Part 2: how can United airlines recover from this PR disaster?

Hello all. I have had quite a lot of hits on my last piece on the United 3411 PR disaster and I have decided to do a part 2 on the issue. In my previous piece, I talked to my friend Ian who worked in corporate communications for another airline. In today's piece, I shall be talking to my friend Kelly, another PR expert who who calls herself 'the firefighter'.

Limpeh: So Kelly, if we may begin by asking you to explain your nickname: 'the firefighter'.

Kelly: Basically, when a company messes up and has a PR disaster, much like the situation that United has gotten itself into, they clearly don't know what to do to get themselves out of that mess. Sometimes, a lot of the problem arises because the company may have their own marketing or PR staff, but there is a culture whereby the staff have been there for years and they are too afraid or nervous to tell the big bosses that they are doing something really stupid. In getting a firefighter like me in during a crisis, I can evaluate the situation from a third party perspective and I am not afraid to tell the CEO, the MD, the founder, the bloody Messiah of the company that s/he has made a huge mistake. It's a lot easier for me to do that because they expect me to do that, that's what they bring me in for.

Limpeh: In short, you're talking about the 'emperor's new clothes' syndrome.

Kelly: It seems obvious but it happens a lot - that is why companies get themselves into such a mess sometimes because the crew of the ship don't dare to contradict the captain even if he is steering the ship directly into a huge iceberg. If this culture persists, then the big bosses end up being surrounded by yes-men who will praise them for whatever decision they make, even bad ones - can you imagine one of Kim Jong-Un's general's contradicting him or telling him that he is about to make a bad decision? Hell no, nobody dares to contradict or criticize Kim Jong-Un. Criticize Kim and you might be executed for it! Fortunately, companies that find themselves in that situation usually have the sense of call in a third party like me to help them resolve whatever crisis they find themselves in. It is the same reason why fighting couples go for counselling, they can try to resolve their differences between themselves, but engaging a third party counselor or mediator can do a lot in terms of helping them work out an amicable solution.

Limpeh: So what was your initial response to the United PR fiasco then?

Kelly: It took the CEO Oscar Munoz three attempts to apologize and each time he tried to apologize, he looked insincere and chose the wrong words. Good grief. Why didn't anyone from their PR department coach him on what to say and do? It seems that he is suffering from the 'emperor's new clothes' syndrome - who amongst his staff is going to tell him where he is going desperately wrong? What are their corporate communications team doing? Does he have to read the criticisms in the press, on social media because his own people are so terrified of criticizing him?

Limpeh: What was his biggest mistake?

Kelly: I think it was his inability to understand the mood of the public, how public opinion had turned against United instantly the moment those videos of Dr Dao being dragged off the plane went viral. It is not rocket science - all you had to do was look at the comments left on social media and within like 20 seconds, you could have come to that conclusion. You can't defend the indefensible - if you do that, then you develop a secondary story about how you are trying to justify the unjustifiable. You have got to think about the consequences of your actions before you say or do anything - is the public going to react negatively or positively? Seriously, any decent PR person can answer that question for you. I get the feeling that he is simply a very old man who is rather old school in his approach to corporate communications - like he just doesn't get social media and doesn't understand the repercussions of this PR disaster.

Limpeh: Yes, I seem to be seeing new spoof videos coming up everyday on social media, lampooning United. I particularly liked the Jujitsu self defence class - teaching us how to prepare ourselves when boarding a United flight!

Kelly: And the irony is that United are making positive steps to rectify the situation, they have announced today that they have changed their policy on giving staff last-minute seats on fully booked flights. This should have been a good news story, a step in the right direction - other airlines should be following their example, even praising them for taking this important step forward but there is little appetite by anyone to offer United any goodwill at the moment.

Limpeh: What would you have done, if you were advising United when this story broke?

Kelly: You need to understand what the public wants: they want to see someone held accountable for harming poor Dr Dao in that appalling way. Preferably, we want to see someone arrested, dragged off in handcuffs and thrown in a cell in a police station in the most humiliating manner. In short, when you have a mob baying for blood, you've gotta give them something or you're in big trouble because they're not just going to go away. Oscar Munoz failed to understand the power of a mob baying for blood on social media, I would have told him to have sacrifice a junior employee at United for messing up the ticketing situation, maybe blame the pilot for demanding the forced removal of Dr Dao and of course, as you've said in your last piece, put most blame on the one police officer who clearly physically assaulted Dr Dao in the video, causing those horrific injuries. Munoz had nothing to gain by defending these people who had made these catastrophic mistakes - absolutely nothing to gain. I'd be wondering why he wasn't even angry with them for making such mistakes, in most companies, when you screw up like that, you can expect your boss to get angry with you. Munoz didn't do that, he seemed to have been defending them instead and that's not going to satisfy your critics.

