Analyzing United Airlines' Public Relations Crisis and Response

This report examines the public relations crisis faced by United Airlines following the incident where Dr. David Dao was forcibly removed from a flight due to overbooking. The report is divided into two parts: the first part analyzes the PR errors made by United Airlines, focusing on their handling of the situation and the impact on the company's image. The second part explores how the airline could have handled the crisis more effectively, drawing upon crisis management and communication strategies. The report delves into the importance of public relations in organizations, the role of PR in crisis management, and the different phases of crisis management (pre-crisis, during crisis, and post-crisis). It also discusses the PR errors made in each phase and recommends strategies for better crisis management, including denial, evasion of responsibility, corrective, and mortification strategies. The report concludes with recommendations for United Airlines to improve its crisis management approach and protect its brand reputation.

Running Head: Public Relation Theory & Practice
Elite Education Institute
Public Relation Theory & Practice

Public Relation Theory & Practice 1
Executive Summary:
This report is divided in two parts, it primarily aims to examine the Public relation
error, made by the united airlines in removing of Dr. David Dao from Flight 3411.
which was awaiting departure from Chicago to Louisville. Secondly to analyze
how company should have handled this PR issue more prudently. The research
draws attention to the fact that on Sunday 11 April 2017 Dr. Dao unfortunate
passenger of united airlines was forcibly disembarked from flight 3411 for
accommodating its employees in a situation of overbooking. This disheartening
situation by united airlines truly brought disgrace and negative thought in the
mind of fellow passengers and other daily customers of the airlines. As
mentioned by the Claeys, Cauberghe, Vynche (2010) this type of situation comes
in preventable cluster crisis types, and could have resolved by rebuild strategy a
type of crisis response strategy. Crisis management is the most essential task
each and every company should have as it is the responsibility of Public Relation
team of company to respond instantly on such situation in order to save
Company from image dilution. It is very well said that it is very easy lose brand
image but it is very difficult to create the strong brand image and gain trust from
the stakeholders.
Table of Content

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s
Introduction...................................................................................................................... 2
Main Report......................................................................................................................3
About Dr. Dao’s case of United Airlines:.......................................................................3
Importance of Public Relation in the organization.........................................................3
Role of Public Relation in Crisis Management..............................................................4
Crisis Management.......................................................................................................... 5
Crisis Communication Strategy.....................................................................................5
Denial Strategy..........................................................................................................5
Evasion of responsibility............................................................................................5
Corrective Strategy:...................................................................................................6
Mortification Strategy:................................................................................................6
Phases of Crisis management......................................................................................6
Pre-Crisis:..................................................................................................................6
During Crisis..............................................................................................................7
Post-Crisis................................................................................................................. 7
PR errors done by the United Airlines...........................................................................7
Errors in Pre-Crisis Phase.........................................................................................7
Errors during Crisis phase.........................................................................................8
Errors in Post-Crisis phase........................................................................................8
Conclusion....................................................................................................................... 8
Recommendation.............................................................................................................8
References.....................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
This report deals with the public relation error committed by the united airlines. A 60
years reputed doctor was so harshly disembarked from the flight just to accommodate
their own employees, in the situation of overbooking. With the increasing status quo it
has become very important to understand how nowadays public relation is one of the
most important management function and how this situation would have been handled
more patiently without insulting the valued customer of the company, and spoiling the
brand image of the company by giving negative experience to the co-passengers.
Public Relation department of the organization plays very important role in facilitating a
relationship with the organization and public. As PR department by their sudden prudent
decisions can save the image of the company in such state of affairs. A prudent PR
team can be a saviour for the organization at the time such drastic mishappenings
(Sheeehan & Johnston 2014).

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Main Report
About Dr. Dao’s case of United Airlines:
On Sunday 9 April 2011 an unfortunate passenger Dr. Dao was dragged very harshly
by the officers of united airlines, when he dejected to disembark the flight 3411. The
incident started when the flight crew officers asked passengers to voluntarily deplane in
order to accommodate the crew members to Louisville to meet another flight, when the
required number of seats did not get vacant, they asked Dr. Dao to deplane but he
refused. As Dr.Dao was medical practioner and had to reach Louisville for his patients’
appointment, but when he refused he was harshly dragged out from the flight. (Reuters,
2017)
Reputed customer of the united airlines was treated unmannerly to meet out company’s
own mission this situation created very negative image of the company. After this
inhuman behavior of the company, president of United Airlines in his first interview was
not at all in apology tone, which resulted a huge disgrace in the public that lead to
decreased rating and falling down of company’s stock prices, which forced president
Munoz to reappear in the press and give formal apology to public. As per the recent
news of 28 September 2017, united airlines and Dr. Dao had amicable agreement,
company paid huge amount to Dr.Dao to close the case (United airlines reaches
settlement, 2017)

