| To: zax who wrote (89) | 4/11/2017 4:15:34 PM | | From: Glenn Petersen | | | | Consequences:
United Struggles to Extinguish Social Media Firestorm
by Michael Sasso, Justin Bachman, and Linly Lin
Bloomberg
April 11, 2017
-- ‘The most tone-deaf response I’ve seen,’ professor says
-- Airline becomes fodder for comedians on late-night TV
United Continental Holdings Inc. struggled to contain spiraling fallout over a passenger’s forcible removal from a flight as efforts at damage control fell flat.
Recordings of the incident posted on social media spread quickly around the globe and sent people into a rage. They showed officers pulling a passenger from a flight Sunday evening after he refused to give up his seat and then dragging him down the aisle as travelers yelled at them to stop.
The chilling scene was turning into a public-relations disaster for United, whose fumbling response only served to demonstrate how a normally routine consumer interaction can expand into a brand-damaging event in a world of smartphones and Facebook.
Oscar Munoz
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
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United Chief Executive Officer Oscar Munoz initially apologized for “having to re-accommodate these customers” but in a subsequent message to employees, the CEO called the passenger “disruptive” and “belligerent.”
“It was probably the most tone-deaf response I’ve seen to this type of issue -- possibly ever,” Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at New York University, said on Bloomberg Television. “It’s as if they literally sat around and thought, ‘How could we make a bad situation worse.”’
Munoz on Tuesday offered his “deepest apologies for what happened” and said the airline would conduct a review of its procedures and policies to be completed by April 30.
“No one should ever be mistreated this way,” he said in a statement.
The stock dropped 1.5 percent to $70.46 at 3:28 p.m. in New York.
Joke Fodder
United was the butt of jokes by late-night comedians and by Tuesday in China, the incident was even a focus of social media and a government editorial. The hashtag #UnitedForcesPassengerOffPlane was the top trending item on Sina Weibo, the equivalent of Twitter, with more than 270 million views by evening in China. The man who was removed appeared to be of Asian descent.
China’s state mouthpiece the Global Times questioned in an editorial if “the victim’s Chinese ethnicity potentially made a difference” in how the passenger was treated. An online petition called “Chinese Lives Matter” calling for a U.S. investigation into the case has garnered 38,000 signatures.
In an ironic touch, Munoz just last month was named “Communicator of the Year for 2017” by PRWeek. The public-relations industry publication said Munoz “has shown himself to be a smart, dedicated, and excellent leader who understands the value of communications.”
Munoz received support from flight attendants. His letter to United workers Monday night was only meant to boost employee morale in a very trying time, said Sara Nelson, international president of the flight-attendants union for United.
“When something like this happens and people have to go to work and have order in their workplace to keep everyone safe, it can be incredibly demoralizing,” she said. “Some credit needs to be given to him.”
Routine Overselling
The incident showed how airline bumping can veer into confrontation. Carriers around the world routinely oversell their flights because people don’t always appear for a flight. Overselling is a way to cover that situation while maximizing the airline’s revenue.
The swift social-media condemnation, which extended to Washington, was sparked because the man wasn’t being ejected for misbehavior or a security threat. United said initially that the flight was overbooked, its staff chose him and he didn’t want to get bumped. The airline later said it needed room for its own employees to get to another flight.
Video posted to Facebook and Twitter showed the man being dragged out of his seat and down the aisle of Flight 3411 to Louisville, Kentucky, from Chicago. The man said he was a doctor and had to be in Louisville on Monday for work, according to a Twitter account by a passenger who said he was on the flight.
Crew Requirements
United required the seats on the Chicago plane to accommodate several crew members who needed to get to Louisville to avoid canceling other flights, spokesman Charles Hobart said. The flight wasn’t oversold, he said.
“It’s not something we want to do, but occasionally, it’s something we have to do,” Hobart said. “This was an instance where, unfortunately, we had to request the assistance of law enforcement because we had to get that aircraft off the ground.”
United’s response didn’t satisfy Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, who called the incident “disturbing” and Munoz’s statement an “empty apology.” Eleanor Holmes Norton, a nonvoting House Democrat representing the District of Columbia, called for Congressional hearings.
