positions on key environmental and social issues. We believe that tracking and disclosing both direct and indirect lobbying expenditures and related policies will help protect United from reputational damage and mitigate risks that could stem from any misalignment between its general policy positions and its lobbying. United's lobbying activity should not be hidden or secretive. We urge the Board to rethink its opposition to disclosure and transparency and implement the request in this proposal. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Benton, for presenting your proposal. The Board of Directors of the company recommends a vote against the stockholder proposal as set forth in the company's statement in opposition to the proposal presented in the company's proxy statement relating to this meeting. The sixth matter to be voted on at the meeting is the stockholder proposal by BNP Paribas Asset Management regarding a report on global warming-related lobbying activities as properly presented at the meeting. I would like to introduce Mr. Adam Kanzer, the representative of the proponent, who would like to make a statement. We ask that you limit your statements to 2 minutes as provided in the rules of the meeting. Operator, please open the line for Mr. Kanzer.

Can you hear me?

Yes, Mr. Kanzer. We can hear you.

Great. Good morning, Ms. Chairwoman, members of the Board, fellow shareholders. My name is Adam Kanzer. I'm head of Stewardship for the Americas at BNP Paribas Asset Management. I'm here to move proposal #6, seeking a climate lobbying report. Corporate lobbying activities that are inconsistent with meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement present significant financial risks to investors. These efforts also present systemic risks to our economies. Delays in implementation of the Paris Agreement increase the physical risk of climate change, threaten economic stability and introduce uncertainty and volatility into our portfolios. We believe a Paris-aligned climate lobbying helps to mitigate these risks and contribute positively to the long-term value of our investment portfolios. Our proposal seeks to ensure that United is appropriately managing these risks. Our proposal asks our Board to evaluate and report to shareholders how United's lobbying activities align with the Paris Agreement's goal to limit average global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and how the company is addressing any misalignments with that goal. This analysis should cover direct lobbying and indirect lobbying conducted by United's trade associations. More than 14 major European corporations have agreed to this request, including Anglo American, BP, Shell, Total and Rio Tinto. 200 institutional investors managing $6.5 trillion wrote to United in September, seeking information on how United is managing this critical governance issue. The company did not respond. We're concerned that the policy framework supported by United, a commitment to carbon-neutral growth, is insufficient to meet the Paris goals. We have a limited window to stabilize our climate. Investors need to know that United is supporting the policy frameworks we all need to avert disaster. I thank you for your attention.

Mr. Kanzer, thank you for presenting your proposal. The Board of Directors of the company recommends a vote against this stockholder proposal as set forth in the company's statement and opposition to the proposal presented in the proxy statement relating to this meeting. The polls have been open for voting since the beginning of this meeting. I now ask that stockholders who have not yet voted or who wish to change their previous vote do so now through the virtual meeting website. We will pause for a brief moment to allow for voting. [Voting]

We now appear to have completed all voting. It is 9:29 a.m., and I hereby declare the polls to be closed. The electronic votes and proxies will be held in the records of the inspectors of election. The inspectors of election have counted the votes received by proxy prior to the meeting and will count all votes received electronically at the meeting today. Based on a preliminary count of the votes, the inspectors of election have certified that all of the 11 director nominees have been elected or reelected by a majority of the votes cast with respect to each director's election. The director nominee of the holder of the Class Pilot MEC Junior Preferred Stock has been reelected, and the director nominee of the holder of the Class IAM Junior Preferred Stock has been reelected. In addition, the stockholders have voted to ratify the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal year 2020 by a majority of the votes present and entitled to vote at this meeting. The inspectors of election have certified that stockholders have voted to approve, on an advisory basis, the compensation of the company's named executive officers as presented in the 2020 proxy statement by a majority of the votes present and entitled to vote at this meeting. Finally, the stockholders have voted against the stockholder proposals regarding stockholder action by written consent, the report on lobbying spending and the report on global warming-related lobbying activities in each case by a majority of the votes present and entitled to vote at this meeting. We will publish the final vote results in a Form 8-K filing with the SEC within the next few days. As there is no further business to come before this meeting, we will now adjourn the meeting and proceed to the question-and-answer period. We will now respond to some of your questions. Before we begin, I will provide a reminder on the process to be followed. If a stockholder would like to ask a question, please submit your question by typing the question into the Ask a Question field on the virtual meeting website and clicking Submit. Note that only appropriate questions relevant to the purpose of the meeting and the company's business will be addressed as set forth in the rules of conduct available on the virtual meeting website. In fairness to everyone who may have a question, we will limit each stockholder to one question. Representatives of Ernst & Young are also in attendance and are available to answer any audit-related questions from stockholders. We will now assemble our queue of questions and turn those over to Oscar and Scott, who will address each question after it is read out loud.

I'll read our first question, which is when do you see air travel returning to 2019 levels?

This is Oscar. I'll let Scott, who's been working on that quite feverishly. Scott?

Thanks, Oscar. And the short answer is we don't know, and it's an important answer because, while we don't know, it's important to acknowledge that we don't know because what we need to do critically is prepare for flexibility because nobody knows when this pandemic will be ultimately defeated or when a vaccine will be in place that enough of the world has been inoculated to get back to fully normal. What we do know is that there's huge demand for people to get back and get back to uniting people and connecting the world. We see it in searches for travel out in the future. We hear it from our corporate accounts, and we all know it personally. As nice it is to do meetings like this, it's so much better to be able to see each other in person, to shake people's hands, to go to dinner with them. So we know that demand will recover, and so we're preparing United to survive through to the crisis until we can get back to a full recovery in demand. Honestly, we don't think that will happen until there's a vaccine to get to full recovery. We'll continue to see improvements in demand, but we won't get back to 100% until sometime after people feel completely safe and COVID-19 will thankfully be in the rearview mirror.

