When United Airlines Chief Executive Oscar Munoz apologized Tuesday for his airline’s mishandling of a situation that led to a passenger being beaten and dragged off a plane, he said “it’s never too late to do the right thing. »
That may be true, but public relations and branding experts say it could be too late to minimize the damage that video of the incident — and United’s original non-apology blaming the passenger — wreaked on the 91-year-old airline.
“This was a brand dirty bomb,” said Eric Schiffer, chief executive of ReputationManagementConsultants.com, who added that the company’s handling of the incident will, like nuclear fallout, stick around for a long time. “It was self-built and self-ignited. »
The company’s stock took a dive Tuesday, shedding $255 million from its market value, though it has since mostly recovered. It continued to be the butt of jokes on social media, with even competing airlines such as Emirates and Royal Jordanian poking fun at the Chicago airline. And, perhaps worst of all, consumer confidence — which is hard to gain but easy to lose — has taken a pounding, with customers declaring on Facebook and Twitter that they will never fly with United again.
“They have so destroyed the connection and trust they’ve built up over the years,” Schiffer said. “And it wasn’t just the beat-down of a customer that everyone could project themselves being — it was the response afterwards, which was so cold and done with such a lack of empathy. It made people believe they just don’t care. »
Munoz went on ABC News on Wednesday morning to apologize for his handling of the situation, telling the network that he felt “shame” when he saw the video, and blaming the incident on a “system failure. »
“We had not provided our front-line supervisors and managers and individuals with the proper tools, policies, and procedures that allow them to use common sense,” Munoz said. “That’s on me. I have to fix that. »
When asked whether he believed the passenger, David Dao, a 69-year-old physician from Elizabethtown, Ky., was at fault, Munoz — who originally described Dao as “belligerent” — hesitated before saying, “No, he can’t be. He was a paying passenger sitting in a seat in our aircraft, and no one should be treated that way, period. »
Munoz said United will review its policies, and that law enforcement will never be allowed on one of its planes “to remove a booked, paid, seating passenger” ever again.
This is a right first step, according to branding experts, but the company will have to do a lot more.
The change of tune was what public relations experts said Munoz should have done in the immediate aftermath of the incident, and many were baffled that it took him two whole days to arrive at a sincere apology.
“Imagine a world where the very first thing Oscar Munoz did Monday morning was a thoughtful apology directly to the passenger who was affected, and listed the steps United would take to make sure it wouldn’t happen again,” said Jeremy Robinson-Leon, a principal at branding firm Group Gordon. “This would have been a significantly smaller issue. There still would have been public outcry because the video was so jarring, but this would not have been a three- to five-day story. »
One example of an organization salvaging a situation is when PricewaterhouseCoopers swiftly apologized for its Best Picture mixup at the Academy Awards. While viewers still remember the gaffe, Robinson-Leon said they don’t associate it with PwC as much as they do the Academy, which was slow to respond.
Even Pepsi, which recently came under fire for an ad that portrayed the sugary drink as having the power to help bridge America’s racial divide, was quick to act.
“I would argue that it was a significant misfire on Pepsi’s part to even make that ad in the first place, but the fact that they wasted very little time in pulling it and apologizing was the right response,” Robinson-Leon said.
The challenge United Airlines now has is to not only put recent events behind it, but to overhaul its image. According to crisis PR experts, had Sunday’s incident been an isolated case, United might have a better chance at dealing with it. But given the quick succession of poorly managed situations that have garnered media attention (just last month the company was at the center of another public outcry when it refused to let two teenage girls board a plane because they were wearing leggings), Robinson-Leon likened United’s situation to that of the ride-hailing company Uber, which also dealt with crisis after crisis earlier this year.
“As with what happened with Uber, you ultimately start to see a pattern of mismanagement,” Robinson-Leon said, « and that’s when you have a real problem. »
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tracey.lien@latimes.com
Twitter: @traceylien
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