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Importance of Public Relation in the organization
Gruing & Hunt (1984) defined a public relation is the two way communication system
between organization and customer. In today’s competitive world company’s reputation
is of the highest importance and the responsibility to take care of this is on the head of
PR department, Proactive public relations practitioners will be ready to take advantage
of opportunities when they arise and to prevent potential problems from flaring up.
(Allen, Patrick, Stacey, Frank, 2008) as the crisis can happen anytime and a prudent PR
team should know how to handle the situation and to keep the reputation of the
company high.
Role of Public Relation in Crisis Management
Coombs (2007) notes that crisis threatens to damage the reputations because a crisis
gives people a reason to think badly of the organization if a reputation shifts from
favorable to unfavorable stakeholders can change how they interact with the
organization .At the time of crisis the main responsibility of PR officials to take care of
five most important things a,) company in crisis should always take fact action in order
to address the public for immediate information of the crisis. b) The company should be
very truthful in giving information to the stakeholders as it can help from spoiling the
image. C) The company should always try to give every information at each step as
delay in information can lead to rumors in the market which can truly destroy the image.
d) it is very important to show concern for the victim of crisis and show that company in
apologetic mode and it truly cares for them, as this will help the organization to get the
forgiveness from the public or stakeholders. e) Finally, the company should always

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follow the most ethical two-way symmetrical theory given by Gruing’s & Hunts which
guides to manage a systematic two-way symmetrical communication as “it does not
lead to monologue it supports dialogue between company and stakeholders”. The
systematic way of resolving any crisis is a three-step approach which includes (Gruing
& Hunt, 1984)
Crisis Management
In today’s competitive era and ever-changing time, it is very important to have strong
crisis management system in the organization in order to help the organization in losing
the brand image or reputations through some mishappenings in the organization.
“Crises are rare events that disturb the normal operations of an organization, with
knocks on the implications for its assets, its future relationships with a company’s
stakeholders which threaten the very survival of the organization”… (Carroll, 2009 &
Feng , 2010).
Crisis Communication or Response Strategy
As crisis can threaten the image of the company and can lead stakeholders to lose the
trust in the company, Coombs (2010). Company need to follow a specific
communication strategy as per the situation demands in order to hold strong trust in the
mind of the consumer Feng, (2010). As per Coombs (2009) “pre-crisis should embrace
concerns for prevention and preparation. The crisis stage is concerned with response:
Process and content. The post-crisis phase gives various voices and managements the
opportunity for follow-up communication, perhaps, for instance, offering the lessons

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learned from the crisis that can reduce the likelihood of recurrence, mitigate it if does,
prevent recurrence, and prepare stakeholders for that event”. Coombs (2009).
Denial Strategy
Under this strategy organization attempts to remove connection between organization
and crisis, claiming that no such crisis happened, without taking charge of it.
Organization act very indifferent to problem at hand
Evasion of responsibility
The organization tries to attempts to mitigate the responsibility from the crisis, and
protect themselves by saying that they are innocent and are not responsible for the
crisis happened, and the organization convey message that their intentions were good,
and it was out of their hand to prevent the crisis.
Reducing the offensiveness of the crisis:
The organization tries to give good impression about themselves to the public as after
crisis their image can be perceived negatively. So they try to give positive thought to the
audience in order to reduce their offensiveness. For example company through
advertising highlight their good deeds give a thought to the people that company do
think about their customers in order to negate the effect of mishappenings in the
organization.
Corrective Strategy:
Corrective strategy is a kind of responsible step by any organization, as under this
strategy organization put their effort to solve the problem occurred and make sure that it
doesn’t happen again in future. This strategy aims to rectify the mistakes committed by

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the company, this aims to gives the positive image of the organization to its
stakeholders or the esteemed customers.
Mortification Strategy:
Under this strategy organization take full charge of crisis occurred by their side and ask
for apology to the people, this strategy is of the high level of acceptance as per many
researchers as public always forgive if organization take charge. Customers always
favors company who are ready to charge of whatever they do, and who have a sense of
apology after any crisis.
Phases of Crisis management
Phases of crisis management is the process of handling the crisis at different point of
time when any mishappenings come at the end of the organization. At all the stages
there altogether different ways to handle crisis at the hand namely Pre crisis , during
crisis and post crisis in all the phases should try that their ball did not surrender itself
and let the competitor leverage out the situation and prevent competitor to build image
or trust on the failure song of the company under crisis situation.
Pre-Crisis:
Pre-crisis is based on the concept of “prevention is better than cure” that is to
remain ready for any type of situations.it is always better to keep yourself prepare rather
than to panic in the crisis situation. Company which is always prepare for each type of
emergency situations tend to have a consistently good image in the market as company
officers are trained in such companies to handle any situation without hurting anyone
and without effecting the brand image of the company. (Coombs, 2006)