Incremental Risk
The incident poses an incremental risk of inviting a response from lawmakers, Buckingham analyst Daniel McKenzie wrote in a note to investors.
“It’s a brand damaging event, but it’s unlikely investors will be able to pinpoint the fallout in UAL’s revenue production,” he wrote. Shareholders are more worried about competition and whether the carrier will miss revenue targets this summer as it increases seat availability, McKenzie said.
But NYU’s Galloway said “heads should roll” at United because it will cost the airline both in terms of direct response by passengers and in damage to its image longer term. Potential travelers finding similar fares on United and a competitor may choose the rival because of the video, he said.
“The airline industry is fairly competitive and often times you have more than one option at the same price,” he said. “At a minimum, this is a tie breaker. And in the airline industry, there are a lot of ties presented to consumers.”
The incident came two weeks after United drew social-media scorn for enforcing its dress code for people who fly as nonrevenue passengers, such as employees. A girl flying from Denver was told to change her leggings before boarding. In response, the airline then took efforts to tell “our regular customers” that “leggings are welcome.”
Carriage Contract
United’s contract of carriage says it chooses passengers to be bumped based on fare class, itinerary, status in its frequent-flyer program, “and the time in which the passenger presents him/herself for check-in without advanced seat assignment.” That means those who pay more for a ticket and those who fly the airline frequently are less likely to be selected for an involuntary bump, criteria that aren’t unique to the Chicago-based carrier.
A volunteer is paid for the seat and booked on another flight. But if there aren’t enough volunteers, an airline resorts to the involuntary method. When it goes wrong, it can get ugly. That’s one reason JetBlue Airways Corp., for example, doesn’t do it.
Last year, the 12 largest U.S. airlines bumped slightly more than 40,600 of 659.7 million passengers, for a rate of 0.62 per 10,000 passengers, down from 0.73 per 10,000 in 2015, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
bloomberg.com |
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| To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (91) | 4/12/2017 2:59:11 PM | | From: zax | | | | There is something particularly viral about inflicted traveling horrors.
The regulators are in the hands of the industry. I think that needs to change, because strictly speaking, the absolute horror which took place here appears to have been completely legal and negotiated in advance with the FAA. The airline can overbook, they can place strict limits on what the staff can offer as compensation when they do, they can push out seated, paid customers for last minute airline staff without as much as even seeking alternate transportation for that staff if no one accepts the limit, they can decide who get thrown off based upon arbitrary or self-interested criterion (i.e. the perceived value or age of the customer or their ticket class), they can refuse to take into account the customer's urgency and they can beat you, drag you off the plane and arrest you if you don't accept the "lawful" order to GTFO.
I hope this doctor gets the best legal representation possible and wins a huge settlement. The head of United should be "re-accommodated" with another job, his response - blaming the passenger - was appalling. |
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| To: zax who wrote (92) | 7/29/2017 12:00:45 AM | | From: Glenn Petersen | | | | The doctor did get a large settlement, though the amount was not disclosed. These incidents strike a sensitive chord and get publicized because they impact relatively affluent individuals. Drag one of the unwashed masses from a bus and you will not hear a beep. That does not excuse UAL for their behavior.
UAL appears to \have weathered the storm.
The Boycott That Wasn’t: How United Weathered a Media Firestorm
By JAMES B. STEWART
New York Times
JULY 27, 2017
A United Airlines jet at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. Despite an embarrassing incident in which a passenger was dragged bleeding off a plane, the airline’s quarterly results were robust. Credit Kiichiro Sato/Associated Press
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After videos of David Dao, a medical doctor who in April was dragged kicking and screaming off an overbooked United Airlines plane, went viral and set off a global uproar, the outlook for United looked grim. Within days, the Twitter hashtag #BoycottUnited had been used over 3.5 million times.
Some took to Twitter to suggest new advertising slogans for United. “If we can’t beat out competitors, we’ll beat our customers” was one. “ United Airlines: putting the hospital in hospitality” was another.
Critics excoriated United for its handling of the crisis and especially its embattled chief executive, Oscar Munoz, whose first public statements seemed to blame the 69-year-old doctor for refusing to give up his seat. Mr. Munoz had already contended with a heart attack and heart transplant a month after becoming chief executive in 2015. Scheduled to be named chairman in 2018, he agreed to rescind that provision in his contract and may have his pay docked by the board.
