Sir Horton Brown, head of Southern Rail’s parent Go Ahead and Govia companies is to be replaced this week by the CEO of United Airlines in a bid to improve customer relations.

Lord Littleroom, the head of Govia’s marketing division said “We are constantly on the look-out for talent with better public relations credit than the useless bastards we have at the moment. Obviously we’re never going to get Peter Sutcliffe out of jail so we settled on the next best thing.”

United Airlines have been in the headlines this week after getting armed, steroid-munching thugs to remove a doctor from a flight so a bloke who pushes a trolley could get to work the next day.

“See? That’s far better PR than Southern has and besides his current celebrity might take the focus off how utterly incompetent we are at running a rail franchise.”

It’s thought that the United Airlines CEO, Oscar Munoz, will keep his job as an uncaring airline boss as well as taking up the new position.

“Well,” said Sir Horton Brown, “I have to admit that nothing says Southern Rail better than somebody with no ideas about railways and who doesn’t actually have time to do the job in the first place. It’s fair enough as no doubt I will end up running something else into the ground for a massively undeserved salary.”