Business Ethics: A Case Study on United Airlines Incident

Running head: BUSINESS ETHICS
Business Ethics
Name of the student
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BUSINESS ETHICS
Business ethics refer to professional ethics that helps in examining the ethical
principles which can rise within a business environment. It can be applied to all the aspects in
relation to business conduct which is important for behaviour of the individuals in an
organization. This essay discusses about a moral issue and talks about the parties that are
involved within the business case. It offers recommendation on the basis of a balanced moral
position. The essay makes use of the approach of ethics, deontology along with rights to
solve the ethical issue.
Moral issue was related to an incident on a United Airlines flight where a man was
dragged off the United Airlines flight (Edition.cnn.com ). It raised a lot of furore over the
platform of social media. There exists a system that allow airlines in booting passengers from
the flights. United Airlines was following policy and this caused the situation to turn
physical. United had asked the passengers to forego the seats in exchange of compensation.
In the event of no-person volunteering airline had to take recourse to the process of
involuntary de-boarding. Four passengers had been selected for the function of involuntary
bumping. Three person complied on board the flight but there was a fourth person David Dao
who refused it as he had work at hospital in next day. Chicago Department of the Aviation
Security Officers were instrumental in dragging the person called Dr David Dao in the aisle
when the other passengers shouted in protest. The man was resisting on his removal and he
ran back into the airplane. His face grew bloodied from the encounter and the other
passengers on board the United Airlines flight called it a traumatic experience (Vaughn, pp
45). He was dragged in an unconscious state and there were other passengers in the flight
who filmed the episode as they felt it to be an outrageous incident. United Airlines further
created a bad impression on people as he called the incident “re-accomodating customers”.
The CEO of United Airlines called the screaming passenger to be “disruptive”.
Overbooking cannot be said to be illegal because it is decreed that the airlines can remove