The fact is removing disruptive, drunk and dangerous passengers from planes is something that airport security personnel will have to do all the time. It is not an easy job of course but one that needs to be taken with care - if you use too much force and injure the passenger, then you have a lawsuit on your hand. There's a huge difference between a passenger who is actively resisting and passively resisting - an actively resisting passenger would be one who fights back when approached by the police. A passively resisting passenger is simply one who refuses to move - the latter doesn't pose a physical threat to the plane's safety or any other passenger, so there is really no justification to use that level of force to drag Dr Dao from the plane like that. He was no terrorist, he was no criminal, he wasn't going to cause any harm to anyone else on that plane, he just wanted to get home. The police didn't know the difference between a 69 year old elderly man and a dangerous terrorist, it was an appalling lack of training and an act of stupidity on the part of the police officer who assaulted Dr Dao like that. I don't think anyone could possibly defend the police officer for what he had done - he needs to be held accountable for what he did and fast. The public need to know that steps are taken to prevent this from happening again, give them the reassurance they want.

Limpeh: On one hand, you could say, it is his company and his decision what he wants to do with his employees when they make a mistake or three. But could it be that his employees are unionized workers and he cannot easily dismiss them or discipline them just in case the unions get involved? The police officer who assaulted Dr Dao would certainly have a union behind him who are obliged to help him regardless of what he did on that plane.

Kelly: A union can protect a worker against unfair dismissal, a union cannot say to an employer, "you cannot discipline this person for the mistake he made because he is a union member." It is a not a "get out of jail free" card. But let me give you an example with a company I dealt with a while ago, there was a problem with the product which led to the serious injury of a customer. I'm bound by confidentiality not to name the product, but let's just say it was a PR disaster that was in the news. The company blamed a fairly junior employee for the mistake made in the factory and sacked the person who caused the mistake - justice had to be seen to be done. What the press didn't know was that the employee who was 'sacrificed' in a public display of "punishment" was compensated for the sacking, he was given some money, a decent amount in fact. It meant that this person was going to agree to take the blame and not contest the sacking. None of this was made public of course, but the baying mob was given a scapegoat. United's refusal to offer a few scapegoats to the public is a very costly error. Come on, you need to give the public what they want! So in its place, Oscar Munoz has become the scapegoat. You can either say he's noble or stupid - I think he's very stupid.

Limpeh: I agree. Just how bad is this for United then, Kelly? How is this hurting them? Can it get any worse?

Kelly: This PR disaster is hurting United in so many ways - they are now offering compensation to every single passenger on that flight, which seems like a pretty desperate measure to me. Over a billion has been wiped off United's stock value since that video went viral. The mockery and the spoof videos on the internet are not going to stop and with so many people boycotting United because of what happened to Dr Dao, the full effects of this PR disaster will not be felt until we can see in a few months' time just how badly their business has been affected. Now it's just a question of whether is is really bad or even worse than we have originally thought. It is hard to say because now there's going to be a law suit and a court case, United are going to have to defend their decision to call in law enforcement to forcibly remove Dr Dao from the plane and it is just going to prolong the agony for United each day this drags on. They could attempt to settle out of court with Dr Dao's lawyers, but that would mean Dr Dao's legal team being effectively able to ask for a blank cheque from United just to make the matter go away quickly. Just how many zeros are United willing to put on that blank cheque to Dr Dao, just to settle this out of court quickly then?

Limpeh: If United then say, we're not going to give in to extortion, we'll see you in court, what could their defence be in that case? Imagine you are advising United, what line of defence could they take in this case then?

Kelly: Well that then becomes a legal matter. I'm the PR consultant, the "firefighter", not a lawyer but I think it is pretty straight forward what stance they will have to take. Dr Dao was instructed by the pilot to leave the plane, but Dr Dao refused to. At that point, Dr Dao was on the wrong side of the law because he refused to cooperate with instructions from the pilot and when you buy an airline ticket, there are so many legal clauses in the fine print that basically mean that you are obliged to comply with their terms and conditions. At that point, they called the police onto the plane and it was out of their hands - what then happened was neither their fault nor responsibility. Dr Dao was assaulted by a member of the Chicago police, not by a United employee. So by right, Dr Dao should be suing the Chicago police for the excessive use of force which led to his horrific injuries, rather than blaming United. It was a case of police brutality - the incident may have happened on a United plane, but the fault and culpability clearly lies with the Chicago police and definitely not United. Don't blame United for what happened - it wasn't our fault and we are not the bad guys here!

Limpeh: Actually, I find it hard to disagree with that argument Kelly. It does make a lot of sense.

