Skift Take
From a public relations perspective, United CEO Munoz had to get out there on TV so the public could view his remorse. Written statements wouldn’t suffice. He’s now saying a lot of the right things.Amid one of the worst public relations disasters in United Airlines’ history, CEO Oscar Munoz said the incident in Chicago represented a system failure and pledged the airline won’t use law enforcement to remove booked, paid and seated passengers from aircraft in the future.
Munoz sat down with ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis Wednesday in Chicago and part of the interview appeared on Good Morning America. This was Munoz’s first interview since the incident on Sunday (watch the interview below).
Had United employees been more empowered to use their common sense, the incident could have been prevented, Munoz said. “We have not provided our frontline supervisors and managers and individuals with the proper tools, policies and procedures that allow them to use their common sense,” he said. “They all have an incredible amount of common sense and this issue could have been solved by that. That’s on me, I have to fix that and I think that’s something we can do.”towards redemption before Sunday’s incident after a scandal with its former CEO and other issues but Pierpont believes the coming weeks and months could be a positive and transformative moment for the airline. “But they’ll have to build a communications plan,” he said. “Right now people are angry so this will take time. They’ll have to work at putting things out there one thing at a time, first on social and then maybe on a micro site.”
Overhauling an airline’s reputation is no small feat even without a public relations disaster that echoes around the world. “You’ll always have some level of folks who you can never make happy, you have to be able to resist that and then know when you should engage in an honest conversation you can learn from,” said Pierpont.
Timing and messaging have equal importance in times of crisis, something all airlines can learn from United’s response, said Matt Rizzetta, CEO of N6A, a communications and branding agency based in New York City. “This is where a lot of brands make a misstep,” said Rizzetta. “In United’s case, the timing was lightning quick, but they missed the mark on messaging, and it wasn’t until their second statement that they started to take steps to show empathy and contrition for their customers.”
Besides reevaluating law enforcement on aircraft, United will also look at its incentive program when flights are overbooked. “There is an incentive program that works pretty well outside of the gate,” said Munoz. “Clearly, when you get into an airplane and you’re boarded and seated your incentive model needs to change and I think that’s one of the policies that we’ll look at. We do empower our frontline folks to a degree.”
Munoz said he hasn’t spoken directly to the doctor who was dragged off the plane but said United has attempted to contact him several times and insisted the passenger isn’t at fault and that “no one should be treated like that, period.”
Resigning from his CEO role isn’t something Munoz has considered because of this incident, he said. “I was hired to make United better and we’ve been doing that and that’s what I’ll continue to do,” he said.
United is conducting an internal review of the incident and its policies, and the airline has said it will release the results of its review by April 30.