Sunstate Airlines: Negative Media Publicity and Strategic Solutions

This report examines the negative publicity surrounding Sunstate Airlines, focusing on incidents of overbooking and passenger mistreatment that led to widespread media coverage. It analyzes the causes of the negative portrayal, including the airline's handling of the situation and its impact on the company's reputation and financial performance. The report details the scope of the problem, referencing specific events and the responses from the media and the public. It explores the methodology used by the media to gather and verify information. The findings highlight the severity of the incident and its consequences, including financial losses and damage to customer relations. The report concludes with recommendations for Sunstate Airlines, including a personal apology from the CEO, new rules to prevent overbooking, and improvements to customer relations. These recommendations are aimed at helping the airline regain its positive image and rebuild trust with its customers.

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SOLUTIONS FOR REAL-LIFE STRATEGIC PROBLEM
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SOLUTIONS FOR REAL-LIFE STRATEGIC PROBLEM
Introduction
The media plays a significant role in enhancing positive or negative publicity of business
organizations. As much as business organizations would opt that their image be portrayed in a
positive way to the public by the media organizations, they should also realize that the media is
not expected to be biased. The role of the media is to create awareness to the citizens with
regards to practices and activities that directly and indirectly affect them. The activities of
business organizations are in every sense a concern of the public given the provision that the
citizens obtain consumer goods and services from these business organizations. Due to this, the
public is entitled to be offered with any kind of information relating to both the good and the bad
business practices of the organizations which serve them. This report will identify one business
organization in Australia that has been featured in the Australian media in a negative light; it will
then seek to come up with findings relating to the cause of the negative publicity portrayed by
the Australian media and the various ways in which this problem(s) can be solved.
The Sunstate Airlines
The Sunstate Airlines is currently being tarnished by bad press not only in the Australian
media but in the other international media networks as well. The cause of the negative media
portrayal obtained by this organization can be divided into two categories. The first category
constitutes the initial reason that led to the occurrence of the whole scandal. The company is
being accused of overbooking and allegedly mistreating a passenger (Hill 2017). Overbooking
involves taking in a larger number of passengers than the airline can possibly accommodate.

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Overbooking is a quite common phenomenon among most international airlines. In most cases, it
is usually blamed on system failure or incompetent workforce. However, the results of Sunstate
Airlines’ overbooking scandal have cost this organization a great deal of reputation (Kennedy
2017). In similar vein, the positive perception this airline had from its customers and even
competitors has quickly faded away.
Scope of the problem
On the April of 2017, the airline is reported to have overbooked flight 3411 and this resulted in
the employees forcing some passengers out of the plane. This incident was all over the media
houses and news platforms both in Australia and all over the world where the organization
serves. The media avers that soon as the passengers had settled in the plane and they were ready
for takeoff, the airline’s management announced that the number of passengers present was more
than the plane could accommodate. The plane was allegedly in excess by four passengers
(Barron 2017, p. 23). As such, the company required that four passengers had to step out. What
the other passengers could not understand was the fact that all the seats were well occupied and
there was no one left standing without a place to sit.
In response to this confusion conveyed by the flight’s management, the company announced that
the excess passengers were its employees who were commuting to work. It was on a Sunday
evening and therefore, the likelihood that a greater percentage of the passengers were going to
work the following morning was very high (Nicas 2012). What the passengers could not
understand was why four of them had to give up their flights to work, for a bunch of late
individuals who were also going to work just because these individuals were apparently
employees of this airline. Besides, there were no rules that supported the proposition that