Kelly: But you see, United is a huge company with deep pockets that cares about their PR as that affects their business. They have a stock price that is hurting real bad at the moment. Dr Dao is better off trying to sue United because that's the way he'll get the most amount of money. You can try to sue the Chicago police for police brutality, but a judge is never going to award you that much money even if you do win a case against them because they are the police at the end of the day. You could say that United created that situation in the first place by trying to eject four passengers from the plane to make room for four of their own employees, but that situation could have been resolved a lot less violently if you didn't get that psychopath of a police officer assaulting Dr Dao like that. Three police officers boarded that plane, only one got violent and assaulted Dr Dao. The other two stood back and didn't do much - but they didn't stop their crazy colleague from beating up Dr Dao either. Somebody needs to be held accountable for this!

Limpeh: United has shown contrition - well, better late than never, but we've not heard much from the Chicago police about this case. Really? Am I the only one who find that rather disturbing Kelly, given how much of the responsibility should like with them, rather than just United, in this case? Or are United equally culpable in this case?

Kelly: The police have never really had a great track record when it comes to handling PR, oh no. For starters, they don't have a big budget to hire experts like me to help them sort their shit out! They try their best with a limited budget and also, they are heavily dependent on the good will that the public gives them - we all depend on the police to keep us safe, to protect us from criminals. So when a police officer does something wrong, people tend to be more forgiving because even if that police officer did do something terrible like beat up Dr Dao, he would have spent months, even years, doing a very valuable job in protecting our communities, in keeping us safe. It sounds simplistic but you'll be amazed the kind of respect that people like soldiers, policemen, basically anyone in the armed forces get in America. There's a lot of talk about soldiers, "fighting for our freedom" or even "risking their lives for our freedom". You can tell - a lot of people are happy to condemn United on social media, but how many are condemning the Chicago police?

The identity of that key suspect, the brute who beat up Dr Dao hasn't been made public yet. This is an interesting tactical move by the Chicago police, I am not sure if it is that deliberate. But when we don't have one named individual we can blame, the individual is effectively hiding behind the good name of the Chicago police and benefiting from the fact that they have generally a good reputation. If we have a named individual that we can pin the blame on, if we can say, okay this was the man who beat up Dr Dao, then we can tear into his past, leave no stone unturned, interview the people he went to school with to try to find dirt on him - to the point where we can make him look like a villain. Then we can go down the "every barrel of apple has a rotten one" - you single out the rotten apple in order to protect the quality of the rest of the apples. Now if the Chicago police continue to protect this rotten apple, then they risk being seen as a corrupt police force who condone police brutality. Yes this officer has been "put on leave" since the incident, but that's hardly going to satisfy the public at this stage. We want to see him thrown under a bus and hung from the tallest tree.

Limpeh: But the Chicago police cares far less about a PR disaster as it doesn't have a share price, unlike United.

Kelly: That probably has a lot to do with it. They have far less to lose than United. You can't boycott the police.

Limpeh: What can United do to win back some goodwill then? Surely they need to make amends soon.

Kelly: Firstly they need to draw a line under this incident, we need to get to a point where we can reasonably say, "case closed, this is the end of it" before we can move on. With an ongoing federal investigation by the US department of transport and the Chicago’s Department of Aviation into the misconduct of the officer who assaulted Dr Dao - these investigations typically take a long time because these investigators are bureaucratic and old fashioned. And then there's the law suit that Dr Dao can bring against United for his treatment and injuries - he can drag this out and get a lot of attention in the media for quite a while yet because his legal team will know that for everyday this PR disaster drags on, United's stock value will take a hit, passengers will continue to boycott United and they will lose money. Right now, other passengers who have been treated badly by United are speaking out and the media is gladly printing their stories when before, they weren't that interested. United need to bring closure to this case sooner rather than later and it is going to cost them of course: pay off Dr Dao, give him what he wants to settle out of court. Admit your guilt to the federal investigation to make their job easier and deal with the consequences. Then you're seen as the party who is co-operating, whilst you can then effectively through the Chicago Department of Aviation under the bus and say, "we've done our part to make things right, now it's just a case of police brutality and that has nothing to do with us."

Limpeh: Writing Dr Dao a blank cheque may seem expensive and there will be some at United who will be against giving in to him at this stage - after all, United employees were not responsible for the worst mistakes of the incident. It wasn't a United crew member who assaulted Dr Dao in that horrific manner. Why should United be seen to pay the price of a mistake committed by one individual who was employed by the Chicago police and not United? It is not like United can strike a deal with the police and say, "we'll pay him off for now, but we'll split the cost." The police will be like, you're on your own if you wanna write him a cheque now - you created the problem in the first place. You can see how the two parties are both at fault and how United may feel aggrieved if they have to pick up the tab in this case.

