Any business is bound to face a crisis in the fulfillment of its business objectives; these crises are a part of the business life cycle (Sturges, 1994). It is how well the organization handles the crisis that determines the business acumen of the organization’s leadership, but also determines whether the business survives. As a result, the handling of corporate crises is an intricate problem that requires effective management skills. In many cases, most firms have contingency plans for emergency situations. Nonetheless, crises often come in unexpected forms, meaning there is no plan in place to handle such situations, and instead, the organization is left with the expertise of its leaders to guide them through the storm. This essay will make use of the United Airline crisis as a case study and will look into how the companies dealt with the crisis, how effective or ineffective their methods were and what they could have done differently. It will also offer an alternative corporate message that the corporation could have used in order to handle the situation more effectively.
United Airlines Crisis
On April 9th, 2017, the United Airlines, one of the biggest air carriers in the United States faced one of the biggest crises an organization can face in the modern world. A video showing security officers violently ejecting a passenger from United Airlines Flight 3411, which was headed for Louisville, Kentucky, went viral. The passenger being ejected from the flight was one Dr. David Dao. From the information that latter surfaced it emerged that the officers were ejecting the passenger after he refused to give up his seat for the employees of United Airlines due to the flight being overbooked. The company attempted to apologize, albeit in a manner that seemed to lay the blame on the passenger rather than on United Airlines employees for the use of force. The scandal had a very negative effect on the company’s stocks, with the company losing over $1 billion in stock value in just one day ( Czarnecki , 2017). The social media outrage also went on for a while, leading to the company and its CEO Oscar Munoz being heavily trolled online. To date, the company has made millions in losses due to the business that they lost as a result of not dealing effectively with this crisis, which in turn led many customers to choose other airlines since the industry in the U.S. is highly competitive.
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In managing the crisis, the airline took several steps. At first, United Airlines CEO Munoz issued an apology online, which was however considered a ‘cold apology’ because of the wording he used. Munoz’s apology had the words ‘r-accommodate,’ which according to him was the reason why the scuffle took place in the first place, and therefore was the reason why he was apologizing. The apology was not taken kindly by the business and online community, which considered Munoz’s reference to re-accommodating passengers as a result of their overbooking as an insensitive term. Furthermore, to deal with internal dissatisfaction over the matter, Munoz sent an internal letter, whose information was later leaked to the public. In the letter, Munoz is said to have referred to Dr. Dao as ‘disruptive and belligerent,’ something that did not go down well with stakeholders. Eventually, the CEO had to make a proper apology to the public for the incident, promising never to make use of security officers in such cases unless there was security bleach and also promising to look into the overbooking issue and how the airline handled overbooked passengers ( Czarnecki , 2017).
The methods used by United Airlines in dealing with the crisis were highly ineffective, leading to the losses later experienced as the situation unraveled. It was mostly unsuccessful due to the negative impact it had on the company’s public relations since it led to the public viewing United Airlines in bad light. However, the CEO’s dealing with United Airlines employees may have had a positive impact on their moral as they felt that they had the support of the top management even on lower level issues. Nevertheless, any points earned from employee motivation could be easily lost if the business aspect is unsuccessful.
There are several things that the airline could have done to handle the situation more effectively. First, they could have involved the Chicago Police at an earlier stage and got them to answer for the officers using excessive force leading to physical injury to the passenger. This would have deflected some of the blame from the airline. Additionally, instead of passing blame in the internal letter, the CEO could simply have stated that he understood the difficult tasks they had to deal with constantly, but also call upon them to rise to the occasion when such challenges emerged. Communication is the cornerstone of organizational success in handling crises (Sturges, 1994), and dealing with all parties in an apologetic manner would have been the best approach to the situation.
Effective Corporate Message
“United Airlines is a well established brand that places great emphasis in its mission to unite the world by connecting people. Through this shared purpose and the trust that we have cultivated with our esteemed clients, we believe that the airline is well on its way to achieving its mission. It is for this reason that the recent occurrences have been shaken the company to the core since they do not reflect what United Airlines believes in. The problem of overbooking, which was the source of contention in this instance, is being dealt with by the management. We are also re-training our staff on how better to handle our clients to ensure the satisfaction of every individual. These occurrences do not reflect United Airlines culture, and our customers who have grown with us can attest to this; therefore, we are committed to ensuring that such an incident never occurs again.”
The power of social media cannot be overlooked in dealing with such crises as the one faced by United Airlines. United Airlines could have made us of social media by posting their core values and seeking ways of getting information on how they handle matters at the organization. Through using social media for such intricate details and showing that the incident was an exception, they could regain the trust of those offended by the confrontation. They could also use it to reach out to Dr. Dao and his family, and tried to make up with him since he was also a customer of the airline whom they had lost through the ugly incident. Regaining his trust would be sensational to the online community.
References
Czarnecki , S. (June 06, 2017). Timeline of a Crisis: United Airlines. Online, accessed from
https://www.prweek.com/article/1435619/timeline-crisis-united-airlines
Sturges, D. L. (January 01, 1994). Communicating Through Crisis: A Strategy for Organizational Survival. Management Communication Quarterly .7(3), 297.
