United CEO says ‘We got it wrong last week’ in dog’s death

United Continental “got it wrong” when a dog died aboard one of its flights, according to its CEO, saying the airline needs to make compassion central to its operations. “We got it wrong last week,” CEO Oscar Munoz said. “We take this deeply seriously.” Munoz acknowledged the carrier’s shortcomings after a bruising week of public-relations fiascoes involving animals. The French bulldog died March 12 after a flight attendant had the pet and its crate placed in an overhead bin. In a separate incident, the airline sent a Kansas-bound German shepherd to Japan. The airline has said it will improve procedures to identify in-cabin pets. United on Tuesday said it would stop taking new reservations for its PetSafe program, which transports animals in cargo holds, while it reviews procedures. “It tells us to make sure that we are training and developing and guiding our folks to have a semblance of thought and personal involvement in any situation,” Munoz said. The state of the world requires that safety and security dominate focus so much that there’s a risk employees will be too inflexible when problems arise, Munoz said. The company is putting tens of thousands of workers through a new program called Core4 that will train them in safety, caring, dependability and efficiency.<br/>