United Airlines is learning a very expensive lesson.
“In an effort to squeeze out every nickel, it ended up costing them more,” says Darren Dahl, a professor of marketing and behavioural science at UBC’s Sauder School of Business.
It’s not uncommon for airlines to overbook flights as a way of ensuring there are no empty seats. Better organizational logistics have done away with the wasteful days when half the seats on a plane might sit vacant.
But United had better be taking a serious look at its overbooking policy — not to mention its crisis management response — given the furor it created when a passenger was forcibly dragged off a plane on Sunday, Dahl says.
Fellow passengers filmed a bloodied Dr. David Dao screaming as security guards yank him out of his seat and haul him down the aisle.
United first put the blame on the passenger, saying he was “disruptive and belligerent” after being told he had to give up his seat to accommodate additional airline personnel. Unlike three other passengers who were also asked to deboard, the doctor refused, saying he had patients to see the next morning.
United is proud to abuse passengers. https://t.co/BLSuMOTZ7T
— Air Passenger Rights (@AirPassRightsCA) April 11, 2017
“This crosses the norms in many bad ways,” Dahl says of United’s treatment of Dr. Dao both in the plane and in the first press conference. “You can’t dream up worse treatment of a customer. It’s pretty deplorable.”
As many companies and politicians are realizing, the “world is now a fishbowl.”
Given the propensity of camera-wielding witnesses to post bad behaviour online, and the maelstrom of outrage on social media to follow, companies need to know that in today’s world they will be held accountable at a higher level. This isn’t just a customer complaint they can brush off.
Airline passengers are already sensitive to bad behaviour. Delayed flights, smaller seats, less service and the feeling of being herded through one line-up to another make most people cranky before they even “fly the friendly skies.”
Until now, there’s always been a slight sense of relief when you finally settle into your seat after enduring check in and security.
Dr. Dao, sitting there and waiting for the plane to take off, became the Everyman of passengers when he was told he had to get off the plane because not as many passengers as expected had failed to show up for the flight.
@united @CNN @FoxNews @WHAS11 Man forcibly removed from plane somehow gets back on still bloody from being removed pic.twitter.com/njS3nC0pDl
— Tyler Bridges (@Tyler_Bridges) April 10, 2017
“Everyone can relate to it and feel what it would be like to go through that,” Dahl says. “We all assume that airlines will play fair.”
United broke that rule of fairness.
Dahl doesn’t doubt that somewhere in the small print of our flight tickets there will be a clause that gives airlines the right to deny passengers a seat. “Don’t kid yourself that they won’t have that covered.”
However, given the publicity over Dr. Dao’s ejection from the plane, this won’t be something United can handle with the $1,000 voucher eventually on offer to passengers willing to give up their seats on the flight.
