Wole Shadare 
The Chief Executive Officer of United States mega carrier, United Airlines, Scott Kirby, has lamented the incalculable damage the supply chain challenge has done to the entire aviation industry, stressing that he doesn’t know of any industry that has had as big a supply chain challenge as aviation coming out of the pandemic.
He further stated that many workers retired, noting that it would still take a while for the entire aviation supply chain to fully recover.
This is coming as the carrier’s launch of flight services to Dakar, Senegal penultimate week has highlighted the growing influence of the airline in Africa.
The airline is the biggest US operator connecting Africa to the world as it plans to open more routes in the continent, as it operates to Cape Town, South Africa, Johannesburg, Marrakech in Morocco, Lagos, Accra, Ghana and recently Dakar, Senegal. Kirby said the airline is now the largest U.S. carrier flying to Africa. He said: “We fly to many destinations. We have been growing, we plan to grow and add more cities.
We are excited about Africa. We would have been even bigger today, but Boeing has been a little behind on aircraft deliveries, or we would have added some of those routes already. We leaned into it heavily during the pandemic, and it has been done well, and we’re going to continue to grow.”
Kirby, who spoke to New Telegraph in New York at the unveiling of its new premium cabins called United Polaris studio that gives premium travellers new travel experience in its B787-9 aircraft, said the carrier would not stop huge investments in upgrading its products to meet with the demands of customers. He disclosed that the company invests over $150 million per year into food across the entire airline.
He said: “It is incremental to what we are spending, because food is an important part of most people’s journey, and that’s a place where we knew we could do better, and so we’re beginning to do that.
It is not only the food, it’s the plates they come on; we have added a red pepper shaker in case you want to spice up your meal. I think that is pretty unique amongst airlines, so it is the whole journey.
It is a significant investment, but we have learned that our goal is not to just cut costs. Our goal is to invest in things that our customers would like to buy.”
The airline chief further stated: “We’re an important link, particularly between Newark and Washington, D.C. It is not just about commercial air service.
It’s about connecting people and uniting the world, and those links are critical to the future of Africa, and to have the Americans involved and connected to the continent, really critical. On Wi-Fi, the great news is we are now going to have the best Wi-Fi in the sky. Starting this week (Two weeks ago), the first commercial flight with Starlink on any of the large U.S. airlines is going to come.
“We are going to have the whole fleet eventually replaced with that. It is going to be free. It will be free today. The reason it’s not free today is that there is not enough bandwidth. If you make it free, and this happens on some of our competitors when it’s free, and everyone gets on, it doesn’t work for anybody.
“You have to have enough bandwidth to make it work. Putting Starlink on, we are going to get it done as fast as possible, and they go way faster than any other vendor we have ever dealt with or any other partner we’ve ever dealt with. Having fast, high-speed Wi-Fi is what you need to make work free.”
