- United CEO Scott Kirby says climate change will cause even more flight delays in the future.
- The airline canceled thousands of flights in a six-day meltdown leading up to July 4 weekend.
- Kirby was scrutinized for chartering a private jet while thousands of passengers were left stranded.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby hasn’t hesitated to point fingers when it comes to flight delays, from criticizing airport infrastructure to slamming the FAA for staffing shortages.
Now, the CEO is warning passengers that climate change will be a major cause of flight disruptions in the future, highlighting the airline’s recent June meltdown as an example, Politico reported earlier this week.
“I think irregular operations events are going to be more likely to occur as the climate warms,” Kirby said onstage at a recent Politico event. “More heat in the atmosphere, thermodynamics 101 — we’re going to have more thunderstorms.”
A United spokesperson said the airline had no comment beyond Kirby’s quotes from the event.
Rising global temperatures and subsequent extreme weather events are already making air travel more difficult. Hurricanes are getting stronger, wildfire smoke is obscuring the sky, and airport tarmacs are melting in extreme heat.
Widespread thunderstorms in the New York area led United to cancel thousands of flights leading up to Independence Day weekend, leaving hoards of frustrated passengers stranded. The airline offered affected travelers 30,000 miles and flight attendants triple-pay in an attempt to make amends.
Meanwhile, Kirby — who was the industry’s highest-paid CEO last year — was put on blast for chartering a private jet that same week. He later issued an apology, calling the decision “insensitive” to customers and United employees affected by the meltdown.
At the time, United said it did not pay for the CEO’s flight. The airline declined to say whether Kirby frequently takes private planes.
While all airlines took a hit from the storms that week, United suffered the bulk of the disruptions. Kirby blamed United’s struggles, specifically in its Newark hub, on the FAA’s shortage of air traffic controllers in the New York City area.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pushed back on Kirby’s criticism of the FAA, telling CNN that United has “some internal issues they need to work through” as they had struggled “even relative to other US airlines.”
Garth Thompson, a United pilot and union chair, similarly highlighted internal issues at the airline as a driving factor behind the flight delays in late June.
“While Scott Kirby attempts to deflect blame on the FAA, weather and everything in between, further flight delays are a direct result of poor planning by United Airlines executives,” Thompson told Insider at the time.
He added: “The company is dragging its feet on taking any proactive measures to mitigate further delays, including on settling a new contract with us that will improve our quality of life, upgrade our scheduling system, and fundamentally prioritize the well-being of pilots.”
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