As thunderstorms disrupt Fourth of July travel, United CEO
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby stated that if more gates are not added, the carrier would have to decrease or adjust schedules to deal with the regular congestion at its Newark, New Jersey, hub, a message that came after massive flight delays plagued the July Fourth holiday weekend travel. Customers who were most affected by the disruption received 30,000 frequent flyer points from the airline.
“This has been one of the most operationally challenging weeks I’ve experienced in my entire career,” Kirby said in a memo to employees on Saturday.
He stated that the airline requires additional gates at Newark Liberty International Airport due to frequent flight backlog. “We’re going to have to change/reduce our schedule even further to give ourselves even more spare gates and buffer — especially during thunderstorm season,”
Kirby apologised a day earlier for flying a private plane out of New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport as hundreds of customers were detained, according to CNBC.
Last weekend, a series of thunderstorms blocked off paths for planes in some of the country’s most crowded airspace around the East Coast. While other airlines recovered, United’s issues persisted throughout the week, infuriating both passengers and staff. Executives from United and JetBlue Airways indicated that air traffic control issues exacerbated the difficulties.
The challenging week was also one of the busiest. The Transportation Security Administration reported screening roughly 2.89 million individuals on July 1 alone, breaking a previous record set on the Sunday following Thanksgiving in 2019.
Kirby detailed the week’s problems and stated
“Airlines, including United, simply aren’t designed to have their largest hub have its capacity severely limited for four straight days and still operate successfully,” he said.
Aircraft and workers were then left out of position, which happens often during severe weather and can cause a chain reaction of interruptions for consumers.
Unions complained about crew workers having to wait hours for assignments and lodgings, causing them to stay at airports longer.
In a statement to members on Friday, Ken Diaz, president of the United chapter of the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents the airline’s cabin crews, stated the business is short on crew schedulers. He claimed that difficulties had gotten so bad in the last week that schedulers couldn’t tell which city was whose.
