What dragging incident? United faces different issue
CHICAGO — United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz said Wednesday he wants the fallout from an incident where a passenger was dragged from a flight last month to be “a constant reminder of what we can do better on.”
Videos of the passenger, Dr. David Dao, being pulled from a plane at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport after refusing to give up his seat to make way for airline employees quickly went viral. Consumers were outraged at Dao’s treatment and United’s response, and legislators threatened new regulation.
But six weeks later, the airline’s shareholders appear to have put the incident in the rearview mirror.
Investors didn’t ask a single question about the incident at the airline’s annual meeting Wednesday in Chicago, a meeting in which Munoz noted the airline’s stock rose 70 percent over the last year and hit a new all-time high on May 9. That was exactly one month after Dao’s flight. It has since increased slightly.
Munoz said the incident hasn’t affected bookings. United boarded 7.6 percent more passengers in April than the same month last year, a significantly larger increase than those reported by competitors American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, which were up 0.8 percent and 1 percent, respectively. May travel statistics haven’t been released.
United reached an undisclosed settlement with Dao and announced several new policies, including a vow to never remove passengers from planes because the flight is overbooked.
Most of the questions Munoz faced at the meeting came from airline food-service and other airport workers employed by United vendors, who also protested outside the airline’s headquarters Wednesday, pushing for higher wages and better working conditions.
Munoz said he “wants to get more facts” and said United has limited power to change vendors’ compensation.
“I can’t control that as much as you would like me to,” he said.