United Executive Raised A Safety Alarm About Aircraft Readiness Data — Says He Was Fired And Blacklisted

A United Airlines executive says he discovered a flight-tracking bug that could make an aircraft look “ready” in one system even when the official maintenance record said otherwise — and that when he forced the issue up the chain, he became the problem.

Several months ago I noted the Eisenberg whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against United Airlines, where their former managing director of operations for strategy and performance alleges retaliation and wrongful termination after raising concerns about corruption (conflict of interest with a vendor) and safety violations (retiring key software without replacing it, safety risk assessment issues, non-compliance with FAA flight attendant staffing rules).

I’ve finally gone down the rabbit hole of the allegations, and where the lawsuit stands. My sense is that United may win – but not because the claims this former executive is making aren’t true.

Jeffrey Eisenberg says he joined United in 2017, moved through network planning roles, and was promoted in September 2023 to Managing Director of Operations, Strategy & Performance, reporting to the Chief Air Operations Officer. There he discovered several alleged issues.

• Volare flight-tracking / maintenance-readiness bug. Within weeks of taking the job, he says he discovered a bug in United’s principal flight tracking information system (“Volare”) that could show incorrect aircraft readiness-to-fly status because Volare displayed maintenance data that did not match the official maintenance system. He alleges his direct report knew and did not elevate it, and Eisenberg forced the issue.

• Flight-attendant minimum staffing glitch during boarding. He alleges a technology problem could allow United to board passengers without the required minimum number of flight attendants on active duty, and that he repeatedly escalated it — including an attempted escalation at an executive steering committee that was cancelled after objections from Digital Technology leadership.

• “Skyplan” / Skylinx vendor project mismanagement and conflict-of-interest. He says a software project (“Skyplan”) with vendor Skylinx was over budget and 2 years behind when he inherited it, and that he reported mismanagement and a perceived conflict of interest involving a United leader, including uncovering an email suggesting the mismanagement could lead to safety compliance issues and that some team members believed a leader involved had a personal interest in Skylinx.

  United allegedly investigated and concluded no wrongdoing, while also deciding to wind down the Skylinx relationship and pay about $1.2 million for a short transition period.

• Retiring Unimatic without a ready replacement and Safety Risk Assessment problems. He alleges he raised concerns about United’s plan to retire Unimatic (used for flight tracking, fuel planning, and weight and load planning) “hastily” without an adequate successor in place.

  He also says he flagged inadequacies in the Safety Risk Assessment process to Internal Audit leadership.

He raised continued non-compliance on the flight attendant minimum issue on June 5, 2024 and the next day he was told he would be removed from the Managing Director role, with shifting timelines (one month vs. end of summer vs. up to four months) and an assurance they’d try to find another role.

His replacement was then announced at a June 26, 2024 town hall, and told United was “working on something” for him. On July 3, he filed an internal retaliation complaint asserting the June 6 action and subsequent events were retaliation for safety reporting and corruption/vendor concerns.

Then on August 8 he was presented with a separation agreement, labeled as a reduction in force. He was separated on September 2, and alleges that after United learned he made an OSHA complaint, United changed his status so he was ineligible for future employment at the airline or its regional carriers.

Eisenberg brought two claims

1. AIR21 Whistleblower Retaliation claiming he engaged in protected activity by forcing reporting of the Volare maintenance readiness issue and by raising the flight attendant minimum boarding issue, and that United retaliated by removing him from the Managing Director role, terminating him, and later blacklisting him.

   However, this has a 90-day filing deadline and the Department of Labor’s administrative law judge held that the relevant adverse action that started this clock came on June 6 when he received notice he was being removed from the Managing Director position, not when he was terminated. As a result, his Oct. 9, 2024 OSHA filing was a month late – dismissing the claim with prejudice.

   This judge rejected his equitable tolling theory that he was lulled into believing United was finding him a different role, concluding the record didn’t support deliberate deception preventing his timely filing.

2. Sarbanes-Oxley public company whistleblower retaliation, arguing his Skyplan/Skylinx reporting (waste, overruns and conflict of interest, plus potential Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violation) was protected conduct because he reasonably believed it implicated SEC rules and fraud against shareholders.

   If ultimately litigated, United would presumably argue that what Eisenberg says are safety, compliance and vendor conflicts are really project mismanagement rather than fraud.

Reporting a system that could allow boarding with insufficient flight attendants, and maintenance-readiness misdisplays, seems like it would have been a strong AIR21 claim had it been timely-filed. He literally escalated concerns one day and was removed the next. And blacklisting after an OSHA notice is a strong retaliation fact pattern that would be compelling if proven.

Delaying dismissal with promises of alternate roles meant that Eisenberg didn’t think he was going to be harmed. That turned out to be wrong. And unless the dismissal were reversed on appeal, the AIR21 track is done. That leaves the Sarbanes-Oxley claim, and that requires SEC or shareholder-relevant fraud.

Regardless of how this dismissed United executive’s claims are adjudicated (especially to the extent they’re dealt with on procedural grounds), the allegations are concerning – mostly that the reports weren’t taken seriously, and that the person reporting them was dismissed over it. United Airlines declined to comment on the case.