With the whole world melting down over a United passenger being dragged off a plane, United’s public relations response has been abysmal.
United needs to quell the hordes, both for their own immediate business needs and to avoid a reaction that brings about bad rules detrimental to customers and to their business. So what CEO Oscar Munoz should have done this this:
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Sunday’s incident where a man was dragged off a United Express plane and bloodied was terrible. It’s excruciating to watch the video of the incident unfolding, and later of the disoriented man mumbling “just kill me.”
This was a tough situation all-around for which there were no good solutions. And things turned from bad to worse when a passenger refused to get off the plane when told to do so by the airline and by police. And it became the source of worldwide outrage when the police overreacted, dragged him off, and bloodied him.
Etihad Guest — a Citi and American Express transfer partner — offered absurdly cheap redemptions on Brussels Airlines. Sure, you had to hang up and call back to find an agent that could book the seats (Manchester, UK call center at 44 0345 6081225 is best for this) but given the low low prices it was worth it.
Redemptions were roundtrip only. Here are some of their cheap awards on Brussels Airlines, starting at just 930 miles roundtrip!
The story of how a passenger got dragged off a United Express flight just keeps getting crazier and crazier.
United CEO Oscar Munoz sent a letter to United employees beginning with the most important question of why the passenger defied the police rather than why the police bloodied the passenger. What ‘compounded’ the situation was the passengers refusal of the airline’s ‘polite’ request to deplane, making it ‘necessary’ to contact the police officer who appears to have beaten the passenger.
Delta cancelled several thousand flights between Wednesday and Sunday. They cancelled flights at a rate 3 to 7 times as high as other airlines across those days, and fewer than a third of their flights operated on time Thursday and Friday.
Atlanta got a storm to start things off, and even flights out of other hubs were affected because of aircraft cycling through Atlanta. New York and Detroit saw a storm on Thursday. But the airline didn’t come close to recovering on Friday or even through the weekend.
By now we all know the story of the doctor dragged off a United Express flight by police after he wouldn’t give up his seat when the airline asked.
I hadn’t seen this video of what the man looked like when he returned to the plane. He mumbles, ” “just kill me, just kill me.”
When a crisis event happens, don’t run from it run towards it so critics have nowhere to go.
Munoz shouldn’t say the customer was inconvenienced, he should say it was a terrible, horrible experience. He shouldn’t say it’s upsetting, he’s angry and he’s going to get to the bottom of it. Be active. Show actual concern, don’t be mealy mouthed.
While there wasn’t an oversale in this situation, most airlines in North America will sell more seats than they can carry passengers. They use historical information to determine how many passengers are likely not to show up for a flight. They want each seat to go out with a passenger in it.
I wrote earlier about a doctor who was dragged off a United Express flight (operated by Republic Airlines) last night when the airline needed to transport crew instead of four passengers. He needed to get to work at a hospital the next day. United, though, needed crew in place in Louisville.
United didn’t just decide crew were more important than passengers, they needed those crewmembers in place in order to work a flight in the morning.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
