ANGER: Passenger’s removal from flight has some travelers dropping their allegiance to carrier
Jesse Steadman scoured the internet in hope of finding a last-minute alternative to United Airlines.
He searched in vain for another airline that could deliver his friend to Houston on Wednesday morning, two days after a viral video of a passenger dragged from a United plane outraged millions of fliers and mortified the Fortune 100 company. It was too late to rebook the ticket, reserved long before the incident, but he vowed it would be the last one he purchased from the maligned carrier.
“I’ll never fly with them again,” he said, shaking his head as his friend claimed her luggage at Bush Intercontinental Airport.
Passengers in Houston and elsewhere vented their anger and disbelief Wednesday as United at-
tempted save face during its public relations nightmare. The company issued a series of apologies and promised to review its policies, but the withering response from customers and lawmakers raised questions about whether the crisis will undermine its long-running efforts to improve customer satisfaction across its wide network.
Neither United nor the Houston Airport System responded to requests for comment.
The incident occurred Monday, when Republic Airline, which operates some United Express flights for United, attempted to place four of its employees on a full flight from Chicago to Louisville in order to staff a plane scheduled to depart from there. The crew offered $1,000 in compensation and alternative flight arrangements to customers willing to give up their seats for the employees, and three passengers voluntarily deplaned.
When a fourth volunteer failed to emerge, passenger Dr. David Dao was asked to exit the aircraft. He declined to take a later flight, explaining he had patients to tend. Law enforcement officers were called aboard.
Forcible removal
The situation quickly devolved, culminating in Dao’s forcible removal when officers dragged him from his seat and down the aisle. Several passengers captured snippets of the incident on video and posted them online, unleashing an international torrent of indignation.
Customers took to social media to disavow their allegiance to the carrier, sometimes with photos of chopped-up United MileagePlus credit cards. A number of lawmakers, including the Senate commerce committee, criticized the company for allowing a seemingly avoidable incident to escalate to that level.
Customers first?
The incident, though isolated, drew attention to issues that affect the entire airline industry. It demonstrated a willingness to abandon a customer-first attitude to keep planes running on schedule, shed light on passenger risks outlined in contractual fine print, and illustrated the importance of responding swiftly and appropriately immediately after a crisis.
Many customers took issue with CEO Oscar Munoz’s initial statement, a brief acknowledgement of an “upsetting” event that required further review by the company. On Tuesday, he issued a more effusive apology for a “truly horrific event,” noting that “no one should ever be mistreated this way.”
The firestorm started just as United had begun making strides in improving performance and customer service. The percentage of flights arriving on time ticked up steadily last year, though the company still lags several other major carriers.
Pete Garcia, a Houstonbased airline consultant, said he doubted the incident would have a longterm impact on the company’s business. But the outrage, he said, could sour customer perspective in the short term.
“United has done so much to improve, and this seems like it’s a setback,” he said.
Jack Stelzer, a retired Houston-based airline consultant and senior airline executive, said it’s well within an airline’s right to deny boarding to any passenger for almost any reason, a relatively uncommon occurrence that almost always happens at the gate.
Social media
But in a world full of smartphones, he said, there’s less room for error when it comes to overbooking or poor planning.
“In today’s world of social media, the airlines and all other businesses have to learn how to better handle any situation that is difficult,” he said.
Garcia, who worked in the industry for about 30 years, said he has never witnessed a carrier eject boarded passengers to make room for employees.
United might have avoided the situation by making supervisors available to advise crew members in rare instances when passengers can’t be persuaded to deplane with generous compensation, he said. Then, they could up the offer until the necessary number of volunteers step forward.
“Maybe United should rethink their policy in how they handle this,” he said.
Policy backfires
James Winkler, a longtime Houstonian waiting for friends to arrive at Bush Intercontinental on Wednesday, considered the United incident an example of the lengths airlines will go to maximize profit and keep planes running on time, even at the expense of passengers. That effort backfired for United, which saw its stock plunge in the wake of the incident.
“They just cost themselves so much more than they would have if they had just been polite,” Winkler, said.
Tim Coombs, a crisis communications expert at Texas A&M University, said he doubted many customers would permanently defect to other airlines. But the response, he said, illustrates pent-up resentment toward United and other carriers in a cutthroat industry.
“I think there is a lot of anger about the airlines, and this just became a lightning rod,” Coombs said. “It proved everything that people think about airlines, that they don’t care about you.”