After videos of David Dao, a medical doctor who in April was dragged kicking and screaming off an overbooked United Airlines plane, went viral and set off a global uproar, the outlook for United looked grim.
Within days, the Twitter hashtag #BoycottUnited had been used over 3.5 million times.
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Some took to Twitter to suggest new advertising slogans for United. "If we can't beat out competitors, we'll beat our customers" was one. "United Airlines: putting the hospital in hospitality" was another.
Critics excoriated United for its handling of the crisis and especially its embattled chief executive, Oscar Munoz, whose first public statements seemed to blame the 69-year-old doctor for refusing to give up his seat.
Munoz had already contended with a heart attack and heart transplant a month after becoming chief executive in 2015. Scheduled to be named chairman in 2018, he agreed to rescind that provision in his contract and may have his pay docked by the board.
So when United reported second-quarter earnings last week, many investors feared that the results might go off a cliff just as the peak travel season was getting underway. But they were surprisingly robust: Revenue rose over 6 per cent and profits shot up 49 per cent. There was no sign of any boycott:
The airline said it had 71 million passengers in the first half of the year, 4.2 per cent more than the previous year.
"They'll be studying this in business schools for years," said Andrew Winston, a corporate strategy consultant and author of "The Big Pivot" and a recent article in Harvard Business Review about the United incident.
![The United Airlines incident in April with Dr David Dao made global headlines.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170728042156im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/i/8/b/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxkh7k.png/1501204359284.jpg)
Having recently completed a round trip from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco on United, I wasn't all that surprised that United appeared to be weathering the storm. When I booked my ticket, United offered the most convenient flight options at the cheapest fares, albeit just $US12 or so less than American. So I booked on United, even though the Dao incident was fresh in my mind.
My experience bears out an adage about airlines: People almost always opt for convenience and price, even while complaining loudly about crowded planes and a dearth of amenities. And now that there are just four major carriers in the United States, thanks to years of industry consolidation, many passengers don't have all that much choice.
"The barriers to customer movement are pretty high," Winston said. "You'd think that consumer perceptions matter a lot, but given that the major carriers practically have a monopoly on many routes and airports, it's not that easy to switch."
That said, once on board, I found the experience surprisingly pleasant. The flight took off on time and landed early. The snack I wanted was still available even though I was seated toward the back.
They'll be studying this in business schools for years.
Andrew Winston
My video screen malfunctioned, depriving me of an opportunity to watch the movie "Hidden Figures." But the flight attendant was so empathetic, and tried repeatedly to fix the problem (rebooting the aircraft's entire entertainment system several times) that I ended up reassuring her that I was happy to read a book.
She gave me a voucher worth 5,000 frequent-flier miles or a $US100 credit on a future flight, which seemed pretty generous for a minor incident.
The return trip was even better. The plane was a mint condition Boeing 777-300ER, with an intriguing business-class layout I admired while on my way to coach. Back there, the seats were leather and unusually comfortable (even for someone as tall as I am.) The video equipment worked.
I was surprised when a flight attendant offered me a complimentary meal. I told her it must be a mistake since I was in an ordinary coach seat.
A United spokeswoman told me the airline had begun serving complimentary meals and drinks on many transcontinental flights beginning July 1, but only for Economy Plus passengers. She speculated that there may have been some extra meals on my flight, or I may have been upgraded to an Economy Plus seat without my realising it. And she said the plane was probably one of the airline's 11 new 777-300ERs, which are being broken in on transcontinental routes before moving to international ones.
That flight also took off on time and landed early. (United said it had the best on-time arrival and departure performance of any carrier in the second quarter.)
On best behaviour
Maybe this simply reflects diminished expectations, but after the remarkably stress-free flight, I wondered if it might be a good idea to fly an airline soon after an embarrassing episode like the Dao incident on the theory that everyone will be on their best behaviour.
According to United, my experience wasn't an anomaly, since the airline has put in a host of recent, post-Dao changes aimed at customer satisfaction. "To say we learned some lessons would be putting it mildly," said Megan McCarthy, the United spokeswoman.
Besides the free meals and drinks in Economy Plus, United is now offering up to $US10,000 in compensation for passengers who give up their seats on overbooked flights. These issues will be resolved before boarding so no one gets dragged off after taking an assigned seat. (United said "involuntary denied boardings" had dropped 88 per cent in June from a year earlier.)
When the airline loses luggage, customers will no longer have to provide receipts to prove the value of what was in it. The airline will provide up to $1,500 in compensation, no questions asked.
United has also set up a team based in Chicago to offer creative solutions to customer problems. McCarthy cited an example of providing a flight to a nearby airport and ground transportation to the destination if someone has been denied boarding on an overbooked flight.
After floundering for a few days after the Dao incident, Munoz seemed to get his mojo back. He apologised personally to Dao, and United settled with him on terms that, while they haven't been disclosed, left Dao's lawyer singing the airline's praises.
Munoz went on "Good Morning America" and said he felt "shame" when he saw the video. He apologised and vowed that it would never happen again on a United flight.
'Actions speak louder than words'
In May, he took his mea culpa to Congress, where politicians took the opportunity to beat up on him for a host of perceived customer frustrations with airlines. "Ultimately our actions will speak louder than words," he told them.
"That was the right thing to do," said Steve Barrett, editor of PRWeek magazine. "They should have done it immediately. United made it a much bigger story than it ever would have been."
PRWeek was thrust into the somewhat awkward position of criticising Munoz's handling of the affair less than a month after it had honoured him as "communicator of the year," the public relations equivalent of an Oscar, for his rehabilitation of the airline's tattered image and for reaching labour agreements that had eluded United management for years.
The magazine didn't retract the honour, but after the Dao incident Barrett said, "The episode and subsequent response will be quoted in textbooks as an example of how not to respond in a crisis."
When I spoke to Barrett this week, he acknowledged that no boycott had materialised and United's bookings were holding up, helped in part by a series of incidents at rival airlines suggesting that United wasn't any worse.
(This month, conservative pundit Ann Coulter blasted Delta Air Lines for forcing her out of a preferred seat she'd booked on a flight from La Guardia Airport in New York to West Palm Beach, Florida. The airline refunded the incremental $US30 cost of the preferred seat but accused her of slandering the airline and its employees.)
'Moving cattle'
Still, United "has suffered considerable reputational damage," Barrett said. "No one is going to forget that video anytime soon."
United is tying executive pay (not just Munoz's) to customer satisfaction, and in its recent earnings report included a section on the "customer experience." The airline said it would continue its renewed focus on the customer.
"That's great and I hope it's true," Winston said. The airlines "have spent the last 30 to 40 years building a culture that's about maximising profits.
"Employees and customers were just a cog in that strategic wheel. Maybe it takes an incident like this to make them realise they can be about something more than moving cattle in the cheapest possible way."
The New York Times
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