Brian E. Kinghorn, Ph.D.

On April 10, 2017, a 69 year old ticketed passenger, who was “randomly” picked to deplane from a United Airlines flight to accommodate some United employees, was forcibly removed from his seat by police/security officers and then dragged off of the airplane. The incident was captured on cellphone videos that were subsequently uploaded to social media and have gone viral around the world. Although United Airlines is regularly being attacked on social media and in the news for incidences of poor customer service, the public outrage and social media backlash surrounding this incident are astounding. As a result, the company lost over $250 million of its market value the next day.

Amid all of the other social issues and implications surrounding this incident, some of us may also be wondering why relentlessly attacking a company or organization online seems to be socially acceptable (and even applauded) when our society generally decries the rampant and potentially deadly practice of cyberbullying individuals. What differences between organizations and individuals make it okay to publically shame one but not the other? For starters, when we’re attacking an individual we can often be seen as petty or vengeful (something I address in another article), but when it comes to an individual exacting revenge on a corporation via social media, we tend to view the situation in a “David and Goliath” kind of way. Historically speaking, corporations have had seemingly endless resources to successfully fight against legitimate customer or employee claims against them. But social media has leveled the playing field by allowing individuals to skip the bureaucratic tape altogether and take their messages straight to the source of a corporation’s bottom line: the customer. As Jon Ronson (author of So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed) noted In an April, 2015 interview with CBC Radio, as a result of the influences of people effectively using social media for public shaming “the people who like to see themselves as the silenced majority suddenly [became] the ones with all the power.” More recently, Anjana Susarla, an associate professor of Information Systems at Michigan State University, noted, “Incidents that not so long ago would have been relatively isolated are inflaming public sentiment at a breathtaking pace, catching companies wrong-footed and significantly raising the stakes of such missteps.” In today’s digital world, a mob of angry customers united by a cause that goes viral on social media can be every bit as devastating as a well-aimed stone to the forehead of a giant. In this way, social media has literally given disgruntled individuals the power to hit organizations like United Airlines where it hurts the most: their bottom line.

In general, the public seems very supportive of individuals (this week and in the past) turning to social media to exact revenge on United Airlines with the hope of facilitating institutional change. The public seemed similarly supportive of a recent campaign against UPS when the company acted indifferently towards a customer who had a video of one of their drivers damaging his package and then urinating on his home. The disgruntled customer posted the video to Facebook, not to get back at the driver, but because the company didn’t seem to care about the incident.

When we are attacking a systemic problem in an organization there are likely countless other people who have had similar grievances and would appreciate better customer/employee relations. In the age of social media, any tech savvy company should realize that gone are the days of successful institutional stonewalling and/or systemic indifference or aggression towards customers/employees. The fact that this week’s horrific incident occurred on a United Airlines flight is actually somewhat surprising since this isn’t the first time United has encountered social media fueled public relations nightmares resulting from a seeming indifference for customer service. In 2009, after a year of unsuccessfully trying to get United Airlines to pay to fix his guitar that was damaged on one of their flights, Dave Carroll’s hit YouTube video United Breaks Guitars reportedly caused a 10% decrease in the company’s stock prices within four days of the video’s release. In the aftermath, the company called the video a “PR nightmare” and a “learning experience,” and they reached out to Mr. Carroll to make things right, but the damage had already been done.

The phenomenon of #UnitedBreaksGuitars became an impetus for an empowering revolution of customers and employees confidently demanding to be heard and respected by organizations. To be clear, customers and employees have always wanted respect and a voice, and they have certainly successfully facilitated institutional changes through strikes, boycotts, uphill legal battles, etc., but social media has exponentially magnified individuals’ abilities to organize, be heard, and significantly impact an organization’s bottom line to facilitate systemic institutional change.

