Dr Munoz's Mistakes At American Airlines

Many have already seen the footage on various social media outlets, and one could ask, how could a man be violently dragged off a plane against his own will? Recently, to summarize, a passenger, named Dr. David Dao, was taken off a United Airlines plane to accommodate for an overbooking error. In the process, he was violently removed by security guards. The whole idea of it is simply sickening, and fortunately sparked enormous outrage by the public to the company. However, after everything, you would think that United would try to compensate the victim, or at the minimum do something right. Unfortunately, this was not the case because after using critical analysis and seeing a series of events unravel, one may have to claim that United Airlines …show more content…
Oscar Munoz, current CEO of United Airlines, made a statement. “This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers” (McCann). Here, he apologized to the passengers, but not the victim directly. But at the same time, the language used, specifically the second sentence, made the customers seem like they were mere products; it came off as uncaring. The second mistake was during the same day. Munoz wrote a recap to the events that aspired in the airplane to his employee’s, and inside included negative attributes to the victim, “He [Dao] was approached a few more times after that in order to gain his compliance to come off the aircraft, and each time he refused and became more and more disruptive and belligerent” (McCann). Here, Dao is talked about with words like “disruptive” and “belligerent” to make him seem rebellious, so United’s actions could be seen as acceptable. Essentially, the company placed blame on the victim …show more content…
“Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard. No one should ever be mistreated this way. I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right” (McCann). He made a complete turnaround and is “trying to make things right.” At this time though, it was too late. “Facing a still-raging public relations crisis, shares of United Airlines on Wednesday gave up early gains and turned negative after suffering a $255 million loss in market value yesterday as investors weigh the long-term fallout on the company’s business” (Shell). United Airlines was losing a lot of money and made it clear that the apology was made due to financial loss; it was a cover