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passengers who had made earlier bookings were entitled to give up their flights for the airline’s
employees no matter how important they are.
This situation started with an individual from Sunstate Airlines announcing that four passengers
would have to give up their flights or else, United will rely on its computers to randomly select
the four passengers. This decision was made after the company offered to give each of the
passengers who would be willing to give up their flights $800 and none of them accepted this
offer (Waldmeir 2017). In normal sense, $800 may seem like a fair deal, but when the passengers
realized that it could mean missing a full day’s work without a compelling excuse, they bailed
out on the offer. The strategy that the company proposed to do in regards to using the computers
to select four random passengers to leave the airline is very unfair and unprofessional.
The video that has already gone viral online shows that a man, who was later confirmed to be a
doctor, was one of the people who were selected to leave their seats. He however, refused to
leave his seat claiming that he had patients to see the next morning. The drama that followed
after the doctor refused to give up his acts as a basis of what has really placed Sunstate Airlines
at the front row of negative publicity in the media (Powley & Buck 2017, p 4). The company
allegedly called its officers to the scene; the officers violently removed the doctor from the fight.
The doctor goes by the name Mrs. Smith. He was literally dragged from his seat. The worst part
about this incidence is that this was an old man reportedly, 69 years old who was getting treated
like a rogue murderer. In the process of being dragged from his seat, the doctor was screaming
from under his seat. The dragging was so severe to the extent that he ended up breaking his nose
and losing two of his front teeth.

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The Australian media states that Mrs. Smith was rammed on his armrest so hard while being
dragged and all this time, the other passengers were taking videos of the scenario. Considering
the effects of negative publicity to a business organization, the main problem does not involve
the actual incidence that caused the negative media publicity. Instead, the actual problem stems
from the consequences of the organization’s actions. The profits recorded by this firm went to a
sharp decline within a very short period of time after the incidence gained public attention (Dye
2017). For instance, the shares in the airline’s parent company have plummeted ever since by
close to $1 billion. Other consequences include a boycott threat from Australian flyers, a parody
commercial from various Australia’s late night talk shows and most importantly, a lawsuit from
Mrs. Smith.
Methodology
In order for the media to publish any negative content about an organization for the public to
view and read, there has to be sufficient evidence. There are numerous media platforms in
Australia which have taken it upon themselves to conduct extensive research with regards to the
situation involving Mrs. Smith and the Sunstate Airlines. The collection of the information on
what transpired on that Sunday evening was mainly done through interviews with the passengers
who were in the flight at that time.

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A total of 20 respondents were interviewed. Each of them gave their own account of what
happened. In the findings, the media organizations established that the storylines were all
basically the same. However, they did not fail to point out some of the evidence provided by the
respondents that was a little bit exaggerated maybe in a bid to punish the Airlines for their vulgar
behavior as pointed out by Dye and Samson (2017, p. 89). It should however, be noted that only
the legit evidence collected was used for the prosecution of the company on the media networks.
In order to justify the negative publicity and to ensure that the evidence collected was reliable,
Australian media companies took the necessary legislations into consideration. For instance, the
grounds for the release of the recorded videos of the doctor being dragged out of his seat in the
flight in national television were evaluated under the constitutional laws. They did this in order
to make it certain to the public that this was not an attack on the company (Mann 2014). Instead,

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this was an effort by the media Australia media companies in trying to protect the public against
bad organizational practices such as the ones that were conducted by the employees of the
company.
Findings
The findings exhibit that the incident actually happened. The CEO of the company apologized
for this incidence. In a statement to the press, he said that no one deserves the kind of treatment
that Mrs. Smith was accorded on the fateful Sunday evening. Unfortunately for him, no
sufficient amount of apology could take back the losses that were then being experienced by this
organization and more so, the parent company. Not only did this situation affect the company’s’
bid of maximizing its profits but it also affect the airline industry in general (Mann 2014, p. 67).
The reason for this is because the video added the potential for even harsher indignity conducted
on flight passenger. This comes amidst the activities of airline organizations trying to maximize
their profits from baggage fees, seat reservations among other common services included after
one has paid for the plane ticket.
As a confirmation that the incidence actually happened, a statement from Mrs. Smith’s lawyers
came in late Tuesday the same week that the victim was in a Chicago-area hospital. He was then
receiving treatment for the injuries he suffered as a result of the brutal attack by the security
guards. Numerous stakeholders are involved in the social media campaign against the company.
The Chinese government for instance, has conveyed its disappointment about this matter given
the consideration that Mrs. Smith appeared to be Asian. In Australia, Sunstate Airlines’
customers transmitted pictures of their torn United Loyalty or credit cards on social media.

