With all of this b.s. going on, where in the hell is UA PR and why aren't they doing their job? Do we even have a Public Relations department? You're fired...

 

I think that the Company is thinking that right now is that you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. That should not be an excuse though!

 

Jim Olson
Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications

Jim Olson is senior vice president of corporate communications for United, overseeing the airline’s worldwide corporate communications, including public relations, employee engagement and creative services. He brings to this role three decades of world class consumer brand and airline sector communications leadership and innovation.

Previously Jim served as vice president of global corporate communications at Starbucks Coffee Company, Fortune's 5th Most Admired Company, where he led the company's reputation-elevating corporate news agenda and brand protection capability. Additionally, he architected Starbucks' next-generation digital news and employee storytelling platform, as well as orchestrated public affairs for the company's Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions.

Prior to Starbucks, he was vice president of corporate communications at US Airways where he led the airline's internal, external and crisis communications functions, which included managing the response to the 2009 Hudson River emergency water landing of Flight 1549. He spent most of the first decade of his career in the automotive industry, including seven years as a strategic communications and digital media consultant to Nissan North America.

Jim earned a Bachelor of Science in Public Relations from Syracuse University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Southern California. He has also served as a long-time board member of The LAGRANT Foundation, which is devoted to achieving greater diversity in the marketing and communications fields.

united.com

 

Our entire Marketing dept and Corp Comm have always been terrible, so why does this surprise anyone.........

 

UAL I.T. Should be able to handle it.

 

I've been saying for years we have by far the worst PR dept of any Major airline.

My worst fears have been realized in this past few weeks.

DL has by far the best PR dept of any major. They have a major incident and it's page 20 of the Transpo section of USA Today with 2 sentences.

I may be wearing a tin foil hat here, but there seems to be a definite push to make this incident worse than a crash.

We had a bad policy. I would almost bet that all other major carriers had the same bad policy. We used the policy on a mentally unstable passenger. The airport police determined they would go to defcon 5 to implement UA policy.

The crime here is that the policy is changed, which is good. However the pile on from social media makes it seem as though this happens every day and that UA employees beat up pax, and spit on them afterwards.

The reality is except for the policy, the outrage is because of the method of removal, which is all on Chicago airport cops. The drag method wasn't request by UAL. Cops do this for trespassers as well on private property. It was excessive force, but this was escalated by the passenger when he refused to comply. Cops den by like people who don't comply. Now we've set the precedence that if you disobey crew members, you will be rich.

I fully expect scammers to go full salvo on the new policy and the ambiguity in which we operate within right now.

 

No kidding. The global reaction on this is so out of whack with the incident that it seems it must have to do with some other issue that's simmering beneath the surface. Perhaps it's a pent up frustration with airline travel in general and this guy is a metaphor for how everyone feels treated thus a universal piling on. Maybe it's anger at how far the new "basic economy" is now from first class, a kind of Titanic steerage vs the caviar deck.

I think a good start to arrest the increasingly unpleasant flying experience is for the politicians to realize that deregulation has had it's day and the race to bottom is over. They need to mandate seats be wider and mandate an increase in seat to seat distance. The 737/320 goes from 3 x 3 seating to 3 x 2 and remove some rows. It's gotta come from the top so everyone has to do it. Tickets prices go up, but for everyone.

 

The stock moved down a total of 4% this week. It's fluctuated more than that without any incidents.

The news cycle's over on this subject. There will be a few tidbits but this will be forgotten faster than the topic of this Sunday's Easter sermon.

Delta's opened a Pandora's Box on the subject, throwing raw meat to obstinate customers: Delta OKs offers of up to $9,950 to flyers who give up seats

The loads are too high. Time to raise fares and get the hefty bag for a suitcase crowd back to travelling on Greyhound.

 

$10k is brilliant as long as they very rarely have to use it. The LCC crowd could view buying a ticket for $5 more on Orbitz as a potential lottery opportunity.

 

FWIW I've been in too many airports last few days hearing many from the non-hefty bag crowd (probably not a useful descriptor) business class types be disappointed w/ UAL initial response, and they probably weren't the sort to entertain thoughts of civil disobedience either.