United Continental Holdings Inc. “got it wrong” when a dog died aboard one of its flights, according to its chief executive officer, saying the airline needs to make compassion central to its operations.

“We got it wrong last week,” CEO Oscar Munoz said in a presentation Wednesday to the Executives’ Club of Chicago. “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.

A U.S. senator called United’s handling of pets “simply inexcusable,” saying 18 of 24 animals that died on a major airline last year were in United’s care. 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.

Year-Old Incident

Last week’s blunders occurred almost a year after United drew worldwide scorn when a passenger was dragged off a flight by security officials in Chicago. Rather than wish that memories of the event would fade, Munoz wants employees to remember it.

“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,” he told the audience of Chicago business people.

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.

“We put our folks in bad places when we give such definitive, specific, concrete, rigid rules that they’re not allowed to show a little caring and compassion,” he said.

“Ultimately, this whole thing is about trust,” he said. “You have the right to demand the highest level of performance from us.”