United Airlines: a brutal eviction
As PR blunders go, this was a humdinger. United Airlines brands itself as the “friendly skies” carrier, but after last week’s shocking events, when an elderly doctor was dragged screaming off one of its planes, it may need a rebranding, said Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian. The disaster began to unfold on the tarmac at Chicago’s O’hare airport after crew belatedly realised they needed four more seats for staff on a flight to Louisville. They offered passengers $800 each to leave the plane – and when none volunteered, four were selected to be bumped off. Three meekly left their seats, but Dr David Dao, 69, refused. So cabin crew called the airport police, who forced him up, and pulled him along the aisle on his back – breaking his nose and knocking out two of his front teeth in the process. Passengers filmed the incident; the footage went viral, and almost $1bn was (briefly) knocked off United’s market value.
Dao’s brutal ejection wasn’t the most terrible thing to occur last week, said John Kass in the Chicago Tribune. Yet it provoked worldwide outrage. Partly this was because it was caught on video: to grab attention these days, you must have a video to tweet out. But more than that, it hit a nerve, said Jacob Silverman in The Washington Post. We’re told that the consumer is king, but every so often we come up against a corporate giant and find we’re impotent in the face of their intransigence. To travel by plane was once a luxurious experience; now, it’s an agony of petty humiliations, from the moment you buy your ticket – and they start gouging you for more cash, for everything from luggage to insurance – to the moment you shuffle into your cramped economy seat.
As an economy traveller, you may feel the airline doesn’t care about you, said Ben Chu in The Independent. You’d be right. Airlines make most of their money from business class and above; profit margins from economy tickets are tiny. That’s why low-cost carriers charge fat fees for snacks and the like: it’s vital income. It’s also why they sell more tickets than there are seats. They know there’ll usually be a few passengers who don’t turn up; the extra sales are pure profit. United’s mistake wasn’t in overbooking – that’s standard – it was in not sorting it out in the terminal, and then failing to offer sufficient compensation to induce people to give up their seats voluntarily (other airlines routinely offer more). Its meanness has cost it dear. Still, I doubt any boycott will last long, said Martin Hemming in The Sunday Times. We may hate flying, but we’re addicted to low-cost holidays. “If [United] is flying to where people want to go for the cheapest price, it’ll sell tickets.”