So when United reported second- quarter earnings last week, many investors feared that the results might go off rose over 6 percent and profits shot up 49 percent. There was no sign of any boycott: The airline said it had 71 million passengers in the first half of the year, 4.2 percent more than the previous year.
Having recently completed a round trip from Newark to San Francisco on United, I wasn’t all that surprised a cliff just as the peak travel season was getting underway. But they were surprisingly robust: Revenue that United appeared to be weathering the storm. When I booked my ticket, United offered the most convenient flight options at the cheapest fares, albeit just $12 or so less than American. So I booked on United, even though the Dao incident was fresh in my mind.
My experience bears out an adage about airlines: People almost always opt for convenience and price, even while complaining loudly about crowded planes and a dearth of amenities. And now that there are just four major carriers in the United States, thanks to years of industry consolidation, many passengers don’t have all that much choice.
“The barriers to customer movement are pretty high,” Mr. Winston said. “You’d think that consumer perceptions matter a lot, but given that the major carriers practically have a monopoly on many routes and airports, it’s not that easy to switch.”
That said, once on board, I found the experience surprisingly pleasant. The flight took off on time and landed early. The snack I wanted was still available even though I was seated toward the back. My video screen malfunctioned, depriving me of an opportunity to watch the movie “Hidden Figures.” But the flight attendant was so empathetic, and tried repeatedly to fix the problem (rebooting the aircraft’s entire entertainment system several times) that I ended up reassuring her that I was happy to read a book. She gave me a voucher worth 5,000 frequent-flier miles or a $100 credit on a future flight, which seemed pretty generous for a minor incident.
The return trip was even better. The plane was a mint condition Boeing 777-300ER, with an intriguing business-class layout I admired while on my way to coach. Back there, the seats were leather and unusually comfortable (even for someone as tall as I am.) The video equipment worked. I was surprised when a flight attendant offered me a complimentary meal. I told her it must be a mistake since I was in an ordinary coach seat.
A United spokeswoman told me the airline had begun serving complimentary meals and drinks on many transcontinental flights beginning July 1, but only for Economy Plus passengers. She speculated that there may have been some extra meals on my flight, or I may have been upgraded to an Economy Plus seat without my realizing it. And she said the plane was probably one of the airline’s 11 new 777-300ERs, which are being broken in on transcontinental routes before moving to international ones.
The United Airlines check-in desk at La Guardia Airport in Queens. The airline has vowed to improve the customer experience. Credit John Taggart for The New York Times
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That flight also took off on time and landed early. (United said it had the best on-time arrival and departure performance of any carrier in the second quarter.)
Maybe this simply reflects diminished expectations, but after the remarkably stress-free flight, I wondered if it might be a good idea to fly an airline soon after an embarrassing episode like the Dao incident on the theory that everyone will be on their best behavior.
According to United, my experience wasn’t an anomaly, since the airline has put in a host of recent, post-Dao changes aimed at customer satisfaction. “To say we learned some lessons would be putting it mildly,” said Megan McCarthy, the United spokeswoman.
Besides the free meals and drinks in Economy Plus, United is now offering up to $10,000 in compensation for passengers who give up their seats on overbooked flights. These issues will be resolved before boarding so no one gets dragged off after taking an assigned seat. (United said “involuntary denied boardings” had dropped 88 percent in June from a year earlier.) When the airline loses luggage, customers will no longer have to provide receipts to prove the value of what was in it. The airline will provide up to $1,500 in compensation, no questions asked.
United has also set up a team based in Chicago to offer creative solutions to customer problems. Ms. McCarthy cited an example of providing a flight to a nearby airport and ground transportation to their destination if someone has been denied boarding on an overbooked flight.
After floundering for a few days after the Dao incident, Mr. Munoz seemed to get his mojo back. He apologized personally to Dr. Dao, and United settled with him on terms that, while they haven’t been disclosed, left Dr. Dao’s lawyer singing the airline’s praises. Mr. Munoz went on “Good Morning America” and said he felt “shame” when he saw the video. He apologized and vowed that it would never happen again on a United flight. In May, he took his mea culpa to Congress, where lawmakers used the opportunity to beat up on him for a host of perceived customer frustrations with airlines. “Ultimately our actions will speak louder than words,” he told them.
