United Airlines is planning to make changes in flight operations to avoid weather-related disruptions ahead of the Fourth of July holiday, said Chief Executive Officer Scott Kirby, a spokeswoman for the airline.
While we work to control the things within our control, we must also do a better job of planning against the things outside our control so that we can be in a position to recover more quickly, Mr. Kirby said in a statement.
Last month, United Airways canceled about 19% of its scheduled flights as thunderstorms and equipment failures at a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration FAA facility in Washington caused significant delays for air travelers on the U.S. East Coast.
About 26,000 flights were delayed in June due to thunderstorms ripped through parts of the U.S., according to data from flight monitoring service FlightAware. Last week, Kirby criticized the FAA for their handling of last week's flight cancellations.
United Airlines is also working with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to get more gates, he said, adding that the company would have to further change or reduce its schedule, giving itself more spare gates and buffer, particularly during storm season.
United Airlines can plan for things like hurricanes, sub-zero temperatures and snowstorms, but United has never seen an extended limited operating environment like the one we saw this past week at Newark.