As expected....
1. Well, UA has done the (revised) apology.
2. Next will come the PR campaign (we promise to rebuild your confidence, etc).
These are the usual corporate (non) responses to any problem. Real internal reforms need to address cultural issues that strip any decision making power away from staff (how many times have you heard "...this is what the computer says..." from UA staff).
3. If UA sees that traffic is being affected in a material way, they will offer some sort of low cost benefit (mileage bonus) to those who travel within a certain window. Otherwise, they will stop with 1 and 2 and perhaps some substantive culture reforms.
After a mid-day pounding, UAL was down 0.8% in a flat market. So, the one day investor "cost" was roughly $150M. No matter how you look at this it would have been cheaper to pay the guy off. Can they make it back? Easily. But, it gave a whole bunch of investors pause to rethink the value of their investments. As a professional investor, this kind of uncertainly isn't the sort of thing one likes to see occur in a stock portfolio and I can't see anyone getting excited about adding to their holdings.