“That was the right thing to do,” said Steve Barrett, editor of PRWeek magazine. “They should have done it immediately. United made it a much bigger story than it ever would have been.”
PRWeek was thrust into the somewhat awkward position of criticizing Mr. Munoz’s handling of the affair less than a month after it had honored him as “c ommunicator of the year,” the public relations equivalent of an Oscar, for his rehabilitation of the airline’s tattered image and for reaching labor agreements that had eluded United management for years. The magazine didn’t retract the honor, but after the Dao incident Mr. Barrett said, “The episode and subsequent response will be quoted in textbooks as an example of how not to respond in a crisis.”
When I spoke to Mr. Barrett this week, he acknowledged that no boycott had materialized and United’s bookings were holding up, helped in part by a series of incidents at rival airlines suggesting that United wasn’t any worse.
(This month, the conservative pundit Ann Coulter blasted Delta Air Lines for forcing her out of a preferred seat she’d booked on a flight from La Guardia Airport in New York to West Palm Beach, Fla. The airline refunded the incremental $30 cost of the preferred seat but accused her of slandering the airline and its employees.)
Still, United “has suffered considerable reputational damage,” Mr. Barrett said. “No one is going to forget that video anytime soon.”
United is tying executive pay (not just Mr. Munoz’s) to customer satisfaction, and in its recent earnings report included a section on the “customer experience.” The airline said it would continue its renewed focus on the customer.
“That’s great and I hope it’s true,” Mr. Winston said. The airlines “have spent the last 30 to 40 years building a culture that’s about maximizing profits. Employees and customers were just a cog in that strategic wheel. Maybe it takes an incident like this to make them realize they can be about something more than moving cattle in the cheapest possible way.”
nytimes.com |
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| From: Thomas M. | 6/28/2024 2:37:34 PM | | | | | | United Airlines may have to pay over $1 billion in damages for religious discrimination
washingtonexaminer.com
United Airlines may be forced to pay upwards of $1 billion after a federal court ruled to grant nationwide class action status to over 2,200 employees who were placed on unpaid leave for choosing not to get vaccinated against COVID-19 during the pandemic.
A judge in the Northern District of Texas, fifth circuit, ruled on Friday that all United Airlines employees put on unpaid leave despite having a religious exemption to the vaccine can join Sambrano v. United Airlines, making the case one of the largest religious discrimination class action lawsuits in history.
“I’ve never seen anything this big,” Sherry Walker, co-founder of Airline Employees for Health Freedom, told the Washington Examiner. Walker is one of 2,211 class members on the lawsuit.
Allegations of ‘abuse’ and ‘retaliation’
At first, all unvaccinated employees were placed on indefinite unpaid leave. After the lawsuit was initially filed in 2021, United Airlines amended its policy to only place “customer facing” employees (those who interact with patrons) on unpaid leave, while “non-customer facing” employees were given a “mask and test” mandate.
The company’s “mask and test” mandate required unvaccinated “non-customer facing” employees to wear an N95 respiratory mask at all times, even though more breathable cloth masks were allowed elsewhere. The mask mandate was required when employees were outside, even in the Texas heat, and while on vacation, and required the unvaccinated to eat alone.
Walker cited two examples of airline employees who passed out while wearing the N95 masks, including one where an employee was “in the belly of the plane” and scraped his head on the ground when he lost consciousness.
In 2022, Virginia’s Department of Labor and Industry fined United Airlines $8,460 for one “serious” and one “other-than-serious” violation stemming from the N95 mandate.
Unvaccinated employees said they were also subject to “abuse and harassment” from coworkers stemming from the “scarlet letter policy” of having to wear a mask, thus identifying oneself as unvaccinated. David Castillo, an employee from Texas, is one plaintiff who faced repeated verbal attacks from his peers.
FILE – United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby testifies before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill, Dec. 15, 2021, in Washington. (Chip Somodevilla/Pool via AP, File)
A more aggressive policy was also proposed by United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, according to a case briefing obtained by the Washington Examiner. Kirby allegedly tried to implement a policy where the unvaccinated would have to put a sticker on their badge identifying them as someone who received a vaccine accommodation to work, but it failed.
