United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has nothing but praise for US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, singling him out twice during a Face The Nation interview.

United Airlines CEO Has More Kind Words For Transportation Secretary Duffy

Kirby appeared on Face The Nation on Sunday to address safety fears stemming from the congestion, delays, and brief system outages in and around Newark Liberty International Airport. His thesis was clear: safety is never compromised; there is not only broad, but unanimous agreement that safety comes first and that a laser-focus on safety is the reason for the delays and congestion, because no corners are cut and no chances are taken.

The conversation pivoted to upgrading the nation’s aging Air Traffic Control (ATC) system and Kirby was asked why this time would be different. After all, the nation has been talking about the “urgent need” to upgrade the ATC system for three decades. Kirby argued this would be different because money would be allocated up-front and because Duffy was in charge:

In the past, it’s always been a year at a time. And when you do things a year at a time, especially in government, like, it just stops and starts and stops and starts. You can’t do these big projects – like, no company would try to do big projects a year at a time. So, this time, they’re going to ask for all the money up front, which lets you plan the entire project and get the entire project done.

And the second thing is people. You know, we have a secretary who’s action-oriented, who’s committed to getting this done, and an FAA administrator that hopefully will get approved soon.

Kirby was then asked about DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) and how money could realistically be allocated to air traffic control upgrades when DOGE was trying to cut Department of Transportation and  Federal Aviation Administration funding. Once again, he praised Duffy, calling him a gold star:

I think Secretary Duffy probably is the – the leading, gold star for how to manage through the DOGE process, which is, they put – they called it caution tape, around all the safety, controller, all the critical functions.

And he praised DOGE:

And – and DOGE went and looked. And – and I think they took 400 – about 400 jobs out of over 100,000 jobs, back-office kinds of jobs. I think they’ve done a very effective job of protecting that core safety, operational workforce.

You can watch the full interview here:

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen repeated instances of Kirby courting the Trump administration with positive words and praise.

While the word “slot control” was not uttered during the 19-minute interview, Kirby’s goal is clear: if United has to downsize at Newark, it does not want anyone else adding flights. Both behind-the-scenes and overtly, United is pushing Duffy to reintroduce slot controls in Newark (restoring its status as a Level 3 Airport) in a bid it says is necessary to reduce delays and cancellations.

CONCLUSION

Kirby again labored to praise the Trump administration, singling out Duffy as someone who is uniquely well-qualified to finally fix the ATC  system.

My sense is these words of praise are part of a continued effort to court the Trump administration to agree to restore slot controls (and maybe even allow a much closer partnership with JetBlue).

image: Face The Nation screengrab (fair use)