United Airlines CEO breaks silence on safety concerns with letter to passengers insisting ‘incidents have our attention’
THE CEO of United Airlines has tried to reassure travelers following a slew of safety incidents.
Scott Kirby, who became CEO in 2020, said that the company’s focus had been sharpened.
Kirby sent a letter to customers explaining that United chiefs are looking at what caused the incidents, per NBC News.
Execs are rolling out an extra training day for pilots that will take place in May.
The letter comes after the airline suffered four emergency incidents in the past two weeks.
In the first incident, on March 4, an engine caught fire after ingesting plastic wrap.
read more on us news
Passengers were terrified when flames appeared to shoot from one of the engines.
The jet had taken off from Houston en route to Fort Myers, Florida.
Dorian D. Cerda told Storyful that flames emerged around 15 minutes into the journey.
Pilots safely returned the plane to Houston.
Most read in The US Sun
On March 7, a United Airlines plane that was heading to Japan lost a tire as it took off from San Francisco.
The tire ended up smashing the back window of a car in the airport's parking lot.
The Boeing 777 aircraft made an emergency landing at Los Angeles Airport before being towed away.
The very next day, United hit the headlines again when a plane veered off the runway at Houston International Airport.
The jet, which was carrying 160 passengers, swerved onto the grass when it touched down at Houston.
There were no injuries as passengers were whisked to the terminal via a bus.
One passenger said they felt bumps as they were taxiing to the terminal.
"Felt like when you have a flat tire in a car," Janet Bumbarger, a passenger on the flight, told NBC affiliate KPRC-TV.
More than 200 passengers were on the flight, and they were moved to another plane.
And most recently, on March 15, a United Airlines plane that touched down in Medford, Oregon, was found to be missing a panel behind a landing gear, per CNN.
Investigators revealed the panel was missing from the underside of the Boeing 737-800's wing.
A United spokesperson said the company would carry out a thorough examination of the plane.
Read More on The US Sun
They stressed repairs would be made before the plane returns to the skies.
Chiefs at the Federal Aviation Administration said there would be an investigation.
