United Airlines: An Exercise in Public Relations Futility

The disastrous handling of an overbooked flight on United Airlines has made national headlines and has devolved into a social media siege against everything having to do with the world’s third largest airline. United sold too many seats for a plane bound for Louisville, and they needed to get four crew members on that plane so that another flight departing from Louisville could proceed as scheduled.

The airline offered money ($800) to any passenger willing to leave on a later flight. The passengers were not motivated by that incentive, and one man, a doctor in Louisville who had patient appointments the next morning refused to leave the back of the plane.

The crew called in the police and the man was “re-accommodated” as United later termed it. The mainstream news reports from witnesses allege that the man was physically dragged from the plane and was seen with blood coming from his face. The reports state that several children aboard became very frightened. The situation is totally inexcusable, and the actions of the airline crew were totally out of line.

Then, United bumbled the whole public relations response to the situation and made a bad incident, worse for themselves. The airline tried to deny the incident, then tried to distort the facts by saying that the passenger “fell” when struggling with police and crew members. They finally, “came clean”, and issued an apology for their role in the incident.

United Airlines, became the source of all types of jokes and negative reactions on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. The stock shares of the company have sunk in trading activity on Tuesday, as the public backlash continues and seems to be gaining strength.
There is a public petition signed by over fifty thousand people so far, the petition seeks to launch a federal investigation into what transpired on the Louisville bound plane. The prospect of a federal investigation is never a good thing for a publicly traded company, especially one with a public safety obligation such as a major airline.

United handled this situation and the aftermath of the situation just about as badly as a company could possibly have dealt with such a terrible scenario. The public image of their brand has definitely taken a setback and it is significant enough that it could damage their business outlook for the year.

The other seemingly obvious by product of this debacle is that a lawsuit for damages is most certainly forthcoming by the passenger involved. The financial settlement from the one legal action will not be enough to harm United Airlines, but the negative media coverage of an ongoing, protracted case will hurt their business from a brand image perspective.

The company has been destroyed on social media, with people from all sides taking shots at United and their terrible handling of the situation. In my days of media relations and communications work for companies, the first rule is to get out ahead of the situation before it becomes a story. The best policy is to be honest, admit mistakes were made, and move forward.

The general public, especially Americans, are “second chance” people and they are very willing to give a person or a company another opportunity if something goes wrong and the mistake was admitted. Conversely, they are far less likely to provide that same forgiveness or latitude if the perception is that someone is lying, or trying to cover up the real situation.

This is where United really compromised themselves, they should have just all come clean. They should have been honest, and the police involved are culpable too because that was an outrageous reaction to a situation with a passenger who had not violated any rules and was doing nothing wrong. The passenger was sitting in the spot he paid for, and was removed from the plane, that is huge problem for a consumer based transportation company.

The root of the issue is greed, which is why many people are so upset. In this case, the passengers stated that United could have provided more incentive for them to give up their seats for a later flight. United could have provided a complementary meal or two, or provided a hotel room for the night to lessen the inconvenience caused by the greed driven activity that got them into this mess in the first place: an overbooked plane.

United sold more tickets than they had seats available, which can be a somewhat common practice for airlines, so they are not left with a less than full capacity flight on that particular route. They underestimated the demand, and did little to try to help the passengers that had paid for seats. The four people they asked to move, also held the cheapest tickets on the plane, which many people have now taken issue with that part of the scenario.

United was moving these people to get their own employees on the flight, and in no way could they come out of this situation looking good. They should have issued an immediate apology for the actions taken on that flight and offered to compensate every passenger involved in some way. They did none of those things and are now in a media and social media barrage, and their corporate image is going to be damaged badly.

In the fast paced world of today with everyone having a forum on social media for their opinions, social media relations is a huge component of corporate branding strategy, and an area where United failed in this situation. Their response was not above board and their protocols and procedures for handling oversold planes must be evaluated.

In the end, United Airlines could have made alternative arrangements for getting those four crew members to Louisville. The airlines should reevaluate that component of this situation. The cost of the potential legal settlement coupled with the negative news and consumer perception backlash far exceeds the cost of the solution I had in mind. United should have chartered a private plane to get those employees to Louisville, in the end that would have been far more cost effective, and would not have involved a national media incident.

The United Airlines public relations response in this situation has become a case study: in what not to do when running one of the largest airlines in the world. United will now learn the hard way that honesty is the best policy, and greed never wins.