Glenn Tilton

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Glenn Tilton (born April 1948 in Washington, DC) is the Chairman, President, and CEO of UAL Corporation, the parent company of United Airlines. He has held this role since September 2002, 3 months before UAL Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. He came to UAL from ChevronTexaco, where he had worked since 1970. Glenn Tilton originally was going to follow his father's footsteps and join the government^{[citation needed]}. He was on schedule to join the CIA when he was 21 but had 4 months until his start date and ended up starting a long time journey with Texaco. He speaks 3 languages - English, Spanish, and Portuguese.^{[citation needed]}

After entering bankruptcy, Tilton sought and achieved major adjustments in employees' pay and benefits, which were some of the most expensive in the industry, to keep the company solvent.

Tilton launched a complete restructuring of the company including improving airline operations, restructuring the airline’s maintenance and cargo businesses, starting “Operation Starfish,” later to be known as Ted, and focusing on more profitable, international routes. Tilton believed that after turning around United’s operations and negotiating more manageable wages, the federal government's Air Transport Stabilization Board (ATSB) would back the airline's exit facility and allow it to emerge from bankruptcy. Yet with strong political pressure, the ATSB rejected United's application. Upon rejection of the federal loan guarantee in June 2004 and stiff competition from low-cost carriers with no defined-benefit pensions, Tilton went to the airlines unions to force the termination of employee pensions in order to secure bankruptcy exit financing without government backing from JP Morgan Chase and several other banks. After reaching deals with all of its unions on the termination of pensions, Tilton led UAL Corporation out of bankruptcy on February 1, 2006.

Tilton has also been a vocal proponent of mergers in the airline industry, dating back to United’s bankruptcy days. Tilton attracted much scorn for his views on mergers, until recently with talk about consolidation among US network carriers.

Upon exiting bankruptcy, Tilton received compensation valued at $39,700,000, mostly in stock options that vest over several years, and this caused unrest among the airlines labor unions.

Tilton is married and has two children. He lives in Chicago.