United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby starts his day before most people have even begun checking their emails, but he doesn't immediately dive into a packed schedule of meetings. 59-year-old Kirby, who runs one of the world's biggest airlines, says he typically gets about eight and a half hours of sleep before waking at 5:30 am.

His first task is not a long list of emails. He spends just about five minutes catching up on messages before turning to newspapers.He reads the Wall Street Journal cover to cover, followed by about 15 minutes of the New York Times. He then moves on to his morning workout, according to his recent podcast interview with Semafor.Kirby's approach to his workday is equally unusual.The United Airlines chief puts a strict four-hour limit on meetings each day, and he often spends less time in meetings than that.

He believes meetings should be used for actual conversations rather than presentations.His preference is for executives to send slide decks in advance so that he does not have to sit through someone reading a presentation to him. That leaves Kirby with substantial time for what he considers a more important part of his job: reading, thinking and talking to people.By the end of an average day, he says he has spent around three hours reading.

His reading isn't restricted to business and aviation. He also reads science fiction novels. And despite running a company with hundreds of thousands of employees and a vast global operation, Kirby sometimes makes time for something that might seem surprising for a CEO with such a demanding job: an afternoon nap.He regularly takes a 15-minute nap during the day.Kirby has said he sees his role less as managing everything that happened the previous day and more as looking ahead at what could be coming next.

His routine is therefore built around giving himself enough time away from meetings and day-to-day firefighting to think about the airline's future.

Kirby says he wants flight attendants to stop saying sorry

That philosophy also feeds into his vision for United's customer service. Kirby says he wants to build an airline that its employees, particularly flight attendants, are proud to work for. His goal, he says, is ultimately to “eliminate the need for them to apologize for anything.”His argument is that flight attendants should not constantly have to apologise to passengers for problems such as poor Wi-Fi, broken seats or delays that are within the airline's control.Kirby has identified four areas that he believes are essential to creating a premium airline: product, reliability, technology and service. But he considers service the most important because it determines how employees treat customers and how passengers feel about the airline.