United Airlines CEO, Scott Kirby, has acknowledged the recent series of aircraft incidents in a letter to customers.
Kirby also expressed confidence that the airline would learn the “right lessons” and “continue to run an operation that puts safety first.” He plans to review safety training for employees following recent incidents
Extra training for pilots scheduled for May and changes in training curriculum for newly hired mechanics
Measures being taken in response to incidents such as a piece of aluminium skin falling off a plane and a jet losing a wheel on takeoff. The letter eads:
Of all the things that make me proud of our team at United Airlines, I’m most proud of the culture we’ve built around the safety of our employees and our customers.
Safety is our highest priority and is at the center of everything we do.
Unfortunately, in the past few weeks, our airline has experienced a number of incidents that are reminders of the importance of safety. While they are all unrelated, I want you to know that these incidents have our attention and have sharpened our focus.
Our team is reviewing the details of each case to understand what happened and using those insights to inform our safety training and procedures across all employee groups. This is in addition to some changes that were already planned, induding an extra day of in-person training for all pilots starting in May and a centralized training curriculum for our new-hire maintenance technicians. We’re also dedicating more resources to supplier network management.
We empower our team to speak up and raise their hand if they see something wrong. You can be confident that every time a United plane pulls away from the gate, everyone on our team is working together to keep you safe on your trip.
In the past few years, we’ve done a lot at United to build a new culture, improve our business and eam your trust. I’m confident that we’ll learn the right lessons from these recent incidents and continue to run an operation that puts safety first and makes our employees and customers proud.
Thank you for flying United, and I hope to see you onboard soon.