Thank you, Scott. Next, we have a comment from a shareholder that I will read. Ms. Chairwoman, the carpenter union pension fund with combined assets of $70 billion have a collective ownership position of 308,070 shares of the company's common stock. As long-term investors, we appreciate the sacrificial leadership of the senior management team and Board as regards to their compensation. We urge that the highest operational priority during these difficult times be the safety of company employees. We wish the leadership team well in their new responsibilities. Thank you, Ms. Chairman. We'll now take another question. The next question is how long will the new Chairman hold the office?

This is Oscar Munoz. I will be that Chairperson and will serve for a course of a year, assisted by a lead independent director, Ted Philip. By this time next year, the Board will have assigned or chosen a new chairperson, and that will be announced at that point in time.

Thank you, Oscar. We'll move to our next question. When was the last in-person Board meeting?

It's Oscar again. I'll take that. Well, I have to think about that. We've met so often via telephone and video over the course of time, as we would expect. But our last in-person meeting, I believe, was late February, maybe the 21st.

Thank you, Oscar. Moving to our next question. With a 90% drop in passengers, how long until United runs out of cash?

Clearly, Scott on this one.

First, I want to thank the earlier comments, and I couldn't agree more that the health and safety of our employees and our customers is our #1 priority. While there's been over a 90% drop in passenger traffic, we are encouraged to start to see some improvement. In the middle of April, we had a couple of days where we carried fewer than 10,000 customers. And in the last week, we were carrying 35,000 per day. Now we have a long ways to go before we get back to normal because that should be over 0.5 million, but we are moving in that direction. And importantly, the company has taken aggressive steps. We were the first airline to start aggressively managing for the coronavirus. And in fact, we started it right after that weekend that Oscar referred to in our last Board meeting was in February, actually. And we began accelerating capital raise. We began the process of reducing our operating expenses and CapEx to give us -- to minimize cash burn if the situation got worse. We stopped the share repurchase plan. We started the capacity cuts ahead of any other airline. And because we got ahead of that, at least got a little bit of a head start on this tsunami, it has put us in a better position. And we built a plan that actually assumed no recovery in demand, where our goal would be to get down to a cash burn level of $20 million per day by the time we get to October 1. And given we're starting to see some recovery in demand, we don't yet see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's not quite as dark in here anymore. Those numbers will hopefully just get better. And so we're confident on our ability to make it through this crisis. Unfortunately, it's going to be painful. It won't be easy. In particular, one of the hardest things about this is when revenue is down this much, it means hardship for our people and our employees. And we are hopeful that by the time we get to October, we're almost certain that demand will continue to be down significantly. But even in that environment that we can work with our union leaders and the entire team of United to variabilize our cost structure and ideally do it with voluntary leaves and reducing the number of hours that people work because if we can do that and share that together, together, we can get through the crisis. And importantly, we can keep all of these incredible -- the 100,000 incredible professional men and women at United, all the training, all the experience here. And when the recovery starts, and it will start, the virus will be defeated, it will start. And that when it starts, we are prepared to bring those people back up, bring the hours back up and snap back more quickly than any of our competitors. And that's how we'll get the opportunity on the other side.

Thanks, Scott. We'll take one final question. How is United planning to continue meeting its emissions targets as the company works to recover from the downturn in business caused by the COVID-19 pandemic? And does the recovery process present any challenges and opportunities to increasing the company's ambitions in this area?

I think everyone should know that this area, sustainability, is a particular fashion of our new CEO, and so I'm happy to pass that one over to Scott to share his views.

Thank you, Oscar, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this because, as Oscar said, it's something that I have been passionate about for as long as I can remember in my life, and I think it is incredibly important. Before -- at the very beginning of this crisis, we actually had a leadership conference where we talked to all of our leadership team. And we -- one of the main points we talked about, one of the pillars of what United was going to be and stand for in the years and decades to come was about sustainability. Today, we are already a leader in the global aviation industry and safety -- or in sustainability. We started -- we've invested in 2 sustainable aviation fuel companies. Over 50% of the entire worldwide commitment to sustainable aviation fuels come from United Airlines. We had bigger near-term plans to make some more investments. In the short term, obviously, the crisis has put some of those investments to the side. But one of the things that I think is going to be different on the other side of this when we get back to a recovery is sustainability is going to be even more critical to not just the future of the planet but also to our customers. And it may sound a little perverse or maybe not -- maybe counterintuitive, but I think sustainability will increase importance. The level of awareness that all of us will have about the world and about the fact that we live on one globe, that we're all interconnected, and everything that happens everywhere affects all of us and we can't be isolated is going to mean that sustainability is going to be even more important and look forward to getting through the crisis. Obviously, our emissions right now are down significantly because we're flying 90% less but look forward to getting through the crisis and getting back to a leadership role of not just be evolutionary in terms of what we do for sustainability, in terms of newer airplanes that have lower fuel burn but also looking for revolutionary ways, in particular, to focus on sustainable aviation fuels. And we'll be excited at United to take a leadership role in the global aviation once we get through this crisis.

Thank you, Scott. That concludes our question-and-answer session. Thank you to everyone for taking the time to attend today's meeting. Operator, that concludes our meeting.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.