United Airlines abruptly replaced its CEO as a federal investigation continued into whether the airline gave preferential treatment to a former chairman of the agency that operates the New York-area airports who has political ties to New Jersey Gov. and presidential candidate Chris Christie.
Federal prosecutors are probing United’s ties to David Samson, the former chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
United Continental Holdings Inc. said Tuesday that Jeffery Smisek and two other senior executives had stepped down. Oscar Munoz, a railroad executive and head of United’s audit committee, was named CEO and president.
United began a direct flight between Newark, New Jersey, and Columbia, South Carolina, where Samson has a summer home, while he was chairman and ended it days after he resigned last year. United, the dominant airline at Newark Liberty International Airport, was negotiating with the Port Authority over projects at the airport at the same time.
United said the departures announced Tuesday were the result of the federal probe and its own investigation into the matter.
Samson, a former state attorney general in New Jersey, headed Christie’s transition team and was appointed chairman of the Port Authority by Christie in in 2011. He resigned in March 2014, several months after the scandal surrounding politically motivated lane closures at the George Washington Bridge the previous September.
Samson has not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing, nor have any United executives. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey declined to comment on the matter.
