- United Airlines CEO said the US government is partly to blame for travel chaos.
- Scott Kirby told CNN that government infrastructure hadn’t caught up with demand quickly enough.
- Airlines have been struggling to keep staffing levels in line with the demand.
The CEO of United Airlines said that travel issues affecting the aviation industry are partly the fault of the US government.
In an interview with CNN, Scott Kirby said that government-controlled infrastructure, such as air traffic control, hadn’t caught up to demand as quickly as airlines.
Kirby told CNN: “Frankly, the bigger challenges are not the airlines themselves, they’re all the support infrastructure around aviation that hasn’t caught up as quickly.”
“When the FAA says you can’t land airplanes at the airport, you’re going to have delays and cancellations,” he said.
Representatives for United Airlines did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment made outside of normal working hours.
US secretary of transportation, Pete Buttigieg, said that air traffic control issues have not accounted for many of the cancellations over the summer, per CNN.
Buttigieg recently wrote to US air carriers calling the summer’s travel chaos “unacceptable.” He said in the letter that airlines should offer delayed passengers’ meals and hotel vouchers.
Representatives for the Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment made outside of normal working hours.
The aviation industry has had a tumultuous summer as a sharp uptick in travel demand has left many airlines scrambling to accommodate a record number of passengers. Airlines have been struggling to keep staffing levels in line with the demand, and shortages of pilots as well as flight crew have contributed to the wave of flight delays and cancellations.
This summer, US airlines have canceled a total of 16,414 flights since June, per FlightAware.
