01 — Media relations
Media relations at a major airline
A summer on the corporate communications team: pitching tech reporters, preparing executive briefings, tracking aviation news and drafting media materials.
- Organization
- United Airlines · Corporate Communications
- When
- May – Aug 2026 · Chicago
- Type
- Professional internship · experience overview
Context
- Sam spent summer 2026 as a Corporate Communications & Media Relations intern at United Airlines, based on the ORD Hub Communications team in Chicago.
- The work spanned proactive pitching, executive preparation, daily media monitoring and on-site event support.
My contribution
- Pitched United's Starlink Wi-Fi launch to technology journalists.
- Prepared executive briefing materials for United's Chief Communications Officer ahead of a live Chicago WBEZ radio interview.
- Monitored tier-one aviation news and competitor coverage, compiling weekly executive media and briefing reports.
- Supported a 500-person national aircraft livery reveal.
- Co-developed an AI prompt library for reporter targeting, media research, email prioritization and PR drafting.
Documented results
- Starlink Wi-Fi pitching earned coverage and a 40% journalist response rate — four times the goal.
Background facts
- The livery reveal was a national event with roughly 500 attendees; Sam's role was support.
Sample
Corporate communications in practice
My summer at United combined technology pitching, executive preparation and aviation news monitoring. These highlights summarize my experience; internal planning documents are not shared here.
- Technology pitching
- Pitched the Starlink Wi-Fi launch to technology journalists, earning coverage and a 40% response rate — four times the goal.
- Executive preparation
- Prepared briefing materials for the Chief Communications Officer ahead of a live Chicago WBEZ radio interview.
- Media intelligence
- Tracked aviation news and competitor coverage and compiled weekly executive media and briefing reports.
Skills
- Media pitching
- Earned media
- Executive briefings
- Media monitoring
- Event support
- AI prompt design