Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the United Airlines Holdings, Inc. Twenty twenty one Annual Meeting of Stockholders Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Anna Please go ahead.
Good morning. I'm Anna United's Corporate Secretary. Before Oscar Munoz, our outgoing Executive Chairman and Scott Kirby, our Chief Executive Officer, deliver their opening remarks, we would like to begin with a short briefing about the process for today's meeting. In light of the continuing COVID-nineteen 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 the 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 card will be provided similar rights and opportunities to participate as they would be provided 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 16 digit control numbers will be able to submit questions by typing them into the ask a question field on the virtual meeting website and clicking submit during the meeting and through the question and answer session. In order to ensure an orderly meeting, we ask that everyone follow the rules of conduct 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 Chief Executive Officer to call the meeting to order.
Thanks, Anna, and good morning, everyone. It is now time to call the meeting to order. I'm Scott Kirby, the company's CEO and a Board member. I'd like to welcome all of you to the United Airlines Holdings twenty twenty one Annual Meeting of Stockholders. On behalf of our Board of Directors and officers, thanks for joining us and for your continued commitment to United.
On the line with me today are Oscar Munoz, Executive Chairman Bret Hart, President and Anaha, who will act as Secretary for the meeting. I'd also like to take this opportunity to introduce the other members of our 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 Corby, Barney Harford, Michelle Hooper, Todd Ensler, Walter Isaacson, Jim Kennedy, Sito Pantolla, Ted Phillip, Ed Shapiro, David Vitale, Laisha Ward and Jim Whitehurst. Before we begin the official business of the meeting, I'd like to turn the meeting over to Oscar, our outgoing Executive Chairman for a few remarks.
Thank you, Scott, and hello everyone. Well, this time next year, for the first time in what will be nearly two decades, I'll be sitting out there with all of you during the Annual Stockholders Meeting. And it will be the first time that I will be a member of the Board of either United or former Continental or CEO as Chairman. I'll just have the title simply of a United Airlines stakeholder, someone who, like you, believes deeply in this airline and where it's going and, above all, in the people that will take it there. And so in my final act this year, I want to simply say thank you.
Thank you to all our shareholders and investors who believed in the vision we set out. Thank you to all our customers. You are the reason why we love what we do. Finally, and most of all, thank you to my United family, something I've been saying a lot in recent days and something I will say more in the coming years, I use my platform to amplify our leadership message and something frankly that I can never say enough. As the pandemic breaks and optimism has begun to lift, I've taken more and more flights recently and so are millions of people signaling a return to life as we knew it before.
And as I fly, I'm reminded of the truth of an old line. At the end of all our exploring, we will arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. As I travel our system visiting with employees, I see a United Airlines that simply astounds me. This is not the airline I remember back in 2015 when our employees constantly felt as though they couldn't serve our customers in a way that truly reflected their professionalism and talents. They didn't feel we had their back and support to do the most important thing in our business.
As Scott says, just do what's right. That's why we set out on the urgent task of building a new spirit of United. We grew and realized the potential of our network and battled back into markets where we should always have been the carrier of choice. We've reimagined the relationship between our customers and employees who serve them, thinking in terms of interactions rather than mere transactions. We invested in customer friendly offerings and never stopped pushing of digital technology and innovation.
And I believe that conducting that turnaround successfully when we did is the reason we are not just standing today, we are standing tall and reaching higher than ever. So I want to thank our incredible executive team and Board for believing in that project from the start. And I want to applaud Scott and Brett in particular. They were baptized by fire, taken over as CEO and President, respectively, just as the pandemic broke. They worked the problem.
They led by example. They've emerged on the other side as the most capable, competent leaders anywhere in the industry today. You may think that's a biased statement, but I think it's pretty factual. Because I truly believe that our early decisive action, our clarity, our transparency will be looked upon in the future as a master class in corporate leadership. But the greatest credit belongs to our people.
Just consider one fact, United's Net Promoter Score, which measures how likely our customers are to recommend us to their family and friends, increased over 30 points from March 2020 to March. Just think about that for a moment. As we pulled down routes and amenities on board, we implemented our aggressive Clean plus regime, we mandated mask and other restrictions, our customers felt better about flying United than they ever had before. And that statistic confirms the rightness of the call we made at the outset of this transformation, that we would invest first in our people because our people are what make our service work. And all I can say is this, when you invest in the United family, you can never ever go wrong.
