United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby told CNBC in an interview that the current outlook to the airline industry is that normal staffing level will not return until summer of 2023.

“We’re not going to get back to normal utilization and normal staffing levels until next summer,” said Kirby.

According to Kirby, United has 10 percent more pilots now per block compared in 2019. Kirby noted that the current status in London Heathrow International Airport is one among the challenges it is now facing. The UK hub recently released a notice to airlines to limit sales of outbound tickets until September this year as the former is facing staffing shortages and is still looking for ways to deal with the surge in demand.

“The system just can’t support our flying, and the customers and the airline are at risk,” Kirby said. “So what we’ve done is just pull our capacity back. All the costs are still there, because we’re prepared to be a much bigger airline. We have the people to be a bigger airline. But we’re going to be a smaller airline until the system can support it.”

Photo Credit – Associated Press

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