After David Dao was dragged off a United Express flight and bloodied in April, United CEO Oscar Munoz apologized that passengers ‘had to be re-accommodated’ and he sent a letter to employees blaming Dao for the incident.
That may have been the worst apology in airline history. And the response helped fuel outrage over the incident.
United CEO Oscar Munoz
This morning I wrote about a Southwest Airlines passenger dragged off a Baltimore – Los Angeles flight.
She had objected to an emotional support animal on the plane, citing her allergies. The airline decided to remove her, not wanting her to become ill inflight. She wouldn’t leave, Southwest called law enforcement, and the situation escalated.
Leave aside that airlines generally won’t require documentation for an emotional support animal but chose to remove this woman because she lacked documentation of her allergies. They should at a minimum have worked to re-accommodate her whether seated as far away from the animal as possible or in a way that better resolved the customer service situation than calling the police.
Southwest airlines is apologizing to the passenger and it may be the second worst apology I’ve ever seen.
Southwest says, “Our Flight Crew made repeated attempts to explain the situation to the Customer, however, she refused to deplane and law enforcement became involved.”
Law enforcement became involved. Southwest Airlines called law enforcement on their customer, something United pledges no longer to do after the David Dao dragging incident. Southwest resorts to use of the passive voice. Mistakes were made… refusing to own the situation.
They continue,
“We are disheartened by the way this situation unfolded and the Customer’s removal by local law enforcement officers,” Southwest Airlines said in the statement. “We publicly offer our apologies to this Customer for her experience and we will be contacting her directly to address her concerns. Southwest Airlines was built on Customer Service, and it is always our goal for all Customers to have a positive experience.”
They aren’t taking responsibility, the situation simply ‘unfolded’ in a way they’re disheartened by as detached observers. And they apology for that not because their employees decided to outsource customer service issues to law enforcement.
In this case the woman pulled off the plane by police wasn’t hurt the way David Dao was. Nonetheless the incident — and the response — seem so out of character for Southwest, and I’m disappointed in them for it.
Honestly I thought all airlines had been watched and learned the post-David Dao trick for removing passengers from a plane without violence.
Gary you are just as much an idiot as this lady. If she has a “life threatening allergy” doubt it…. then she should be carry medicine to fight it because there are dogs/pets EVERYWHERE in public that she will come in contact with!!! I guarantee she walked past dogs in the airport….
Case closed!!!
Oh SWA doesn’t need to apologize, they are doing it to be nice.
SWA kicks Butt!
Thank you for your great service!!
Secondly….
You can bring pets on the plane wether they are support dogs, seeing eye dogs, just PETS! Who cares so you don’t need paperwork for pets on planes!!!
SWA #1
I guess it doesn’t take much to be a blogger. Hard to get past the grammatical errors and poor sentence structure. Even if you can, this is nothing but an opinionated fluff piece. SWA is one of the most successful airlines In history and if you want to be disappointed in them, let it be for the fact that they apologized at all. Wasn’t necessary in this case. They did nothing wrong. I’m somewhat familiar with FAA Regs and as soon as that woman let the words “life threatening allergy” roll off her tongue, she sealed her own fate. She willfully offered up words that necessitated a required action by the airline. Let me write that word again; Required. Now, does the video give us a reason to raise an eyebrow? Certainly. Based on the video, was the decision made by the police to use force a questionable decision? Possibly. Is SWA responsible for the physical force that was used by non employees? In the public eye, of course. But legally, absolutely not. Maybe we should ask a question that applies to this blogger’s opinion : Mr. Leff, did you witness this altercation, personally? Right, neither did I. What I saw, you saw, and most of the viewing population saw, was a specific moment in time. A moment that paints a very small picture that, in this case, is NOT worth a thousand words. Being a frequent flier hardly qualifies you to be judge, jury, and executioner.
She didnt claim a life threatening to some assholes dog hair but someone is certainly life threatening to her. Coo coo catch out forces!
Southwest DID require documentation for an emotional support dog. They required a letter from a doctor that had to be under 1 year old. That issue went away when the DOT determined that emotional support animals were often bogus claims. I always had my letter any time I had to fly.