Hi, I'm Dan Premack, and welcome to Axios Recap, brought to you by General Motors.

Today is Sunday, March 14th, and we're looking back at the same week last year.

The week, America, change.

This is the final episode of our COVID-19 decision-makers series.

Conversations about some of the most consequential decisions made this time last year.

Today we talked to Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines.

He was president of United at the time, in the midst of taking over the top job as the

pandemic escalated. He also was in position of

not just making big decisions, but of responding to the big decisions of others, such as the

European travel ban. Airlines at the time were between a rock and a hard place, with America

locking down. The government had closed certain routes. Customer cancellations came at an unprecedented

rate and tens of thousands of secure jobs were suddenly at risk. All the while, airlines were also

being asked to transport medical workers to coronavirus hotspots. Scott Kirby tells us that he

usually sleeps very well at night, but not that week. We learn what

was happening behind the scenes in 15 seconds. We're joined now by United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby.

Scott, when did you begin to realize how significant COVID-19 could be? Well, I first started reading about COVID-19, actually in December of 2019, but when it really

hit me that the genie was out of the bottle, and this was going to become a global pandemic,

was at the very beginning of March on the weekend when COVID showed up in Italy.

I called our chief financial officer on that Sunday.

We had in the first week of March, a large management meeting of 5,000 people in Chicago.

And rather than sit in the audience during that management meeting, I was actually in a back room having a parade of people come through and I would start

with the speech of, nobody realizes it yet, but this is going to be a global pandemic and

...