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Recommendations
The recommendations can be seen as the proposed solution to what Sunsete Airlines is currently
going through as far as bad publicity is concerned. In a statement issued by the CEO of the
airline, Oscar Munoz, the apology does not touch on the brutality suffered by the doctor under
the hands of the organization’s employees. Instead, the CEO was in a way defending the
company. In light of this realization, this project strongly recommends that the CEO of Sunset
Airlines offers a personal apology memo to Mrs. Smith on behalf of the whole organization
(Groh 2014). Doing this implies that the airline actually cares about its customers’ safety and
acquisition of quality flight services as opposed to the need to maximize profits exclusively.
Another recommendation is that new rules should be deployed to curb the airline’s practice of
overbooking flights. These rules will state the penalties of engaging in flight overbooking. As it
may be expected, no one would want to get punished for what can clearly be avoided (Liu 2015).
These rules will as such, impede Sunsete Airlines as well as other airlines in practicing such a
vice. At the end, there will be reduced or zero incidences of passengers who had already booked
and paid for their flights being inconvenienced by having to reschedule.
Improving the airline’s performance with specific focus on customer relations constitutes the
third recommendation for countering the problem suffered by the company and most
importantly, the passengers. There are numerous ways in which this can be done. As an initial
strategy, the airline’s management should probably consider laying down the security personnel
who perpetrated the crime or better still, transferring them to a different department (Goldman &
Scott 2016). It can be expected that the airline’s current and potential customers have already
developed some kind of phobia for those guards and letting them stay will not make things any

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better; besides, what they did was very inhumane. Improving customer relations will, hence,
reduce the chances of similar incidences occurring in future (Abreu Pederzini 2016, p. 89).
Should these recommendations be implemented, the airline will stand a chance of gaining back
its good reputation, and win a positive perception from its customers and the world as a whole.
Conclusion
Social media plays a vital role in the identification of the flaws that exist in offering quality
services and care to organizations’ customers. This has clearly been seen in the case study
involving Sunsete Airlines and a one Mrs. Smith. It is important for business organizations to
implement business practices that are in the best interest of the customers served. Failure to do
this might result in devastating consequences such as the ones suffered by the company.
However, it cannot possibly be expected that in the process of running business organizations
problems will not arise. It is thus, recommended that the organizations take swift action towards
the implementation of the proposed solutions to the developed problems. This will in turn ensure
that business entities remain relevant in the face of the public as portrayed by social media sites.
Finally, organizations should avoid underestimate the power of the social media like the
Airline’s management did.

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List of References
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science", Journal of Management History, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 214-235.
Air rage; United Airlines 2017, The Economist Intelligence Unit N.A., Incorporated, London.
Dye, J. & Samson, A. 2017, "Sunstate Continental makes ground despite dip in key traffic
metric",
FT.com, .
Dye, J. 2017, "The Australian Airlines suspends automatic promotion of Munoz to chairman",
FT.com, .
Goldman, E. & Scott, A.R. 2016, "Competency models for assessing strategic thinking", Journal
of Strategy and Management, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 258-280.
Groh, M. 2014, Strategic Management in Times of Crisis, Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, St.
Louis.
Hill, A. 2017, "Twitter as a co-op? It is a dream that is worthy of consideration", FT.com, .
Kennedy, M. 2017, After Viral Scandals, Airline Bumping Rates Hit Historic Lows, NPR,

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Washington.
Liu, Q. 2015, "Research on Strategic Cost Management in Modern Enterprises", Management &
Engineering, , no. 21, pp. 32-35.
Mann, T. 2014, Airline Says Newark Fees Are Sky High, Eastern edition edn, New York, N.Y.
Mann, T. 2014, Sunstate Airlines Cuts Its Service to Atlantic City; Gov. Chris Christie Touted
the Carrier's Arrival Only Seven Months Ago, New York, N.Y.
Nicas, J. 2012, A Stingy Spirit Lifts Airline's Profit, Eastern edition edn, New York, N.Y.
Powley, T. & Buck, T. 2017, "BA’s reputation on line as cost cuts questioned", FT.com.
United Continental: What Customer Service Scandal? -- Barron's Blog 2017, New York.
Waldmeir, P. 2017, "Sunstate Airlines settles with abused passenger for undisclosed amount",
FT.com.