A Desperate United Airlines Feeds the Beast – Or Tries To

Richard Levick, Esq., Chairman and CEO, LEVICKAs of this writing, a perfect storm overwhelms every effort by United Airlines to dig itself out of the abyss. At one point on Tuesday, CEO Oscar Munoz’ stunningly tardy but heartfelt third attempt at an apology seemed to offer some ray of hope or at least strong indication that the airline’s leadership had – three days late – finally realized it could no longer hunker down in the trenches, blame victims, ignore social media not to mention virtually all of China, their most important growth market.Yet even without that second story about first-class passenger Geoff Fearns threatened with handcuffs unless he deplaned a United Hawaii flight, the public rage grew ever mountainous on Wednesday and Thursday. The rage was only fed when United offered to compensate every Flight 3411 passenger. It seemed the desperate offer of a desperate man who knows he’s been caught in the act. And that’s exactly what it was.In other circumstances, traditional tactics might have had more salutary results with an audience of satisfied customers, not a public utterly fed up with the airline industry, and not just because of such recurrent incidents as United’s leggings mishap or “United breaks guitars.” The Flight 3411 video has provided the public with an opportunity to avenge itself on an entire industry for its daily screw-ups and blanket indifference. Here, after all, is an industry so oligarchic by instinct that it reserves the right to deplane boarded passengers because its own employees purportedly have to go somewhere.Tried-and-true PR schemes might have been more effective had United’s crisis team responded as crises teams are supposed to – i.e., right away. But that bird has flown, so to speak, and now extraordinary measures are demanded. After the company took a full 17 hours to initially respond, the question gets begged, was anyone at United watching social media Sunday night when the videos were first shared? If they were, did they have any sense of how portentous the situation?And then there’s China. At last look a full 20 million potential customers per hour were viewing social media coverage of what they perceived to be violent company-sanctioned racism. The China Syndrome was key to its stock tumble, yet United hasn’t even addressed the racial angle. It must do so straightaway – and with something more than bland denials. Initially, United alleged that the passengers were selected pursuant to company policy – last to check in, lowest miles traveled – but provided no evidence to support that claim. Now it needs organized effort in China itself: sensitive messaging, consultations with officials, a strategically concerted campaign to win back a market that took United thirty years to develop and two days to lose.While crisis often demands sacrifice, refunds to shocked Flight 3411 passengers hardly rise to that level. It’s “too little, too late” writ large. But, as CEO Oscar Munoz elevated what was a local incident into an international disaster, he may have turned a globally broadcast mugging into a referendum on his leadership, in the process volunteering himself as the sacrifice. Munoz, named the “Communicator of the Year” by PR Week last month, built a career on great crisis response at CSX. He should know better but perhaps the air of an oligopoly has proved too thin for his blood.Stateside, the days of rage may lead to years of new government regulation. Never mind who’s President or how pro-business he happens to be; the entire electorate is angry and a populist like Trump won’t pull punches. If anything is certain about this new Administration, Donald Trump always runs to where the applause is the loudest.A contrite United needs to get out ahead of this inevitability by visibly becoming the leader in customer service. (They were dead-last two years ago and middle-tier more recently). United can start by joining Virgin and Jet Blue, airlines that refuse to deplane passengers in oversold situations. United may even want to consider taking the lead by supporting a few passenger-friendly regulations, such as altogether outlawing deplaning for reasons of profit.Since traditional apologies aren’t working for obvious reasons, United has to put its money where its dilatory mouth is, not just cut a few checks to disgruntled passengers. Start by lowering fares globally. Expensive, yes, but passengers are notoriously forgiving of airlines that provide inexpensive fares. Better to be the “Yes, but” airline (“yes it was terrible but it was cheaper”) rather than an airline that never again has to worry about oversold flights.United’s and Munoz’ failures were encouraged by an inexplicably deficient crisis and communications system that ignored social media, blamed passengers, fed on hubris, and lied. Only when the story had legs in traditional media did United respond and only when the Chinese market drove their stock down substantially did they apologize.Four critical lessons must come from this:

1. Track patterns in social media 24/7 (yes, that includes Sunday nights) and recognize what is going to happen next long before traditional media pick up the story. One view of the video was enough to dictate a strategy.
2. No matter how powerful your company or how much market share you control, you are vulnerable. Arrogance is not a strategy.
3. Tell truth to power. Clearly someone had to tell Oscar Munoz on Sunday night that a corporate-sanctioned assault in the name of double-dip profits was not going to play well, no matter how much this message is unwanted.
4. The Chinese angle is the real key and shows how non-shareholders and non-customers are your new audience. It’s a complete reversal from a few years ago when it was all about institutional investors, financial analysts, shareholders, customers, and a handful of reporters. Corporate communications is now bottom-up, not top-down. It is not an easy fix or ad hoc tactic. It is a strategy that requires immediate and long-term attention.

We’ve seen how, in other industries, new brooms sweep clean; they can do so only because they’re new. Internal reviews of the kind promised by Munoz won’t cut it. United can recoup only by helping to change its industry and by loudly proclaiming that it’s doing so – loudly enough to be heard as far away as China. [author]About the Author: Richard Levick, Esq., @richardlevick, is Chairman and CEO of LEVICK. He is a frequent commentator on television, radio, online, and print. [/author]