So I've never been more bullish on the future of this airline, and I look forward to continuing to contribute as a member of this team in an advisory capacity, which means that even though this is my final day in a leadership role, I will remain a part of this United family, which at the end of the day is the greatest privilege I've ever had in my career. So with that, thank you to all and thank you to the Board. And it's my honor to welcome back Scott.
Thank you, Oscar. And many thanks to all of you for joining us today. On behalf of all the stakeholders at United, Oscar and myself personally, I want to emphasize our thanks to you for everything you did to change the culture and build a level of trust with employees, which was the foundation which allowed United Airlines to not only survive the COVID crisis, but set ourselves up to thrive on the other side of the crisis. So on behalf of all of us, thank you, Oscar. Last May at this time, I was just stepping into my role as CEO.
And my what a difference a year makes. At United, we've not let ourselves be defined by the impact of COVID-nineteen on our business. Instead, we wanted to be defined by our response to it and we will emerge differently from it. But let me start by thanking the leader who's positioned United throughout the crisis. Oscar, thank you for not only being such an incredible leader, but a true confidant and friend.
United's ability to emerge from this crisis is a result of the foundation that was built under your visionary leadership and has made it possible for our executive team to lead in the face of strong headwinds. Your legacy at United will continue to reverberate throughout our organization for decades to come. I also want to acknowledge all of you, our shareholders and as always your continued faith in us. I'm pleased to say that faith will be rewarded as we emerge from the worst crisis our industry has ever faced on track to become the global leader in aviation. I also want to thank the best aviation professionals in the world who have persevered through the fear, uncertainty and disruption caused by COVID-nineteen.
Our team never lost focus on our mission to connect people and unite the world. In fact, nothing makes me prouder of United and our team than what Oscar talked about earlier that our Net Promoter Scores are 30 points higher than they were before the pandemic. That's why we're now able to turn the page moving from simply surviving to squarely focused on preparing for the rebound. Our return to new mindset has been our North Star guiding each decision we make and puts us in a position to merge from this crisis as a new stronger United Airlines. In fact, at United in the past year, we've made a decade's worth of progress on changing the culture and improving our customers' experience, including becoming the first legacy airline to permanently eliminate change fees on domestic tickets and using ConnectionSaver to save over 1,000 customer connections per day.
Changes like these are what's going to make this the best and most customer focused airline in the history aviation on the other side of the crisis. From the outset of the crisis, we got to work on several industry leading actions including becoming the first airline to mandate masks on board and creating Clean Plus, a first of its kind partnership in collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic and Clorox. We also didn't shy away from the tough decisions in the face of the historic challenges. We cut costs, reduced cash burn and became the first airline to announce the elimination of CEO and President base salaries and later cut officer salaries in half. We also used innovative approaches to raise over $26,000,000,000 in liquidity in 2020.
These tough choices positioned United to become the first airline to achieve positive adjusted cash core cash flow in March. And just yesterday, we were the first legacy airline to report that we expect to have a positive adjusted EBITDA in the month of June. You read more about these metrics including a reconciliation to GAAP in our first quarter earnings release and the eight ks we filed this week. Even in the depths of the crisis though, we were focused on more than just the bottom line. We've established our role as a leader, not just in the airline industry, but in the world.
Over the last year, we've flown hundreds of repatriation flights helping tens of thousands of Americans return home from abroad. At the beginning of the crisis, we flew hundreds of tons of medical equipment to communities in The United States that were COVID-nineteen hotspots. And more recently, as the only U. S. Carrier serving India, we've been a key part of the humanitarian response by once again flying hundreds of tons of medical equipment to communities struggling to meet the needs of COVID patients there.
And last November, we were proud to be the airline entrusted to ship the first doses of the COVID-nineteen vaccine to U. S. Soil. Late last year, we also announced our 100% green commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 100% by 02/1950, a uniquely United plan that does not rely on traditional carbon offsets. This commitment doesn't just distinguish our approach from other airlines.
It stands out in the business world and will make a real impact on the planet. We also shared for the first time our diversity representation data with our employees and announced our achievement of near perfect pay equity for employees of all genders and races performing comparable work across U. S. Operations. And we launched the Aviate Academy to train the next generation of United pilots.
It has been to say the least an historic year. COVID-nineteen has changed our airline forever, but I'm confident that the culture that served us so well getting through the crisis will help push us through the recovery and help United get back on track to becoming the global leader in aviation. Thank you for your continued support of United. And with that, Anna, I'll turn it back to you for the official business of the meeting.
