United Airlines: Fight the Temptation to Hide

Scott Sobel, MA Media Psychology, kglobal Agency 

Don’t hide, embrace change.United has officially admitted that traveling pets have been abused, employees made mistakes, and processes need to change to prevent future problems (Los Angeles Times and other reports).The U.S. Senate has reacted, and a senator’s office posted this alert: WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sens. John Kennedy (R-La.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) filed the Welfare of Our Furry Friends Act (WOOFF) today to explicitly prohibit airlines from putting animals in danger by placing them in overhead baggage compartments. To elected officials, maybe regulators like the Federal Aviation Administration and certainly many of the flying public, United’s promises of prevention and improvement can sound hollow, especially following last year’s other PR debacle when a passenger was injured and humiliated after being dragged from a flight “Doctor dragged off United Airlines flight reaches undisclosed settlement”. What can United do? The mega-carrier is saying all of the right things. But, is United taking all of the right actions to back-up the words and they telling their story and persuading stakeholders of United’s sincerity?The answer, as far as we can see, is a big NO.As crisis managers, and especially aviation crisis managers, we know that behind those closed conference room doors at United, the C-suite and PR leaders are all praying that this particular news cycle ends quickly, and the notoriety evaporates. Everything is being done to make that happen. I have little doubt that remedial training steps are actually being taken to fix problems with staff. But what else is United doing to prove sincerity and additionally prevent future pet and passenger issues? What is being done to really, really make the flying public feel better about United and also make United employees feel better about their airline and themselves?Here is one big headline for United and any other business or organization that finds itself in a similar crisis of credibility: United Tells Its Story About Preventing the Next Pet and Passenger PR Disaster.

• 1) Create commercials, 2) take out print and digital media ads, 3) pitch news stories about employee training sessions, 4) inform elected officials and regulators in person, 5) get HR to encourage employee anonymous and public reporting of problems and incidents, 6) hold staff town halls and smaller group meetings … do everything possible to change and improve your customer service respect and culture and then tell, through all mediums, as many stakeholders as possible the story.

United, measure your progress while telling your story of prevention and enlightenment. Start with a qualitative and quantitative measurement of an external and internal baseline and then periodically (start weekly and then increase the measurement cycle) to see what perception and training/HR reality progress you are making. Social media measurement is valid, but not enough.Reinforce processes that work, cut back or stop processes that don’t work.Flood all of your key audiences with tales or action and progress. These efforts will yield a self-fulfilling prophecy of success. People will see the airline is backing-up its words – trust will build – employees will learn lessons and feel better about their jobs and company – fewer mistakes will be made, more problems will be prevented.Or keep doing what you have in the past. How has that worked for you? [author]About the Author: Scott Sobel is Senior Vice President, Crisis and Litigation Communications, at kglobal, a Washington, DC-based full-service communications firm that influences public policy, increases market share + builds awareness for our commercial and federal clients. He counsels some of the world’s best-known corporations and is also a former in-house corporate public relations practitioner; major market and TV network police and investigative journalist and a media psychologist. https://kglobal.com/who-we-are/scott-sobel; https://www.kglobal.com/ [/author]