Public Relations and Social Media

Running Head: PUBLIC RELATIONS 1
Public Relations and Social Media

PUBLIC RELATIONS 2
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Crisis Situation and Crisis Management Approach......................................................................................3
Recommendations.......................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................................7

PUBLIC RELATIONS 3
Introduction
Crisis management is an important process when it affects the brand image of an organization
among its targeted customers. For an organization, it is very important to deal with and serve its
customers effectively. This paper is totally focused on the Public Relations crisis issue that is
faced by United Airlines when the video of a passenger being forcibly dragged from the flight
went viral on different social media sites. This incident had an adverse impact on the brand
image of United Airlines. The company had faced a loss due to this event. It includes the crisis
management approach that is used by United Airlines to deal with this crisis. Moreover, it
focuses on the use of social media and effectiveness of company’s strategy that is employed by
this airline in this case.
Crisis Situation and Crisis Management Approach
On April 9, 2017, after all the passengers were seated in the flight then a staff member of United
Airlines announced that they had to remove 4 travellers to make space for 4 staff members who
needed to cover an short-staffed plane elsewhere. In this situation, these four passengers were
offered $400 vouchers for future journey and hotel stay (Victor and Stevens, 2017). But there
was no one to participate in this so manager of company informed the plane that 4 passengers
will be selected by computer system (Shaw, 2016). Three from the chosen people were agreed to
leave their seat, but fourth passenger Dr. David Dao denied. He claimed that he had to see the
patients at his clinic. After this, Dao was forcefully dragged and removed from flight causing
some injuries to his mouth and head. The security person in the plane threw Dao against the
armrest. Some passengers in flight have recorded this incident. This video was broadly spread on
social media sites. It has led to a public relation (PR) crisis for United Airlines (Creswell
and Maheshwari, 2017). This video of event was extensively shared on social media and then it
was taken by the media agencies as well. It was shared 87,000 times and viewed 6.8 million
times in a day. Over a night, this incident has become a top trending topic in China and relates
that Dao was being intentionally targeted as he was Asian went viral.
In order to respond this situation, the first official reaction from company’s CEO just apologized
for re-accommodating customers not for the injury to Dao. He described Dao as belligerent and
disruptive. This lack of responsiveness and empathy response of United Airlines worked as fuel