The Case of United Airlines Flight 3411

Every now and then, huge corporations give us the opportunity to experience a rare incident in their daily operations, that require an immediate PR reaction. The most recent of these is the incident of United Airlines' Flight 3411.

As most of you may know by now -thanks to social media-, airport officers forcibly removed passenger Dr. David Dao from the aircraft, after he refused to give his seat away to United's crew because the flight was overbooked and the crew had to be at their destination for another flight. Passengers recorded the incident and the video went viral in a matter of hours, with the video showing an injured Dr. Dao being carried by two officers. The internet went nuts -as usual- with thousands vowing never to fly on United ever again, and others wishing the airline went bankrupt.

United CEO Oscar Muñoz, issued a very unsympathetic tweet, kind of apologizing for the overbooking, while sending an internal memo defending the actions of the crew. A following public statement was issued in which Muñoz apologized to the passenger and announced a review of the procedure.

So what can be said about what happened?

First things first: like it or not, the crew is in right to remove a passenger if he/she refuses to leave a flight. This is crystal clear in the contract suscribed within the United and yourself once you purchase an airline ticket from them. In general, as soon as you seet foot in a commercial aircraft on US soil, you are bound to obey any instruction delivered by the aircraft's Captain and his crew. It's federal law.

Second: the whole incident was poorly managed by United. They shouldn't have ever allowed passengers to board the plane, if they knew the flight was overbooked and another flight crew needed to board the aircraft. This issue should have been sorted before boarding.

Third: I'm quite sure almost everyone has experienced living through an overbooked flight in which the airline offers to compensate you if you give away your seat. I can remember at least six times when this has happened to me and I specifically remember having thought that if I was offered $1,000, I would have given my seat away. The opportunity hasn't happened yet though, because some people accept $200 or $400 offered by the airline. Maybe the issue would have been solved had United offered more money?

Four: As CEO, Muñoz was clearly caught off base with the incident. He clearly dismissed it with his initial tweet as something minor that wasn't too much of a big deal -and, objectively speaking, it is true: this is not a big deal-. He clearly underestimated the power of social media and the internet of things.

Five -and perhaps the most important-: calling for a United boycott or wishing a 90 year old business that has over 80,000 employees to go bankrupt, just because of an isolated incident that was poorly handled by a crew of what, 10 people, is complete non-sense. It doesn't make sense that more than 80,000 people lose their jobs, if United went bankrupt over this. I mean, it may be possible that perhaps at least 40,000 of those people would have handled the incident in a different way.

I've flown United several times and to me, their services are pretty much what I expect from them. I've flown several other airlines, with way worse customer treatment, yet I see no one calling to boycott them or wish them bankruptcy.

Even with the fact that the law favors United in this case, I believe that 1) a procedure review, 2) maybe some sort of penalty to the people involved for unnecessary excess use of force, and 3) a fair settlement with Dr. Dao, should leave United with a better image.