When Jason Birnbaum joined United Airlines in 2015 as vice president of operations and employee technology, expectations for the tech team were shockingly low.
“Our employees and our customers didn’t trust our tools,” says Birnbaum, who ascended to the role of senior vice president of digital technology in 2019 and more recently became chief information officer in July 2022. “When I got here, one of the big first issues we really attacked was trust.”
The legacy of the airline’s three-year stint in bankruptcy, which ended in 2006, meant that much-needed tech investments had been shuffled to the backseat, while mergers like the 2010 acquisition of Continental Airlines had added complexity by creating a hodgepodge of technology systems. Much of the IT team’s time was spent just making sure that the technology actually worked reliably, Birnbaum says.
One of his first moves was to give United’s workforce smartphones and iPads, helping them get out from behind…
