Donald Dillman Tasked With Improving Struggling Carrier's Performance

The executive shuffle continues at United Airlines. On heels of recent announcements of a new Chief Financial Officer and VP of Flight Operations, on Wednesday the Chicago-based airline announced that Donald Dillman has been named vice president of Operations Control.

Dillman joins United following a career at American Airlines, where he spent 24 years in various leadership positions. Most recently, Dillman was managing director for American's operations center, where he was responsible for overseeing the operating decisions for more than 2,200 daily flights. Previously, Dillman served as managing director for flight operations.

In his new position, Dillman will oversee United's Operations Control Center and have responsibility for decisions affecting more than 1,600 daily mainline flights. He will have operational management responsibilities for flight dispatch, system controllers, aircraft routers, maintenance workload planners, air traffic control coordination and strategy, meteorology and operational engineering.

"Captain Dillman's extensive experience in operations will help us to further increase system-wide reliability and operational performance," said Joe Kolshak, senior vice president-Operations for United. "His focus first and foremost will be on enhancing safety while driving top-tier on-time performance to the benefit of our customers and employees."

United adds that as part of the airline's focus on improving system-wide reliability and performance -- an area the carrier has been notoriously lacking in, residing near the very bottom of on-time lists -- the airline plans to adopt "industry best practices and forming an Operations Control Center that will centralize many of the operational functions."

Dillman began his carrier with American in 1984. He flew the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 and was a training supervisor for several aircraft types, including Airbus A300s and Fokker F100s.

Dillman will assume his role on September 8, and will report to Kolshak. He will be based at United's operations center in suburban Chicago.

FMI: www.united.com