The plaintiffs believe they were being retaliated against by United Airlines due to comments Kirby and human resources officials made expressing distrust of employees seeking religious exemptions and because Kirby pushed for more severe punishments for unvaccinated employees while forgiving disciplinary points for vaccinated employees, per the lawsuit.
Kirby expressed concern about employees “all [of a] sudden decid[ing] I’m really religious” in order to get out of taking the COVID-19 vaccine and said that those who chose not to get vaccinated were “putting [their] job on the line” in communications revealed in a press briefing.
United Airlines declined to comment on the matter.
Kirby’s ‘coercion’ of employees
Kirby announced the mandate without letting his executive team know beforehand, according to the lawsuit, despite Vice President of Human Resources Services Kirk Limacher’s initial objection that it was unnecessary.
The plaintiffs allege that Kirby pushed so hard to “coerce” employees to get vaccinated “for marketing purposes,” namely, to be able to boast about being the first airline to implement a vaccine mandate and to have a 100% vaccination rate.
“United CEO Scott Kirby has engaged in a despicable war against his own employees to unlawfully harass them for no other reason than virtue signaling and a marketing campaign,” Mark Paoletta, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the Washington Examiner.
“As confirmed by United’s own health experts,” he continued, “Kirby had no public health or safety reason to impose these draconian and humiliating measures that sought to illegally force United’s employees to violate their faith or put their health at risk as a condition for keeping their job.”
In addition to Kirby’s failed attempt to enforce visual labels on unvaccinated employees, the United Airlines CEO allegedly requested to make his proposed “mask and test” policy “sound very serious,” requesting that employees be “automatic[ally] terminat[ed]” after just one violation. This effort failed when Kirby was reminded by HR that his policy would violate collective bargaining agreements.
The company also sent out postcards with big, bold red letters notifying employees who were not vaccine-compliant that they would be terminated if they did not comply. Limacher admitted these were meant to be seen by the spouses of employees.
Upon being asked by Visa’s CEO if he thought his company would lose many employees over the mandate, Kirby said he thought that was unlikely “because the jobs [at United] are just too good to leave,” according to a case briefing.
“Kirby’s heartless and thuggish conduct has hurt and damaged thousands of good people’s lives and careers, and Kirby and United should be held accountable in this litigation and in the court of public opinion,” Paoletta said.
A safety ‘double standard’
People familiar with the case called out a “double standard” of the company being willing to excuse disciplinary points for the vaccinated but not the unvaccinated, with no safety reason given. They also pointed to how the cabin of an airplane is touted as being incredibly sanitary, which makes it even less likely for an unvaccinated person to contract COVID-19.
Kirby had been warned by his vice president of HR services that a mandate was unnecessary from a safety standpoint as most employees were already vaccinated and most cases of infection came from outside of work.
The N95 mask mandate was additionally unnecessary for safety, based on CDC guidelines. However, Walker, the Airline Employees for Health Freedom co-founder, said people have been injured as a result of the mandate.
“United Airlines is more worried about diversity, equity, and inclusion than [it is about] safety,” Walker said. She pointed to the airline getting “hammered by the FAA” earlier this year due to safety mishaps, but listed a number of DEI initiatives funded by the company.
Big decisions loom: What’s next?
The court ruled that only “customer-facing” employees with a religious exemption could be included in the lawsuit, denying the plaintiff’s motion to include those with medical exemptions and those who were subjected to the “mask and test” mandate.
Both sides have a big decision to make before the July 5 deadline to appeal. The plaintiffs must decide whether to fight to include the other two groups, which could greatly increase the number of class members. According to the court decision obtained by the Washington Examiner, 1,078 employees were put under the “mask and test” mandate.
According to Walker, the next step is for the case to go to trial. The judge may attempt one more round of arbitration, however, where the goal would be to agree on a settlement before trial.
If the jury rules I favor of the plaintiffs, each member of the class action lawsuit would be entitled to punitive damages in addition to back pay. While a jury is not limited in its award, using the EEOC minimum standard for punitive damages of $300,000 per person applied when they bring action against an employer, United Airlines could conservatively be on the hook for $663 million, or roughly $987 million if the employees who were forced to wear respirators were allowed to join.
Tom |
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