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. All stockholders of record at the close of business on 04/07/2021 are entitled to vote at this meeting.
We will begin by addressing the eight 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 open 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 16 digit 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 Solutions has been appointed to act as the inspector of election and to tabulate the vote of the stockholder.
The oath of the inspector 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've been informed by the inspector of election that the owners of more than a majority of the issued and outstanding shares of common stock as of 04/07/2021 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 09:14AM 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 sent in their proxy cards by mail do not need to vote again unless they wish to change their earlier vote. Due to the requirements imposed by the trustee of the United four zero one ks plan, shares held through those plans cannot be voted during the virtual meeting.
Our first item of business is to elect the directors of the company to serve until the twenty twenty two 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 Corvey, Barney Harford, Michelle Hooper, Walter Isaacson, Tim Kennedy, Scott Kirby, Ed Phillips, Ed Shapiro, David Vitale, Leisha Ward 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 two 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 Itziko Pantoya. 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 and Young LLP to serve as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the 2021 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 2021 proxy statement. The board recommends that stockholders vote for this proposal. The fourth matter to be voted on at the meeting is the approval of the United Airlines Holdings Inc 2021 incentive compensation plan. The board recommends that stockholders vote for this proposal. The fifth matter to be voted on at the meeting is the approval of an amendment and restatement of the company's certificate of incorporation to preserve certain tax benefits.
The board recommends that stockholders vote for this proposal. The sixth matter to be voted on at the meeting is the approval of the company's tax benefits preservation plan. The board recommends that stockholders vote for this proposal. The seventh matter to be voted on at the meeting is the stockholders' proposal by mister John Chiveden regarding disclosure of political spending. I would like to introduce mister Rob Four who would like to make a statement on behalf of mister Chiveden.
I ask that you limit your statement to two minutes as provided in the rules of the meeting. Operator, please open the line for Mr. Forer.
Line is open.
Morning. My name is Rob Foer, and I will be reading a statement on behalf of Mr. John Sheviden, who filed proposal number seven. Shareholders request that management provide a report updated semiannually disclosing the company's policies and procedures for making contributions with corporate funds. To participate or intervene in any campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office or to influence the general public with respect to an election to also disclose contributions used in the manner described above, including the identity of the recipient as well as the amount paid to each and the titles of the persons in the company responsible for decision making.
The report shall be presented to the Board of Directors and posted on the company's website within twelve months from the date of the annual meeting. This proposal does not include spending on lobbying. As a long term shareholder of United, I support transparency and accountability in corporate electoral spending. This includes any activity considered intervention in a political campaign under the Internal Revenue Code, such as direct and indirect contributions to political candidates, parties or organizations and independent expenditures or electioneering communications on behalf of federal, state or local candidates. Publicly available records show United has contributed at least $850,000 in corporate funds since the twenty ten election cycle.
However, relying on publicly available data does not provide a complete picture of the company's electoral spending. For example, the company's payments to trade associations or other tax exempt dark money groups that may be used for election related activities are undisclosed and unknown. This proposal asks the company to disclose all of its electoral spending, including payments to trade associations and other tax exempt organizations, which may be used for electoral purposes. This would bring our company in line with a growing number of leading companies, including the Boeing Company, Northrop Grumman Corporation and Union Pacific Corporation, which present this information on their websites. The company's Board and shareholders need comprehensive disclosure to fully evaluate the use of corporate assets in elections.
Please vote yes.
Thank you 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 in opposition to the proposal presented in the company's proxy statement relating to this meeting. The eighth matter to be voted on at the meeting is the stockholder proposal by the Presbyterian Church USA and Portico Benefit Services regarding a report on climate related lobbying activity. Mr. Rob Foer will also be representing the proponents of this proposal and would like to make a statement.
I ask again that you limit your statement to two minutes as provided in the rules of the meeting. Operator, please open the line again for Mr. Foer.
Your line is now open.
Good morning again. My name is Rob For and I am the Director of Faith Based Investment and Corporate Engagement for the Presbyterian Church USA. I'm here to move proposal eight which is seeking a climate lobbying report as was filed by the Presbyterian Church USA and Portico Benefits Services and Ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. First, I want to commend the Board and management for your commitment to sustainability and going 100% green by 02/1950. Additionally, we are making this statement as signatories to Climate Action one hundred plus an investor initiative that aims to ensure that the world's largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change, including United Airlines.
