MKT633 Unit 2

United Airlines Flight 3411 Timeline

From Case 3.2 of your Textbook

10 April 2017

11 April 2017

2030

11 April 2017

1o April 2017

1o April 2017

11 April 2017

11 April 2017

11 April 2017

12 April 2017

13 April 2017

14 April 2017

27 April 2017

27 April 2017

A news story appeared as United Airlines issued a staff bulletin declaring that ‘passengers take priority over staff’ in over-boarding situations. This is a dramatic policy U-turn in only five days.

Later the same day, a tweet is posted from the CEO to a public audience. Again, the CEO does not apologise to the passenger, who we learn has sustained severe injuries.

On 11 April, the CEO issued a communication on United’s website to the ‘team’ and said, ‘The truly horrific event that occurred on this flight has elicited many responses from all of us: outrage, anger, disappointment. I share all of those sentiments, and one above all, my deepest apologies for what happened.’ Figure 3.4 Tweet from AdAge Source: Twitter Note the use of the word ‘sentiment’. Clearly the negative sentiment online is now visible to the management team and they have decided to react, but returning to the Four Rs of crisis communications, the response has arrived too late and significant brand damage has occurred. The results of this become visible within 24 hours, as the stock price drops.

As the story unfolded, United Airlines’ stock value fell by 1.1%, taking $255 million off the airline’s market capital. This is the time for drastic action and a press conference is convened. What’s interesting here is that United reverts to traditional methods of PR – the press conference. Two internationally known public relations scholars, Maureen Taylor and Michael L Kent, have written about the integration of traditional tactics with online tactics during a crisis (Taylor and Kent, 2007) and although this was over a decade ago, their article ‘Taxonomy of mediated crisis responses’, still explains all the steps to be followed. Little of the advice was recognised by United. United lurched from posting comments to Twitter, to adding material to its website. Rather than following best practice and setting up a dedicated web page, the response was scattered over several pages, demonstrating a lack of control over the message within the firm.

United issued a press release on its website entitled ‘We are making changes to ensure that we always put customers first’ (United Airlines, 2017a). This included a two-minute video from the CEO which included the words ‘shameful’ and ‘shocking’, along with a commitment to change. Whilst the agreement and financial details remain confidential, the story is unlikely to have ended here. The volume of tweets and the way the social media posts have become ‘legacy content’, stored in Google and other search engines, means that it could take years for United Airlines to recover from this crisis and repair significant brand damage.

The United Airlines CEO sends a letter to his staff which is shared via social media. In the letter, he commented that ’the facts and circumstances are still evolving, especially with respect to why this customer defied Chicago Aviation Security officer the way he did’. He adds, ’As you will read, the situation was unfortunately compounded when one of the passengers we politely asked to deplane refused.’ It is also worth noting, that as many PR professionals will tell you, organisations are ‘leaky’ and this letter was intended as a letter from the CEO to all staff. Yet someone in the staff decided to share this via social media. Sharing content with outsiders, or whistle-blowing, indicates ethical concerns within an organisation and, according to researchers Culiberg and Mihelic, is ‘one way of drawing attention to wrongdoings in business’ (Culiberg and Mihelic, 2016). Some staff obviously felt strongly enough to share the letter via the media, which exacerbated the overall situation, further worsening the brand image.

The next day a hashtag was created, which became so popular it started trending and appearing across Twitter. The hashtag was #NewUnitedAirlinesMottos and many individuals developed alternative, very negative, mottos for United Airlines, including:

• If we cannot beat our competitors, we beat our customers @DHerkes https://twitter.com/dherkes/status/851835757513846789
• We’re not happy until you’re not happy @eslgirl420 https://twitter.com/eslgirl420/status/852175823746596864
• We seat you, then we beat you @_Jeff_Glenn_ https://twitter.com/_Jeff_Glenn_/status/852170758575067136
• Board as a doctor, leave as a patient @fanqin0619 https://twitter.com/fanqin0619/status/851705348385787906

These negative hashtags, known as bashtags, are not a new idea. The hashtag becoming a ‘bashtag’ was first mooted with difficulties that McDonald’s encountered when trying to generate positive PR for their farmers (Kashmir Hill, 2012). They tweeted using a hashtag #McDStories and this was overtaken with negative comments across social media, resulting in the company’s share price dropping. As United had failed to respond with sympathy or an apology, the outrage grew and in public relations terms, the situation was fast becoming a media disaster, consequently featuring as the top TV and radio news story worldwide. It was so badly managed it was as if the Four Rs of crisis communications – Recognition, Rehearsal, Response and Recovery – had never been addressed. PR specialist John Moscatelli, writing in the journal Public Relations Tactics, discussed the Four Rs and commented that ‘most people tackle crises in a risk-avoidance or risk-reduction state’ (Moscatelli, 2015) and perhaps this was the intention behind the tweet, where they mentioned ‘conduct our own detailed review’ rather than addressing the issue.

The next part of the saga, also on 11 April, saw the disclosure that Dr Dao had engaged two legal firms: a top Chicago corporate lawyer, as well as an aviation specialist. Their statement revealed that Dr Dao had sustained serious injuries and was indeed a patient in hospital.

The drop in the share price created the need for a press conference and the CEO issued a statement confirming ‘We continue to express our sincerest apology to Dr Dao. We cannot stress enough that we remain steadfast in our commitment to make this right. This horrible situation has provided a harsh learning experience from which we will take immediate, concrete action’ (United Airlines, 2017b). The language has changed at this stage and the first public apology, direct to Dr Dao, takes place. We will never know, but I suspect at this stage additional board members stepped in with some stronger advice and required a change in tone, from hostile to sympathetic. The earlier tone of voice used by United Airlines failed to demonstrate any sympathy for, or offer apology to, Dr Dao, yet the research tells us (see, for example, Gensler et al., 2013; DiStaso et al. 2015) that this is the best practice. There is a fear that an apology might result in legal action, but it was clear in this case that a law suit was imminent, as later that same day an image was posted on Twitter showing Thomas Demetrio on the front cover of the magazine Super Lawyers, accompanied by a tweet from the Super Lawyers, ’if you’re curious about Dr. Dao’s lawyer, Thomas Demetrio from @CorboyDemetrio, check out our 2009 feature on him’.

Eighteen days later, Corboy & Demetrio, the lawyers for Dr Dao, issued a statement: ‘Dr David Dao has reached an amicable settlement with United Airlines for the injuries he received in his April 9th ordeal, which was captured on video and viewed worldwide’ (Corboy & Demetrio, 2017). This is the response and a move towards recovery in the Four Rs of crisis communication, but it has taken far too long and, as a result, United Airlines had to make sweeping changes to their business operations, which were revealed later the same day.