United Airlines’ barbaric treatment of a passenger at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport has sparked a global uproar against the world’s third-largest carrier.
It will be hard for anyone to choose to fly on United again after watching the video of an elderly man being dragged off the jet like a trash bag and left with a bloodied face.
United used police to remove the passenger because the flight was overbooked. He was not being aggressive or difficult, but simply refusing to comply with an unreasonable request to deplane to allow four employees to have seats. The airline is to be blamed entirely for the overbooking situation and had no right to remove a paid and seated customer in such a violent manner.
United’s CEO Oscar Munoz’s audacious response has only aggravated the widespread outrage toward the shameless airline. Shortly after the incident, Munoz initially praised his employees in a letter, saying they “followed established procedures for dealing with a situation like this.” He later apologized to the passenger, but he said he will not resign because of the incident. It is hard to believe that the CEO of a top brand can be so lacking in judgment and sense of responsibility.
In addition to use of excessive force, racism is also emerging as an issue in this case. The passenger has been identified as a Vietnamese-American, and this has triggered speculation that the incident would not have happened if he had not been Asian. Since the airline has a major Asia-Pacific presence, one cannot help but be concerned about the safety of Asian passengers on United.
The airline’s unacceptable blunder has lessons for the entire business world. Any company that has so little regard for their customers will not be able to avoid severe consequences. Due to the incident, United is facing a major lawsuit, not to mention boycotts and a consumer backlash.
The airline will have to do some major damage control, including a thorough review of the incident and better policies to protect passengers, to recover its reputation.