TURBULENT $KIES
United stock nose dives on vid
United Airlines’ weekend debacle involving a booted passenger cost the company more than $1 billion in value at one point Tuesday — leading its CEO to finally apologize for the “truly horrific event.”
As outrage and calls for a boycott spread around the world, shares of parent company United Continental Holdings plunged 4.4 percent during morning trading, or $1.003 billion.
By the time United CEO Oscar Munoz finally got with the program and publicly promised, “We will do better,” the stock closed at $70.71, compared with $71.52 the day earlier, for a oneday loss of $257 million.
Fury was particularly strong in China after reports surfaced that the targeted flier, Dr. David Dao, shouted, “I’m being selected because I’m Chinese!” when he was told to give up his seat for an airline worker and eventually violently dragged off the flight.
Video of the disturbing incident was viewed more than 210 million times alone on the Weibo social-media platform, ered China’s version of Twitter.
Munoz’s mea culpa came a day after he all but justified the bloodying of Dao in an internal memo, which called the 69-yearold Kentucky doctor “disruptive and belligerent.”
In his about-face, Munoz referred to Sunday’s incident at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport as a “truly horrific event’’ that “has elicited many responses from all of us: outrage, anger, disappointment.”
“Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard,” Munoz added. “No one should ever be mistreated this way.”
Munoz — who will likely be grilled by Wall Street analysts when United releases its quarterly earnings next week — vowed “a thorough review” of all relevant policies and protocols, with results “by April 30th.”
Hours later, members of the US Senate Commerce Committee released a bipartisan letter to Mu- noz demanding by April 20 a “full accounting” of what happened.
“The last thing a paying customer should expect is a physical altercation with law-enforcement personnel after boarding, especially one that could likely have been avoided,” the letter says.
The Senate committee sent a similar letter to the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Aviation, asking what Dao did that was “considered threatening” by the cops who dragged him off United Express Flight 3411.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said he was “sure” that President Trump had seen the video of Dao being manhan- dled, and himself called the incident “troubling.
“I don’t think anyone who looks at that video isn’t disturbed,’’ Spicer said.
“But again, one thing to understand is when there’s an event like this, for a president to weigh in pro or con, I don’t want to get involved in it,” he added. “But clearly, a human being dragged down an aisle and watching blood roll down their face, I don’t think you can’t sit back and say this could have been handled better.”
Many Weibo users called for a boycott of United — which made about 14 percent of its revenue last year by flying Pacific routes — including stand-up comic Joe Wong and Liu Qiangdong, founder of the Chinese e-commerce site JD.com.
“This makes me recall the nightmare experiences I had the three times I flew with United Airlines,” Liu told his 3 million followers.
Meanwhile, Dao was identified as a lung doctor whose license was suspended in 2003 following his arrest on charges including unlawfully prescribing and trafficking in drugs. He was convicted and given five years’ probation.
— United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard. No one should ever be mistreated this way