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During Crisis
There are so many tasks that involves at the time of crisis i.e. taking care of
company’s reputation and brand image, this phase is the most critical situation as at the
time of crisis globe’s eye is on the company under crisis at their one wrong step can let
them suffer from huge loss, because it is very to lose the trust but it takes years build in
short company employees’ should handle situation in very calm and quick way without
hampering any one’s interest PR department always tries to make Win-Win situation for
the organization and the stakeholders.
Post-Crisis
Post-crisis phase basically deals in reputation building phase, PR department
should try to bring in notice the recovery phase and company should promise the
stakeholders to deliver value they are worth from the organization. Company should
always try to give some good thought to change the negative perception created.
PR errors done by the United Airlines
United airlines created their own crisis and handled it miserably, company has
handled the situation very badly as company acted in very inhuman way and it insulted
the reputed customer of the airlines
Errors in Pre-Crisis Phase: Company was not ready to handle any situation of overbooking,
and even company was not having any preplanning to send their employees to meet
any other flight at other destination. Company should have pre-planning for such
obvious situation, as per situation mentioned in the case if the company would have pre
planning to handle these situation crisis occurred in company could not have occurred.

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Errors during Crisis phase: During crisis, company behaved in a very inhuman way,
company did not care for both stakeholder and company’s reputation. Behavior of
company officers towards a passenger was very heartening as dragging any customer
forcibly with blood on the face proves that the company officers lacks the human values,
as just to serve the company’s problem in hand, insulting any other person and hurting
him is actually very bad.
Errors in Post-Crisis phase: Company did not even follow the rebuild strategy, President of
the company Mr. Munoz did not even apologize, to the victim passenger and to other
stakeholders, his actions proved that customers or stakeholders hardly matter to the
company. This pushed the matter in social media very heavily and people protested for
the company, after huge protest DR.Munoz reappear on the global TV news channel
with apology. This was actually an immature way to handle such disastrous situation.
Recently Oscar Munoz President of united airlines had amicable settlement with Dr.Dao
Company paid an unknown amount in order to settle down this matter although
company created a win win situation but it definitely lost PR war.
Conclusion
United Airlines whose main objective is “To make every flight a positive experience for
the customer” themselves created negative experience for esteem customer Dr. Dao
and his co passengers as company (under study) handled the situation untactfully and
itself destroyed its brand image. This proved that united airlines do not have a sound
PR department who can take the charge of the situation and can handle the situation in
a tactful manner. In today’s competitive world when customer is king and the main

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objective of any organization is to keep customer happy, creating such situation is really
very heartening because a company don’t have any right to mis-treat any customer all
the organization should be ready to handle any situation which can create the image
dilution situation.
Recommendation
Every companies who works for the betterment of the customer, need to have robust
and Proactive PR department who are ready to handle any mishappenings. PR
department should give proper training to the employees of the company who are
actually the face of the company whose acts are directly responsible for the image of
the company. Employees should be given proper training to handle the situation in the
all the phases of crisis management. pre-crisis phase, if situation is out of hand
company cannot prevent the crisis, then PR department should be ready to manage
situation, and don’t let ball out of their court and give chance to customer and media too
think or let them compel to think bad for them and should try to manage the situation
during crisis. If still situations get worst and crisis get happen with the organization, PR
team should prudently and strategically handle the post crisis situation to gain some
emotional favor and apology from the stake holders.
Organization should never try to hurt the stakeholders who have deep trust in them as it
takes year to build trust and strong image in the mind of customer, but it takes seconds
to get it destroyed and once it is destroyed by some misdeed it is very difficult to rebuild
that trust and brand image again, as competitors are always ready to leverage such
opportunity.

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Thus to save company from all of this there should be a strong Savior PR department
who can guide all the employees, train them to handle situations at hand very
efficiently.
Just few things if the company take care beforehand, can save company from huge
loss, as prudent planning, quick response by PR department is the key to handle any
difficult situation in the organization.

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References
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Carroll,C. 2009, ‘Defying a reputational crisis – Cadbury's Salmonella Scare: Why are
Customers Willing to Forgive and Forget?’ Corporate Reputation Review. Vol.1, pp. 64-
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Development and Application of Situational Crisis Communication Theory’, Corporate
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Feng, Y, 2010. ‘Toyota Crisis- Management ignorance- A Swedish case of consumer
perceptions’ (Master’s Thesis) Halmstad University
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Johnston, J & Sheehan, M. (ed.) 2014. ‘Public Relation – Theory and Practice’, Allen &
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Reuters, M. ‘United Passenger Dr. David Suffered concussion, broken nose during
forcible removal, Lawyer says’, The Sunday morning herald, 27 April 2017 Available
from http://www.smh.com.au/business/aviation/united-passenger-dr-david-dao-suffered-
concussion-broken-nose-during-forcible-removal-lawyer-says-20170413-gvksv4.html
United airlines reaches settlement with Dr. Dao’’ 2017, Mailone, 28 September,
Available from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4453204/United-Airlines-reaches-
settlement-Dr-David-Dao.html
Coombs, W.T. and Holladay, S.J. (eds.). 2011. The handbook of crisis
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