To date, over five seventy five investors $54,000,000,000,000 in assets under management have signed up to support the Climate Action 100 plus initiative. This is equivalent to more than one third of all global assets under management. With a limited window to stabilize our rapidly changing climate, investors need to know that United is supporting the policies needed to avert disaster. Paris aligned climate lobbying and helps mitigate the significant systemic financial risk posed by climate change, including physical risks, economic instability and portfolio uncertainty. Proposal eight 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 two degrees Celsius and how the company is addressing any misalignments with that goal. Currently, there's not enough information available to help investors understand how United ensures that its lobbying activities both directly and indirectly for trade associations align with the Paris Agreement goals or what United does to address any misalignments. Investors need to understand how United's policy positioning aligns its net zero ambition. Thank you. And I encourage a four vote on this proposal.
Thank you for presenting the proposal. The Board of Directors of the company recommends a vote against the stockholder proposal as set forth in the company statement in opposition to the proposal presented in the company's 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 briefly to allow for voting.
We now have appear to have completed all voting. It is 09:23AM, and I hereby declare the polls closed. The electronic votes and proxies will be held in the records of the inspector of election. The inspector of election has 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 inspector of election has certified that all of the 11 director nominees have been elected 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 and Young LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal year 2021 by a majority of the votes present and entitled to vote at this meeting. The inspector of election has certified that stockholders have voted to approve on an advisory basis the compensation of the company's named executive officers as presented in the 2021 proxy statement by a majority of the votes present and entitled to vote at this meeting. The inspector of election has certified that stockholders have voted to approve an amendment and or statement of the company's certificate of incorporation to preserve certain tax credits by a majority of the outstanding shares of the company's common stock. The inspector of election has certified that stockholders have voted to approve the company's tax benefits preservation plan by a majority of the votes present and entitled to vote at this meeting.
Finally, the stockholders have voted to approve the stockholder proposal regarding disclosure of political spending and the report on climate 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 eight ks filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission 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'll 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 purposes 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. We will not we will now assemble the questions and turn them over to Scott and our President Bret Hart who will address each question after it is read out loud. Okay.
I'll read the first question. Mr. Chairman, topic of stakeholder capitalism as an alternative to shareholder capitalism has received considerable attention recently. As long term pension fund investors, the Carpenter Fund appreciate the sentiments embodied in the stakeholder capitalism perspective but feel that execution could be complicated. Could you discuss the Board's perspective on the concept stakeholder capitalism and what principles the Board would use to balance the interests of varied stakeholders as it develops and implements the company's long term business strategy?
Thank you.
Well, you for the question and clearly a high profile issue these days. I think we, our view at United is that this is sometimes made more complicated than it needs to be. And in particular, we follow a simple rule in everything we do including stakeholder capitalism which is do the right thing. And if you just focus on doing the right thing, it makes all of these decisions easier. There's a couple of areas in particular that I'm really proud of United for its leadership efforts.
One is around sustainability and our uniquely United commitment to 100% green. The only airline in the world who pretty clearly is a global leader for sustainability in aviation. But not only in aviation but one of the few companies in the world who's made a commitment to 100% green without using traditional carbon offset. And that makes us unique and that is part of what everyone is gonna have to eventually come to I think if we're going to actually really tackle climate change and make a difference. For what it's worth, my own view is that is the largest issue facing our generation to solve for future generations yet to come.
And at United we are absolutely committed to doing the right thing in that regard and taking real action. The second one is around diversity, equity and inclusion. I admit to frustration of if you went back several years ago and read after Ferguson for example and read some of the public statements from leaders around the country, they sounded very similar to what happened after George Floyd's murder. All that is a way of saying there's too much talk and not enough action. And so we've focused on taking real action to create opportunity for people.
And our view on diversity is that creating opportunity is key to making a real difference and a real change. Aviate is one of the most high profile, in that regard, where today only 19% of our pilots are either women or people of color. That is for historical reasons that it's really hard to become an airline pilot. You either need to be in the military or your parents essentially need to be able to afford to send you to private training which can cost north of $100,000 And so what we've done is create a scholarship program to select great people from diverse backgrounds. It gives us a much larger pool of talent and give them the opportunity to go to training.
They of course have to pass all the same regimented requirements, safety, regulatory tests and they won't all make it through, but we're going to give people opportunity. And another thing that we're really proud of. That philosophy by the way for our shareholders doing the right thing in the long term is going to be what is good for all of our stakeholders, including our shareholders. They are not in conflict. They are aligned.
