stinky123

I was under the impression that the targeted fourth passenger was the beaten man's wife.

cerealmarketer

I agree with the current impact.

Longer term will be interesting to see what they say on the next earnings call about booking patterns.

Target didn't take much of a hit from its April 2016 fiasco upfront in stock price, but then the operating results came out a month or two later and it became clear something was wrong in the numbers. Some from the backlash, some from that exacerbating other things.

It's harder to choose another airline than it is to go to a Walmart down the road. But there is still choice and will be very curious to see how it plays out.

UA didn't have as much to fall in terms of reputation as Target, and we're not talking about infringing on religious views, so less of a core base that's united against the company like there was with Target. But this is a fascinating one.

Don't have a read either way, but I'd say a 30% chance there is a meaningful drop in bookings over more than a few days that gets called out.

s0ssos

Do you play stocks? It totally matters. Many do not buy stocks and hold forever. Fluctuations matter if you are buying on the margin, shorting especially, doing options.

In fact, most of the money made today is based on market fluctuations (like high-frequency trading).

But the point was made by people that United's stock wouldn't budge, and actually went up. So they are wrong. But people predicting the market are often wrong, they just never admit it.

24left

The question asked in the thread title is different than the general discussion taking place in the other thread where posters are discussing/debating legalities, validities, customer service and so on.

Is this thread wandering because I think the question asked here is actually a good one and a few posters have offered some thoughts/ideas/answers.

Admittedly, neither UA nor their PR and ad firms have asked anyone for "advice" but in the spirit of FT, it seemed like an interesting question.

There may not be one answer.
There may not be one correct answer.

I would hope however that the posts here stick to the topic and the others comments might be more relevant to the main thread.

IMHO, and thanks.

Maya Blue

As the OP said, because the man was already boarded that is the issue. For people to defend the airline, frankly, you're nuts.

If this happened in the terminal, that is one thing, but because he was already seated, UA should have bit the bullet and figured out a different way.

No the CEO is doubling down on blaming the passenger, when his focus should be on the employees. This is what is so upsetting to a lot of people.

DCEsquire

Watching Asia load factors may be interesting. This hasn't gone over too well there apparently.

NickP 1K

Those saying sacking Munoz is an over-reaction... Hmmmm, same thing was said of a tone deaf exec team at Wells Fargo. THEY don't do the wrong but perpetuated a culture were toxic upper mgmt existed and employees weren't empowered to DO THE RIGHT THING

Munoz needs to step up here and show they are customer focused and the 99% of the employees who are exceptional have nothing to worry about. The 1% who shouldn't be working customer facing jobs need to be pruned, shame that UA even after Smisek is gone feel they don't need to do this. Whomever at ORD as a Supervisor wasn't available to let the GA escalate to them is the problem, whomever that Supervisor reports to is part of the problem, etc, etc. 10+ years ago UA agents were VERY empowered to fix issues and could even get ground transport paid for if they couldn't fly all pax. Now it's still the Smisek CFO influence in the exec suite. Munoz up to the task or is he going to blow it off and do nothing till another issue happens?

Disclaimer: I flew 20+ years as a 1K for UA, haven't flown them in 3+ years due to similar issues of un-empowered employees unable to fix issues when they stranded me MULTIPLE times. Switched to AA and never been stranded ONCE - they may not be perfect but they've never left me hanging

Bohemian1

Sacking the (apparently) insensitive CEO was the path that BP took to rehabilitate its image a while back. Symbolic maybe, fatal almost never, certainly not for the CEO who still gets a handsome payout. But that gesture would only be part of the repair work.

Running a customer-facing organization in today's twitch-oriented 'citizen journalist' culture surely requires a serious investment in managing the social media flow. Airlines are dinosaurs in this respect and, if the market is truly as competitive as they claim, not managing your brand on social media can have tangible impacts.

When dealing with businesses and service providers I understand that sh*t happens. It's how they deal with it when it does that influences my long term loyalty.

jamesinclair

Exactly.

People say "theyll forget it when they see a cheap price"

But we know thats not true. Many people would never fly Spirit or Frontier regardless of the price, because they do not want to deal with the "experience".

United has moved themselves to the Spirit / Frontier tier of airlines. Not just because of this incident, but everything theyve done. Removing entertainment options. Rock hard seats. Minimal legroom. No food on long flights, etc etc

There are plenty of people who will pay extra to avoid the Ultra Low Cost tier. Including me.

stopdiabetes

Hear hear! Abject apology for a myriad of mistakes would go a long way. People forget that Lloyd Bentsen almost was not a Secretary of the Treasury when he was found out to be in an all white club. He said he made a "doozy" of a mistake, apologized, and became Treasury Secretary, and his error was forgotten. With United, the incompetent and incoherent reaction has made it more difficult for Oscar to come clean, but he is a winsome person who can, if he wants to, own this and admit fault.

Soccerdad1995

Personally I find Oscar's e-mail pretty darn "belligerent". Since he thinks it is appropriate to have police drag belligerent people off planes, when are we going to see him dragged from his office with his face bloodied?

Oscar absolutely should be gone. His e-mail was every bit as offensive and ignorant as the BP CEO who was fired for saying that he wanted his life back.

KCalla

Thank you, I had not seen that.

stockmanjr

I agree Oscar should fall on his sword. Had he not sent that email this would have been on the GA, but after that he interjected himself in a very very bad way.
Cheers
Howie

pbd456

the GA follow the protocol that was set by the upper management.
it is like the well fargo employee who did what they did under the pressure of senior management.

psusaver

Would be nice if people comply with rules. Britain would still have America under their control. "No orders are valid, if they are wrong, Cob."

Once seated in a plane, airline can remove someone only for specific security or health reasons and some force majure (sp?) causes.

Now, what United can do specifically to fix its image.

1) CEO needs to do an about face. Board has to step in too and admit the bad customer service problem.

2) Treat employees right first. Most companies with well treated employees automatically treat customers well at all levels.

3) Lay out a clear plan to fix bad CS problem. Be transparent. Take actual feedback (from passengers and crew).

4) execute plan of action over a year with regular updates.