The United Airlines CEO Is Soft For Caving To Public Criticism And Finally Apologizing

Dan Regester9 years ago

After multiple videos leaked of a United passenger being forcefully removed from an overbooked flight, I could not have been more on the side of the airline company. Sorry Dr. Dao, but the minute you went fully limp like a spoiled toddler being dragged out of the toy aisle by an embarrassed parent and started shrieking like you were being mauled to death by a mountain lion is the exact moment when you lost any sympathy that should have came your way. Have some self respect, Davey boy.

Clearly, he’s never taken an acting class. Sometimes subtle is better and those images of his fat potbelly popping out for the world to see followed by his psychotic blooded face rocking back and forth mumbling “Just kill me,” over and over again is a look that I’m not sure he can ever recover from. Sure, he’ll probably get a nice little settlement out of this whole ordeal, but it came at the cost of any ounce of dignity he still had left after trading prescription pills for male prostitutes. And what kind of legitimate doctor flies coach anyway?

United rightfully held their ground for the first 24 hours despite an onslaught of outrage and CEO Oscar Munoz issued statements that said employees “followed protocol” and that Dao was “disruptive and belligerent.” Fuck yeah. Score one for the home team. I love a guy that sticks to his guns and tosses up double birds to the public mob holding torches and pitchforks. Unfortunately, Oscar Munoz is not the champion I thought he was. His spine is more brittle than a Nature Valley bar at the bottom of the box. He finally caved to the criticism and released an official apology.

From Business Insider

“The truly horrific event that occurred on this flight has elicited many responses from all of us: outrage, anger, disappointment. I share all of those sentiments, and one above all: my deepest apologies for what happened. 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.

It’s never too late to do the right thing. I have committed to our customers and our employees that we are going to fix what’s broken so this never happens again. This will include a thorough review of crew movement, our policies for incentivizing volunteers in these situations, how we handle oversold situations and an examination of how we partner with airport authorities and local law enforcement. We’ll communicate the results of our review by April 30th.

I promise you we will do better.

Sincerely,

Oscar”

Own your takes, Oscar. I #StandUnited so long as it’s the cheapest flight available, but now I’m questioning my loyalty. Apologizing is a sign of weak leadership and an even weaker airline. You think American would pull this shit and ask for forgiveness from the Internet community. No chance. They’d more or less tell everyone to suck their dicks and dare people to boycott their company. This is why they’re American and you’re United. The top airlines don’t care about things like customer service or public relations. They know you’ll cheerlessly book that crammed seat no matter how many times they lose your luggage or up-charge your card for a carry on because — at the end of the day — you’ll still go with the cheaper option.

If Malaysia Airlines can keep the lights on and doors open, there’s no reason to ever admit any wrongdoing, United..

[via Business Insider]

Image via Youtube