Case Study : United Airlines : How Do We Get There From Here?

1. United Airlines is owned by the UAL Corporation and was incorporated on December 30, 1968. The actual company was formed may years before this actually in 1925 and was a private mail carrying service between Pasco, Washington, and Elko, Nevada, and from these humble beginnings they formed a were able to start a company that would come to be a global leader in the airline service. From the 1960’s to the 1980’s the company had 6 different presidents and started to expand and venture into different aspects of business other then airlines and were unable to have any success. These companies that they purchased were not a success and were later resold.

United Airline’s actions to handle their problem of an overbooked flight created a hurtful image and reputation to American citizens. United Airlines made many mistakes while handling this crisis. According to CNBC, United Airlines made three major public relations mistakes. As a company, they could have prevented this disaster from happening in the first place. This could have been done by simply continuing to offer and bribe customers who would have voluntarily given up their seats on Flight 3411. CEO, Oscar Munoz, also took steps to dig United Airlines into a larger hole. While handling this crisis, Munoz first, gave a cold apology. Second, Munoz blamed the victim of the incident, David Dao, by calling him disruptive and

Part of our mission is to serve people with dignity and respect and clearly this was not implemented in our flight 3411. United Airlines deeply lament this and would like to offer a public apology to Dr. David Dao, the passenger involved in this incident. We are looking forward to communicate directly with him.

United Airlines is facing a huge controversy. This past Sunday, flight 3411 headed from Chicago to Louisville was fully booked and boarded. Due to staff relocation, United decided to remove 4 passengers from the plane. One resisted - leading to a bloody encounter with airport security that has been widely circulated on social media. Outrage ensused. After pushback from his mild apology, CEO Oscar Munoz offered a full apology. Mr. Munoz stands to lose up to $500K of his $14.3M potential compensation due to poor customer satisfaction surveys.

It has been brought to my attention that United Airlines has been having some issues with baggage damage, workforce inadequacy, customer service inefficiency, processing problems, and poor media exposure. These problems were clarified after a dissatisfied customer named Dave Carroll uploaded a music video onto YouTube mocking the complications he’s had with United’s services. The YouTube video entitled “United Breaks Guitars” has tarnished the company’s name and has caused customers to view the company very negatively. Individuals all over the world constantly use United Airline services every day for a multitude of purposes, including but not limited to: visiting friends and family, business functions, and vacations. This is why it’s important that we evaluate this specific situation and determine how we can prevent this from happening in the future.

I think United Airlines did wrong. No matter what kind of thing happens, good attitude and good behavior in the service industry is the most basic. Like United Airlines event, this thing can be handled well. When Chinese person did not want to get off the plane, staffs could use compensation methods or other to negotiate. As far as I know, the Chinese person is a doctor, because he has patient’s appointment on the second day, so he could not wait for the next plane. I think airlines also have to consider the personal reasons for passengers. If they didn’t have to do that, why not negotiate with other passengers? If they could do this, United Airlines will not lose money and reputation.

As stated before, Dr. Dao was removed from the airline in an inappropriate manner, which even led him to get hurt. United Airlines was attacked because there were many ways that they could have done this differently to avoid this problem. First, the flight attendants, and anyone that works for the airlines that is in the plane play a really important role in this situation. The task performance, which is delivering the service to the customers consist of routine task performance. Routine Task Performance involves the known responses one already knows how to respond. For example, a flight assistant already knows how to respond to situations he or she has been trained for. There is also adaptive task performance, which involves an employee being able to respond to unusual work-related demands. In this situation, the organization failed at adapting to this new situation because they did not react in an appropriate manner. Therefore, they need to be trained to know how to adapt to situations like that. United Airlines already has a system when their flights are overbooked.

This paper will review the case study of Delta Airlines which was suffering like all its competitors with rising fuel costs which averaged anywhere between 30 to 50 percent of its total operating costs. This paper will answer six questions which will help identify what the company did to handle the high cost of fuel. The questions that I will answer will include the following.

This proposal addresses the needed steps to be taken in order for Southwest Airlines to see continued growth in the airline industry. Southwest Airlines has been able to remain one of the most profitable airlines in the industry for an extended period of time. Even with the hindrance of the 2001 terrorist attacks involving airplanes and the U.S recession of 2008, Southwest has continued to see strong revenue growth. Meanwhile, other companies were experiencing major losses and in some cases folding. Southwest Airlines has capitalized on the company’s strength of being the top low cost

The experience quality of our passengers and frequent flyers were marred and the situation required a drastic service recovery strategy to regain their confidence, loyalty and support in the long run. “A good service recovery can turn angry, frustrated customers, into loyal ones… can in fact create more goodwill than if things had gone smoothly in the first place”[Hart et al]. Hence, a team that looks at the service recovery process from the view of the passenger would need immediate mobilization. Personalized apologies in conversations followed up with a written note and compensation that caters to the individual passengers’ desire would be a necessity to avoid future litigations and court cases. A timely note in the next 24 hours from the CEO to the media about the company’s response to the situation with key reasons and effective measures that prevent such occurrence in the future will fortify the service recovery strategy.

Unlike many other airline services, Southwest Airlines has a very relaxed unintimidating environment, where the pilot, flight attendants, and customers can all feel a sense of belonging and acceptance. According to Fox Business, Southwest Airlines has an organizational culture that runs on “emotional intelligence and humor” (Southwest Airlines: What a Meaningful Company Culture Looks Like). Southwest’s CEO Gary Kelly also considered Southwest to be an “outstanding, passionate, caring Customer Service combined with an efficient, simple, low-fare Customer experience provided with high reliability and operating expertise.” (Southwest Airlines: In a Different World).

Southwest Airlines employed many strategies over the years with their fist strategy being ads run in the media. Southwest airlines utilized a number of campaigns including skimpily clad flight hostesses, free in-flight alcoholic beverages and a “Love” campaign using the tag line “Now There’s Somebody Else Up There Who Loves You” in an effort to attract passengers. (Leavenworth) Southwest Airlines developed a ground crew turnaround plan that allowed them to add additional flights without the high expense of new plane purchases, even today their turnaround time is nearly half that of other commercial airlines. The idea of CEO Lamar Muse for system wide

Delta Air Lines’ (Delta) history began in 1924 as Huff Daland Dusters located in Mason, Georgia. Starting as an agricultural air company, C.E. Woolman acquired Huff Daland Dusters and changed the name to Delta Air Services. Securing a contract with the United States Postal Service, Delta was now carrying mail and passengers. Eventually the name would be changed to Delta Air Lines. In 2012 Delta Air Lines was the 2nd largest airline to provide air transportation for passengers, cargo, and mail (Wheelen et al., 2015).

Pilots have become too lax when flying a plane. Much of the time, they aren’t actually flying the plane. The cause of this is the reliance on automation.

They have been a multiple Triple Crown Winner in U.OT rankings. They have enjoyed thirty-one consecutive profitable years of business. They are dedicated to offering the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness and individual price. They have consistently high ratings with consumers. Southwest spends more money on employee training than anyone else in the industry. They encourage their employees to interact with customers and to think outside the box. They have a family-friendly atmosphere that leads to high customer and employee morale and low employee turnover. The shorter routes help Southwest Airlines maintain better R.O.I. Their planes are in the air 12 hours per day vs. industry average of 8 hours per day.