That philosophy also makes it a lot easier for to do the right thing for customers whether it was limiting change fees or connection saver. It's just a simple philosophy that can guide not only stakeholder capitalism but really everything we do at United.
Great. I will read the next question. What is your outlook for the recovery in business and leisure travel so far? How has that impacted business plans for example, hiring and asset purchases?
Well, if I rewind to October on our earnings call, we were the first at least airline I think to after being pretty well accurate about the scope and depth of the COVID crisis in October, even before vaccines had finished any of the trials, we said we could see the light at the end of the tunnel because the path through seemed clear to us. It's been really encouraging to see the continued improvement in demand since then to get back to our core cash burn being positive in March and now adjusted EBITDA in June. Frankly, those things are happening even faster than we thought. But you can really think of our business as approximately divided into three equal pieces, domestic leisure travel, domestic business travel and long haul international travel. Domestic business travel domestic leisure travel is, I would say, over 100% recovered right now.
Huge pent up demand which is also an encouraging indicator for the future on business travel and international travel that people really want to get out and unite with each other and reconnect to the world. Business travel is still down about 75%, but it was down over 80% a couple of weeks ago. So that's more than 25% improvement just the last few weeks. Increasingly, I have lots of anecdotes as I talk to other executives in other industries of their desire to get back to travel. I think that will continue to ramp over the summer.
But our best guess is it's really a post Labor Day when most or at least many corporations are going to be back in the office and kids will be back in school and that will give you customers to go visit, coworkers to visit and we expect increase in business travel to happen again in September. And then finally, the international portion of our business, which is the remaining third, we're encouraged by all the conversation, desire to open particularly the European borders and countries. Our top two booking markets, top two demand markets for this summer are Iceland and Greece, which normally are not number one and two, but they're number one and two because they're two of the three places in Europe that you can currently go and just show a vaccine and get into the countries. Indicative of the desire to travel. So we're not certain when those happen.
But based on those timings of the business travel recovery and the international recovery, we look forward to the next financial milestone which is actually getting back to true breakeven.
Okay. Thank you, Scott. I'll read the next question which is assuming a shift in working culture and travel post COVID, how do you unite how does United intend to compensate for the reduced business travel?
Well, thank you. And and, the consensus opinion from the beginning of the crisis has, I think, evolved actually. The consensus opinion in April was that business demand would be permanently impaired as much as 50%. Zoom worked great and people weren't going to go back to business travel. I think the consensus today, still most people think business travel will be down, but it's more like 10% to 15%.
You can count United as an outlier. Our view in April and it remains true today is that business travel is going to actually recover 100%. And the reason is because business travel is not about transactions. Business travel is about relationships. It's about getting to know your partners.
It's about getting to know your customers. It's about getting to know your coworkers. And not just doing a simple thirty minute meeting but going to dinner with them and having drinks and getting to know them and talking about their kids and their lives. Those are the kind of relationships that are required to make progress and to get you through tough times when tough times occur. And so our view has been and remains that business travel will fully recover.
It is the reason by the way that United uniquely took a different approach than most large airlines around the world. Most large airlines that we compete with, particularly global airlines have retired hundreds of airplanes in some cases because they had a view that business travel and international would not recover. We took a different approach and did not retire any aircraft. And so we increasingly feel confident in that outlook. I will caution or at least tell you that to the extent we're wrong, we'll stay flexible on it.
We've got about two seventy airplanes coming up in the next three to four years that we can retire when they hit their heavy checks or their engine overhauls, which are big expensive capital investments in those airplanes. And to the extent we were wrong about it, we have that flexibility. But we're increasingly confident and I think more and more of the world is kind of coming around to our perspective on that. Zoom is simply not a replacement for the human relationships. And while there may be some that goes away, there'll also be some incremental travel.
We've grown fond of saying kind of jokingly but really also true that there are going to be a lot of people in places like San Francisco, I suspect that replace their daily two hour commute by car with a monthly two hour commute by aircraft. Meaning, they live somewhere remotely but come back to the office for a week or two a month and they travel by air. So we've expected and thought the business travel would recover really from the beginning of the crisis and that remains our expectation today.
Thank you, Scott. That actually concludes our question and answer session. If you did not have a chance to direct your question, please email it to ualboardunited dot com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Operator, that concludes our meeting.
This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.