United Airlines is dealing with the damage caused by the customer service disaster which sparked outrage all over the world. Videos of police officer violently dragging a passenger off its flight 3411 on April 9 followed by a hollow apology initially by CEO Oscar Munoz soon put it at the centre of internet’s anger. To regain trust of customers and avoid getting into similar situations in the future, United has made some changes to its policies. Some of these changes, like booking of crew an hour before the flight and not seeking help of police to remove passengers, were announced earlier, soon after the issue spiralled out of United’s control.

The new introductions primarily speak about new limits on how and when passengers can be taken off flights. United says that passengers won’t be required to give up their seat involuntarily once they board unless there is safety or security risk. The crew members who need to travel will be booked at least an hour before to avoid situations that led to the recent incident. They have also increased the ceiling for compensations to USD 10,000. Recently, Delta also announced a similar increase raising the ceiling to USD 9,950. Of course the compensations they will be handing out are still going to be similar to what they have been offering in the past but the supervisors can offer higher, just in case.

Oscar Munoz, chief executive officer of United Airlines, said, “Every customer deserves to be treated with the highest levels of service and the deepest sense of dignity and respect.  Two weeks ago, we failed to meet that standard and we profoundly apologize.  However, actions speak louder than words. Today, we are taking concrete, meaningful action to make things right and ensure nothing like this ever happens again.”

“Our review shows that many things went wrong that day, but the headline is clear: our policies got in the way of our values and procedures interfered in doing what’s right.  This is a turning point for all of us at United and it signals a culture shift toward becoming a better, more customer-focused airline.  Our customers should be at the center of everything we do and these changes are just the beginning of how we will earn back their trust,” he added.

United also plans to reduce overbooking to avoid getting into situations where passengers have to be bumped off and for times when they do, they are setting up a customer solutions team to provide agents with other solutions including using other airlines, nearby airports and other forms of transportation to get customers to their destination.

Along with this, they are also looking to address another customer pain point, lost luggage. United will pay customers USD 1500 for lost luggage and if the losses are higher, customers can still file for claims.

It was recently reported that Oscar Munoz would not move up to the role of chairman as it was originally planned. The board is also making other changes in compensations of senior executives.

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United is under fire as video of a traveller being forcefully pulled off a flight is doing rounds of the internet. While it was the police who removed the unwilling passenger from the plane, United is being attacked from all directions. The incident happened at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

Overbooking is inevitable in the industry where every seat counts to just push the airlines towards making money. If they ditch the system, all of us will have to pay more for flight tickets and that is something we won’t like. Over time, it is only getting better as airlines employ better systems to accurately predict behaviour of travellers reducing the number of situations when someone has to be bumped off a flight. And while in the recent incident, United had the right to take someone off the plane, it didn’t set a very good example of how one should deal with a customer. Primarily because it wasn’t a typical overbooking situation but the airline needed to send its employees to another location. Even in such situations, most airlines seek volunteers at the check-in counters or boarding gate and not after passengers have boarded. The individual in question wasn’t denied boarding but was pulled off the flight at a later stage.

United CEO response to United Express Flight 3411. pic.twitter.com/rF5gNIvVd0

— United (@united) April 10, 2017

This is turning out to be a bad situation for United as the airline desperately tries to damage control. Not even a month ago, United was in news as two passengers were denied boarding because of how they were dressed. A rather generic response by United CEO Oscar Munoz in this case hasn’t gone down well with most people as they take it to twitter to express their rage. At the scale this news has spread, it could cause some damage to the company. Users on various social media platforms in China are also accusing United of racism as the man in the video appeared to be from Eastern part of the globe. However, this isn’t the first time United has been in hot waters due to lousy customer care and questionable behaviour.

@united oh you were just "re-accommodating" the doctor you dragged off your plane?

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) April 10, 2017

The worst was close to a decade back in 2008 when United got into a situation with Canadian musician Dave Carroll associated with the band Sons of Maxwell. The band was flying from Halifax to Omaha, Nebraska on United and had a layover at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (yes the same airport). Dave Carroll said that his guitar was broken in United’s custody. He claimed that a fellow passenger spotted and exclaimed that baggage handlers were throwing guitars during the layover. On his destination, he discovered that his Taylor guitar was severely damaged.

After negotiating with the airline for about nine months, he wrote a song and created a humorous music video titled ‘United breaks guitars’ and released in July 2009. The video got 150K views in just a day prompting a senior United official to call Carroll to apologise. The original video was followed by two other videos. United even donated the belated compensation of USD 3000 to a non profit music education organisation but the damage control was too late. It was also widely reported by multiple publications that it caused close to 10 percent drop in stock prices, though the statement has been questioned by some experts.

Things not welcome on @united:
1. Guitars
2. Passengers in leggings
3. Passengers#UnitedBreaksGuitars #UnitedJourney

— Nigel Lake (@Nigel_Lake) April 10, 2017

With the recent incident, Twitteratis are again talking about this old incident pushing it into the Twitter trends recently. The #United#BreaksGuitars incident is widely known and while dealing with the situation, United mentioned it hoped to learn from the incident and change its customer service policy accordingly. Nine years on, it appears that United still has some work to do in that direction.

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Finding gift ideas can be a tough job and people usually resort to the usual options of flowers and chocolates. With Mother’s Day approaching, United Airlines has introduced an interesting on-board gift delivery program called “Celebrate”. The Chicago based carrier claims to be the first carrier in US to introduce such a gift program.

With ‘Celebrate’, the gifts can be pre ordered from their dutyfreeonboard.com website. The items that can be delivered in flight are represented by a small airplane icon on top left. The ordered gift will be delivered to the passenger after take-off by a flight attendant. While United has used Mother’s Day to launch this new program, the in-flight gifting option will continue and can be used to send gifts to passengers.

The idea of this new program came from a former customer service rep working with United. She explained how witnessing an in-flight surprise inspired her for the new service. This presents a very good example of how airlines are exploring new revenue sources and getting creative with it. It would allow them to sell in flight duty free items while putting a friendly face on the front.

United Airlines isn’t the only carrier that is honouring Mother’s Day. JetBlue recently flew a ‘FlyBabies’ flight wherein it offered a 25 percent off to the fliers on their next ticket, every time a baby cried on-board. This was done to show empathy towards moms that are travelling with their kids.

With Mother’s Day still two days away, expect more travel brands to come up with interesting ideas to celebrate the event.

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