United AirlinesWithout more gates, CEO Scott Kirby said the airline will have to shorten or change schedules to deal with the frequent gridlock at its hub in Newark, New Jersey, a message that came after massive flight delays hampered travel over the July 4 holiday weekend. marred. The carrier gave 30,000 frequent flyer miles to customers hardest hit by the chaos.
“This has been one of the most operationally challenging weeks I have experienced in my entire career,” Kirby said in a note to staff on Saturday.
He said the airline needs more gates at Newark Liberty International Airport because of frequent aircraft backups there. “We will have to further modify/shorten our schedule to give ourselves even more spare ports and buffer – especially during the storm season,” he added. United has not given more details about the timetable reduction.
A day earlier, Kirby apologized for taking a private jet from New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport while thousands of passengers were stranded, CNBC first reported Friday.
The trouble began last weekend with a series of thunderstorms in some of the country’s most congested airspace along the east coast, cutting off routes for planes. While most airlines recovered, United’s problems continued throughout the week, angering customers and crews alike. United and JetBlue Airways executives said problems with air traffic control exacerbated the disruptions.
The difficult week was also among the busiest. The Transportation Security Administration said it screened a record nearly 2.89 million people on July 1 alone, surpassing a previous high on the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2019.
Kirby explained the week’s problems and said long-term changes were needed. He said the extensive departure delays that had been accumulating at the Newark hub since last weekend were hurting its operation. Take-offs were reduced by as much as 75% for longer than eight hours from Sunday to Tuesday in some cases.
“Airlines, including United, are simply not designed to severely limit capacity at their largest hub for four consecutive days and still operate successfully,” he wrote.
Aircraft and crews were then left out of position, something that often happens during severe weather and can cause a cascade of disruptions for customers.
Unions complained of hours of waiting for crew members to get assignments and hotels, forcing them to stay longer at airports.
Ken Diaz, president of the United Chapter of the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents the company’s cabin crew, said in a letter to members on Friday that the airline is short of crew planners. He said problems became so severe over the past week that planners were not clear in which city some of the crews were located.
Kirby said United needs to improve the platforms to make it easier for crews to get assignments and accommodations through the app, saying what happened over the past week is not acceptable.
Kirby called for more investment in the FAA and air traffic control to avoid delays and staff shortages, some of which occurred after hiring and training was interrupted early in the Covid pandemic.
United sent the 30,000 miles to customers who were delayed overnight or didn’t get to their destination at all, a spokeswoman said. She declined to say how many customers received the email.
The amount is enough to redeem for a round-trip domestic ticket to many destinations, though the miles required vary based on demand for that flight or route.
More than 63,000 U.S. flights arrived late from June 24 through Sunday, and more than 9,000 were canceled — or more than 4% of airline schedules — a rate nearly three times the average to date this year, according to flight tracker FlightAware. United underperformed competitors with 47% of its main schedule arriving late and 15% canceled during the period, FlightAware data shows.
As of Sunday, 7,650 US flights were delayed and more than 630 canceled – largely caused by thunderstorms on the East Coast. Nearly 900 United flights were delayed, or a third of the operation, when nearly 1,000 were US airlines flights were delayed and more than 300 JetBlue Airways flights were late. Airports in the New York City area, led by Newark, were the hardest hit.
Thunderstorms are one of the biggest challenges for airlines because they can appear suddenly and are more difficult to predict compared to hurricanes or winter storms, when airlines can cancel flights in advance to avoid stranding passengers and crew.