Blog 3: United Airlines PR Disaster
First Response - Monday
"This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers. Our team is moving with a sense of urgency to work with the authorities and conduct our own detailed review of what happened. We are also reaching out to this passenger to talk directly to him and further address and resolve this situation.” – Oscar Munoz, CEO., United AirlinesMonday's response was the first official statement released by United Airlines CEO. This response came with a storm of backlash from users online, due to its lack of personalization of the incident. As you can see the CEO made no mention of Dan Dao, or the incident, likely to distance himself from emotions in his statement. It is clear that United could not see the severity of the event in the situation, by referring to the incident as "re-accommodate these customers". After this event, United Airlines became trending on twitter with the hashtag #BoycottUnitedAirlines.
Oscar Munoz already showed his true colors. Boycotting @United until he's replaced. #United #BoycottUnitedAirlines #boycottunited— It's me y'all (@ninetninetynine) April 19, 2017
Second Response - Tuesday
"The truly horrific event that occurred on this flight has elicited many responses from all of us: outrage, anger, disappointment. I share all of those sentiments, and one above all: my deepest apologies for what happened. 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.
I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right.
It’s never too late to do the right thing. I have committed to our customers and our employees that we are going to fix what’s broken so this never happens again. This will include a thorough review of crew movement, our policies for incentivizing volunteers in these situations, how we handle oversold situations and an examination of how we partner with airport authorities and local law enforcement. We’ll communicate the results of our review by April 30th.
I promise you we will do better. "
The original statement released by the CEO cause a spiral of backlash, which leads me to speculate that this new response was a method to calm the storm. While i do think the second statement is a big step up from the previous one, it is too late. I know that it's the first statement you make that will have a lasting impact on the readers of it, so because of my biases like many others, its hard for me to read the second statement and believe that it was a true apology.
Final Statement
"This will never happen again," Munoz told ABC News' "Good Morning America" in an exclusive interview."We are not going to put a law enforcement official onto a plane to take them off … to remove a booked, paid, seated passenger. We can't do that."The final statement was the one above, that Munoz gave to ABC News in an interview. In the interview he shows a sincere display of emotion, while talking about his vow to his customers. He ensures that an incident like this will not happen again. This was the best response yet, as it allows people to connect with the CEO on an emotional level. While official statements make play a big role in a companies image, sometimes people just want to thew the person in charge assure them that they are truly sorry. I think an interview or a more proper statement in this scenario would have been more beneficial to United.
References
Hayden, Michael Edison, and Erin Dooley. "United CEO Feels 'shame,' Passengers Will Be Compensated." ABC News. ABC News Network, n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2017.
Paul, Kari. "This Is How Long It Could Take for United to Recover from Its PR Disaster." MarketWatch. N.p., 16 Apr. 2017. Web. 20 Apr. 2017.
Mccann, Erin. "United’s Apologies: A Timeline." The New York Times. The New York Times, 14 Apr. 2017. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.
I read post about Oscar Munoz as CEO seems he doesn't have say anything about Dan Dao issue and there have a chance to find out why that happened and I have no idea what going on
ReplyDeleteThese are very serious issue and I thought you did good to start research about them.
Simona
If you read further into the blog, you will be able to see that the CEO was not referring to David Dao by his name, but instead he only referrred to him as a passenger. I felt it was dehumanizing, and it was diffusing of how serious the situation was
DeleteI will have to agree with you that it was dehumanizing after Oscar Munoz's claiming that Dr. David Dao's belligerence left agents with no choice but to forcibly remove him. Oscar don't really see that there is alway a choice in life, and putting the blame on the "passenger" is not very professional action a CEO of the company would perform. Again, great layout!
ReplyDeleteChandler
The dehumanizing was the worst part in my opinion. Regardless of who's fault it is, it was very clear from the video that Dr. Dao is an elderly man screaming in pain covered in blood. The company could have at least acknowledged their concern for the customer, and refrained from any other comment until they were ready to release a perfect one.
DeleteThis is fascinating. You pointed out that the CEO of United Airlines' first response did not say Dr. Dao's name, but referred to him to as a passenger. And his second response was a big improvement, but he still did not mention Dr. Dao's name and called him a customer. It is quite perplexing that his every response changes. Also, from his second response, I am quite curious to see what he has to share with us on April 30th.
ReplyDeleteI agree sarah. I cannot believe after all ofhis attempts, he did not mention Dr. Dao's name until his abc interview, if you check out the video. It was planned poorly, and th company has a lot of work to do to repair their image.
DeleteYes, I agree with you about the statement CEO made about the situation. They should make the first impression when he spoke for the first time. It is definitely too late for CEO to fix his first mistake in his second statement. The other thing is I definitely can see the CEO just want to calm the storm, so they can move on. Not actually fix it. Excellent point about that part. I really enjoyed reading your third blog.
ReplyDeleteIm glad you enoyed the blog. I think that there's certain times a second chance is acceptable, but not when you are a major airline company with more than enough captial to invest in quality PR work.
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