Kelly: Yeah but let me give you an analogy which sums up the situation - my sister had a pipe burst in her kitchen and it was a disaster: like her kitchen was being flooded, they opened the back door to let some of that water flow out into the garden. They tried to turn off the mains to turn off the supply of water to the house but they just couldn't get the lever to turn. At this stage, they've put sandbags between the kitchen and the living room to stop the water from going into the living room as they have carpets there. The plumber turns up and says, "yup, I can fix this, but it is going to cost you as it is a major repair and an emergency call out on a Sunday. Here is my price." You know what my brother-in-law starts doing? He starts arguing and bargaining with the plumber because he refused to be extorted under such circumstances - my brother-in-law clearly had a figure in his head he was willing to pay the plumber and this was way more than that figure. All this while, the burst pipe is still gushing water into their kitchen. The plumber then said, "fine if you don't want to pay the price, I'm just gonna pack up my tools and leave. Good luck getting someone else then."

My sister then realized they had no choice about the matter and said, "fine, okay we'll pay. Just get on with the repairs, please." Her husband objected of course but she put her foot down and agreed to pay the plumber whatever he wanted to charge. The plumber then pointed out that they could have turned off the mains but they were using the wrong lever. He then surveyed the damage and with a smug expression told her, "you know in the time your husband spent arguing with me, the water got into your living room and your carpets are soaked. The damage is now a lot worse than when I first got here - in fact, the damage is now probably going to cost a lot more than whatever I am going to charge you." When you are facing a disaster, you cannot go into denial and start bargaining - you have to be rational and start do the calculations: what can I do to minimize the loss and damage? There's really no point in being stubborn if it is just going to cost you more eventually. You can't win in such situations - all you can do is cut your losses. United is indeed in such a situation, yes they will probably end up paying Dr Dao a lot of money and they should do that sooner rather than later because that will help them cut their losses. It's just a simple calculation, work it out. Bringing closure to the matter as quickly as possible is in their best interest financially - you don't split hairs.

Limpeh: But surely at some stage, United will have to think about their next step - what next then? What can we do to improve our relationship with the public? What can we do to win back some goodwill as a brand?

Kelly: Well, once you have finally brought the matter to a close, then you can talk about other more imaginative marketing campaigns, contests, supporting various charitable causes, helping local communities in cities where they fly to, surprising passengers with free gifts in order to build up good will again. But imagine if they tried to do something like that before this matter is concluded, they would only be met with cynicism. The public would be like, "yeah right, you think that we're going to buy this when there's still that ongoing court case and investigation with Dr Dao?" Now Cathay Pacific did a rather cute flash mob Christmas campaign in 2013 in Hong Kong International Airport - it was so successful that they have repeated it several times, but most people remember the original, the first one. Can you imagine if United tried to do something like that now? Even if they sang like angels and danced like professionals, somebody is going to photoshop Dr Dao being dragged away into the video or better still, a spoof will emerge involving a song and dance routine with an older Asian passenger is being dragged across the airport or tarmac - you can be sure that spoof is going to go viral instantly. This PR disaster is going to be a dark shadow that will hang over any goodwill campaign that United tries to do for a long time. Oh this incident will continue to haunt them for many years.

Limpeh: But Kelly, please allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment. Why can't United go down a different route and just do a big sale? Surely if you do a huge sale and allow passengers to fly some of the most popular routes for a fraction of what they usually pay, budget conscious travelers are going to suddenly forget what happened to Dr Dao and book that cheap flight, just to save a lot of money? Because everyone loves a bargain, right? I know I do.

Kelly: Yes they can do that but will it repair the damage to their reputation even if they do sell some cheap tickets?  No. They will have to drop their prices quite significantly to have that kind of effect - it is called a fire sale and sure, it may persuade some people to book those flights if they price those flights cheaply enough, but what they're not going to make any money when they slash their prices to that extent. What do you think is going to happen the moment they put their prices back to normal? No, a fire sale will not have any long term impact when it comes to cultivating any brand loyalty. Airlines make a lot of money during busy periods like school holidays and Christmas, where they charge a lot more than normal for flights - that is simply when demand far outstrips supply. You are in a crowded market and there are other airlines to choose from. A fire sale at this stage will just look desperate and it won't help United in the long run fix their PR problem. There are no easy solutions for United at this stage, they are better off focusing on bringing closure to this case as quickly as possible before we can start devising strategies to regain trust and goodwill.

Limpeh: Kelly, it has been such a pleasure talking with you. Many thanks for sharing your thoughts with us on this.