United needs to be taught a lesson.

When you search Google News for "United Passenger", this comes up.
A terrible reflection on the United brand... and one they deserve.

Remember the good old days when the worst thing United would do is lose your luggage, cancel your flight, or break your guitar?

By now, you've probably heard about United's more recent, far more disturbing incident. If you haven't and want to read about it, you can do so here. (Following this link will also let you watch the video of the passenger dragged off the plane. Warning: I'm about as tough as they come when it comes to viewing content, and the video made me feel somewhat nauseous. On a related note: Outbrain, I strongly recommend you stop showing your ad before this video.)

Allow me to summarize the situation for you:

• United needed four seats on an over-booked plane for stand-by United employees who had to be in Louisville on Monday for a flight.
• United asked for four volunteers to give up their seats, offering to compensate them $400 each and put them up in a hotel until a 3pm flight the next day. Nobody accepted their offer.
• United informs the passengers that the plane would not depart until the four seats become available, and increases the offer to $800. Still, no passenger was willing to accept their offer and give up a seat.
• United informs their passengers that a computer would select four passengers to be removed.
• One man selected refuses to leave; he tells the crew he's a doctor who has patients to see at a hospital in the morning.
• United... simply doesn't care. They instruct police officers to remove the man from the plane, who proceed to forcibly -- and I mean FORCIBLY -- do so. The man is literally dragged down the aisle towards the exit, as horrified passengers scream, "What are you doing?" The passenger gets a bloody lip.
• The entire incident is caught on video, and shared with the entire world.

There is absolutely no way to put a positive spin on this situation. When asked to make this poor doctor look like the bad guy, the greatest publicist in the history of public relations would have to respond, "Yeah, that's just not possible."

You'd also think there was no way that anyone from United could make the situation any worse. But that doesn't mean they weren't going to try. In a statement, the CEO actually said, "I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers." This CEO should be re-accommodated out of his job for that response.

I think the inhumane treatment of this customer speaks for itself. But I'm a marketer, and I want to talk about the impact on the United brand.

This is a public relations nightmare, and it could have been easily avoided.

How? Simple...

United Employee, speaking to passengers over the intercom: "Passengers, we have a situation. We have four employees with us who need to be get to Louisville, just like you. The difference is if they don't get there, there's going to be an entire plane full of people stranded. So we really need your help. We're asking four people to step up and give up their seats. And because this is so important to us, instead of the $400 we would normally offer each volunteer, we're going to offer $5,000 to the first four people willing to give up a seat. You paid a lot less than that for your ticket, so that's an amazing deal... and you'd be helping 200 people get to where they need to be. Who can we count on to help us out?"

"But David," you might say, "how could the airline afford to pay out $20,000?"

And I'd respond with, "how can they afford to have a video of a paying customer dragged off a plane, bleeding, go viral... and what's the cost of that to the United brand?" Twenty thousand dollars would have been a deal. Of course, I'm sure they understand that now.

"But David," you might continue, "Wouldn't this set a dangerous precedent? The next time the airline needed seats, wouldn't people expect an equally rich offer?"

"Yes," I'd reply, "Yes they would. But if airlines are going to insist on over-booking, they need to have appropriate contingency plans in place to deal with these type of situations. And appropriate contingency plans can never mean dragging passengers off the plane."

"But David," you might press, "What if the airline still doesn't get four people to voluntarily give up their seats, even after offering them a lot of money?"

Then United should be forced to find another way to get their employees to their destination. One that doesn't inconvenience its paying customers. As Merriam-Webster points out in a very dark, very appropriate tweet trolling the airline, "'Volunteer' means 'someone who does something without being forced to do it.'"

Aside from the inevitable lawsuit that will follow -- and I personally hope the good doctor wins enough money to buy his own jet -- there are other questions that will inevitably arise from this situation.

What will be the impact on United employees who had nothing to do with this particular situation? At what point does a company employee hear about a situation like this one and think, "This is wrong. I'm embarrassed to work for this company"? What impact does something like this have on morale, and on your ability to attract and retain the best employees?

At what point do consumers everywhere say, "enough is enough" and simply refuse to support companies who would dare treat paying customers in such a disrespectful, inhumane fashion? There are already calls for a total boycott of the airline. (I hope it works.)

What is the long-term negative impact on the United brand? United stock is down more than 4% since yesterday (at the time of this post), which represents a loss of about $800 million. Brand experts are already predicting that this isn't something from which United will be able to recover. (I'd like to believe that physically abusing your paying customers actually would mean the end of your brand and business, but in today's world, I fear that idea might be naive.)

Business history is filled with missteps and mistakes. Some companies do the right thing: they accept responsibility, offer their sincere apologies, put genuine efforts towards figuring out what went wrong, put systems in place to ensure it doesn't happen again, and offer more than appropriate compensation to those negative impacted by the error. Those companies have a chance to recover, and once again prosper, once they've regained the trust of their consumers.

But dragging a passenger off your airline isn't a typical misstep. It's not an accident, it was done with intention. The CEO's non-apology was insulting, and calls the ethics and values of the entire organization into question. It doesn't look like the airline plans to even consider eliminating their practice of overbooking flights, which means it will continue to put profits before passengers. United isn't sorry for what happened. And so they're not going to change.

Which means this could very likely happen again. Maybe next time, you're the one sitting in the seat the computer selects. What would you do? How do you think you would feel as you were being dragged off the plane?

This can't happen again. United needs to learn a lesson about how to treat people.

Fortunately, consumers can be very effective teachers.

** I'm a marketer with a passion for brands. I hope you liked this article, and if you did, please share it. (Comments are also welcome -- what do you think?) If you want to read more of what I write, subscribe to this blog by submitting your email address to the "Follow By Email" box at right, and follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter (@pullara) so you'll know when my next piece is ready. **