PR CRISIS OF UNITED AIRLINES

            Due to overbooking for flight 3411, crew of United Airlines misbehaved with a passenger naming, Dr. David Dao. The crew pulled him out of the plane when he resisted leaving his booked seat. The incident was recorded by several passengers on the plane who posted the video on social media. This resulted in great losses for the airline including market share loss of $ 1 billion and reputation in airline industry. In March, 2007 CEO of United Airline, Oscar Munoz was named as US communicator of the year and a month later due to poor handling of situation of customer handling resulted in PR disaster. The reason caused the shares of airline to drop dramatically by great margin. The power of social media caused the event to become a disaster overnight.

        It is the incident of 9^th April, 2017 when official of United Airlines dragged out a 69 year old passenger Dr. David Dao from his booked seat to aisle of the plane. Because of this rough treatment with a passenger, Dr. Dao was admitted to a hospital and passengers on the plane recorded the video and posted it on social media. The video from several phones gave proof of ill treatment that happened on Flight 3411 between the airline officials and the passenger. The issue increased when CEO of the airline came forward with an apology. It gave the proof of global PR disaster for United Airlines. (Prweek.com 2017)

Analysis of the management strategies of United Airlines

First response of the airline about the incident

        All the institutes and organizations whether private or government make mistakes what solve or amplifies the incident is their response to it. Same thing happened in the case of United Airlines 2017 incident. The first response of the airline CEO should have been a direct apology to the passenger and his family for being dragged out of plane as he got injured instead he apologized that such incident happened and for having to “re-accommodate the customers’. The apology that came upfront says that the upset incident took place at United. He apologized for having to re-accommodate the customers and mentioned that their team is working with haste to find out what really happened and they are trying to reach passenger and ask him about how and why it happened.

Leaked internal email of CEO to airline

        This leaked email added fuel to fire. After the irresponsible response to the situation, an email of Munoz was leaked in which he described passenger as disruptive and employees have done what they should have done. This began new trend on social media with #NewUnitedAirlinesMotto. Boycott of airline and its service was done in several countries. 40% of people refused to do future travels or any business with the airline.

    That’s when the second apology of Munoz came up where he offered apology to Dr. Dao and called the incident terrible and horrific. The apology he offered should have been offered instantly in order to limit the damage the video

Neglected power of social media United Airlines

    This incident shows how powerful social media is and what a leaked video can do to image of a person, reputation of an organization and how it can serve justice. The video showed ill treatment of the employees. The incident became international PR crisis overnight. Incident was recorded and posted by passengers on social media.

One advantage of the video was actual incident was displayed, viewed and understood by responsibility authorities as well. Due to incident, shares of the company dropped and suffered loss in global market.

Poor customer service United Airlines

    One incident of United airline caused strict observation of strategies and customer dealing of whole industry of airlines. Airlines always overbook the flight because there are empty seats in airplane in order to limit the number of empty seats, flights are overbooked. Same case happened here but the ill treatment got way out of hands and video recordings made it worse. For flight 3411, bumping took place which is a common practice in airline business. Instead of overbooking four extra passengers, four crew passengers were overbooked. The airline thought it is better to have been overbooked. The airline offered all the four passengers including Dr. Dao credit of $ 1000 flight credit but he refused to give up his seat. So he was made to leave the airplane.

The process of bumping is long practice in airline industry. Passengers are offered incentives in place of their seats it became a public knowledge after the incident of flight 3411.

In response now Canada is introducing a legislation which makes customers aware of their rights and gives knowledge of practice of bumping. This legislation will affect business of airlines in Canada.

United airlines CEO claimed that he is an Asian and this is the reason he is being targeted.

My strategies in handling pr crisis United Airlines

The tactics I would have implemented if I were agency handling PR crisis of United airlines include:

I would have quickly responded to the incident by deeply apologizing the passenger and his family as he got injured.

I would have provided them some financial aid.

The crew members who treated the Dr. Dao so ill would have been punished such as suspension or worse loses their job.

Honest story on the media.

Giving knowledge of rights of people on a plane by educating them

And if such incident happens the agency responsible should take responsibility of it, own it, apologize it and avoid such mistakes in future. (Netimperative.com 2017)

References of  United Airlines

Netimperative.com. 2017. Crisis management case study: United Airlines. May 6. http://www.netimperative.com/2017/05/crisis-management-case-study-united-airlines/.

Prweek.com. 2017. Timeline of a crisis . June 6. https://www.prweek.com/article/1435619/timeline-crisis-united-airlines.