Yet United Airlines continues to starkly remind us that the organization needs to drastically improve its customer service policies and public relations responses. Just two weeks ago their PR team failed to get in front of the so-called “leggings incident” when a woman indignantly tweeted about two teen girls being banned from a United flight because they were wearing leggings. What the woman did not realize was that the girls were flying standby using free passes and their leggings were in violation of a dress code they had agreed to abide by. Although there have been heated debates about whether the dress code policy should exist, the airline’s responses to the incident was perfectly reasonable based on their current policies. The problem was that their PR team did not release the statements until after the incident had gone viral and become a digital firestorm.
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In another PR disaster for the airline, on Wednesday, May 27, 2015, Sarah Blackwood, a singer in the band Walk Off The Earth who was 7 months pregnant at the time, was removed from a United flight operated SkyWest airlines in San Francisco because of her fussy baby. According to her account to ABC News, her infant son was very fussy and squirming in her lap during boarding but had fallen asleep by the time the plane started to taxi to the runway. Then the pilot announced they were going back to the gate to “refuel,” but when they arrived she and her sleeping child were escorted off the plane by airport personnel. Hours later Ms. Blackwood was finally able to get onto another flight. The incident gained significant momentum on social media via a YouTube video she posted of one of her interactions with a United employee. The airline claimed that Ms. Blackwood was removed from the flight because her son was in “repeatedly in the aisle of the aircraft before departure and during taxi.” But Ms. Blackwood insists that she was in a window seat next to another passenger who was in the aisle seat and that her son had not been in the aisle. Her assertion that her child was asleep when the plane turned around seems to add insult to injury.

Two days later, on Friday, May 29th, Ms. Tahera Ahmad, a Muslim woman wearing a hijab, claimed to have experienced blatant discrimination by a flight attendant and a fellow passenger on a United flight operated by Shuttle America. In a Facebook post, Ms. Ahmad explained that she had asked the flight attendant for an unopened can of Diet Coke for hygienic reasons but the flight attendant refused to give her one. Then the flight attendant gave the man next to her an unopened can of beer. When Ms. Tahera further questioned her, the flight attendant said “We are unauthorized to give unopened cans to people because they may use it as a WEAPON on the plane.” Ms. Ahmad also claimed that her attempt to point out the discrimination to her fellow passengers resulted in another passenger unleashing a profanity and hate-filled tirade against her. She said the whole incident left her feeling humiliated and disappointed that none of her fellow passengers came to her aid. Ms. Ahmad’s Facebook post created a social media frenzy which resulted in an official apology from the airline on June 3, 2015. The flight attendant from the incident was also terminated.

In both of these cases, the women were seeking institutional change at United Airlines and its smaller operating airlines. They claimed they were not looking to get individuals fired, but were rather trying to get the airline to admit that there was harm, apologize, and then change their practices so other passengers would never have to experience the same humiliating experiences. As Ms. Ahmad told the Guardian, “This isn’t about me and a soda can. It’s about systemic injustice that is perpetuated throughout our community.” Additionally, both women received overwhelming positive support from people who heard their stories. Their causes and the public’s support are pretty well summed up in these comments from 2015 on their Facebook posts:

Jacob Milliken to Ms. Blackwood:
Next time you violate someone you should make sure they don’t have hundreds of thousands of Facebook and Twitter followers… #Unitedairlines needs to get their crap together. If it wasn’t so sad, it would almost be comical.

Raquel Cabistan to Ms. Ahman:
I’m not surprised because many people, including myself, have had horrible experiences with United. I pray I NEVER have to fly united ever again. Maybe they will get some new owners who will actually care about people. I believe this type of terrible service comes from the top. Btw, when I yelped united airlines their rating was 1 star and numerous complaints.

According to Anjana Susarla, incidents like these “illustrate the challenges for companies dealing with the fallout of bad publicity as social media amplifies both the reach and range of responses available to concerned individuals.” Obviously, this week has demonstrated that United Airlines did not make the necessary changes in its policies to prevent its current social media firestorm. To be fair, there are always two sides to a story, and there is probably more to each of these stories than is being told. Yet when something takes a life of its own on social media, the staggering momentum of outrage can often cloud the truth. For all of these United Airlines customer service blunders, we may never get the whole story, and even if we did, it probably wouldn’t mitigate the damage already done. What is unmistakably clear, though, is that United Airlines and other companies need to update their customer service policies for the digital world.

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