United Airlines Controversy: A Case Study

Airline travel is arguably safer than that of car travel, with not only less risk for in motion issues and collisions of any sort, but not issues about missing the turn off. Airline travel issues do not usually persist during travel, yet can sometimes happen before the take-off even begins. The issue with Airline travel is not travel hazards, but instead travel protocols often carried out by the airline companies. United Airlines specifically has gone through too many CEO switches and un-transparent business ethics leading to customer complaints and needs to reevaluate business ethics.

A lot of these big businesses run similarly to dictatorship or communist countries, a person or small group making the decisions for the masses, which these policies only apply to the masses and not the group making the decision. Being above the corporate policies set forth for the worker allows these greedy employers to promise the world if the employee works hard to accomplish the company’s goals of profit. Then, when the employer wants more and the employee is not capable. They call the employee into the office to lay them off with no benefit other than the benefit of experience working in the company. Although there is still the opportunity for the American dream, big-business decisions are helping that dream fade away because of greed. These large corporations are pushing the percentage margin of profits to exceed well over twice the amount of capital; most of it goes into the pockets of the executives, that the company put in at the begin through the strategy of; laying-off employees, closing work sites, and buying out the smaller competition. However, the sovereignty of America is slowly dwindling away by the loss of buying power of the US dollar, through the impact of the decisions made by these small executive groups of big corporate America and foreign companies trying to beat the market leader. They clearly do this by lowering the cost of a similar product below what American companies can compete.

The illustration shows the typical stakeholders of an organization. The stakeholders are divided in internal and external stakeholders. This executive report will address the external stakeholder’s financial and operational strengths. (1)

United Airlines, established in 1934, is an air transportation company with operations in North and Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific with headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. As an airline company, one of the primary functions of United Airlines is the air transportation of not only passengers but also cargo to and from numerous different locations. However, United Airlines also has functions in selling fuel, as well as in services related to catering, ground handling, and maintenance (Airlines, 2017). United Airlines’ ground handling services are substantial enough that in 2015, United Airlines established United Ground Express to supplement their customer service and cargo operations at airports across the United States. In total, United Airlines and United Ground Express manage approximately 5,000 flights per day to 362 different airports worldwide (United Airlines, 2015).

A nine month battle with United Airlines began when Dave Carroll filed a claim. United Airline’s policy requires that customers report any claims they have within twenty-fours of the incident. However, Carroll after leaving the airport after midnight was miles away on tour and was not able to take any action about the claim at the airport. Finally, after so many months of battling United Airlines told Dave Carroll that, “The matter was closed. No vouchers, no money, no apology, no

United Airlines moved closer to a fallout this week, as a result of the incident where the police dragged out a paying passenger off one of their flights. Dr. Dao was assaulted by Chicago police and suffered a concussion and other injuries. The controversy is still under investigation by both United and the aviation department.

At the onset of the airline industry in the United States, major network airlines were the sole providers of air travel. This multifaceted industry was a difficult industry to break into as a consequence of “sophisticated customer segmentation, hub-and spoke models and costly information systems for reservations, fare wars and intense competition” (Thompson 2008). Shrinkage in airline ticket prices augmented the demand for airline travel. Many markets were simply deserted or over-looked by major network airlines; this is a region a fresh “second tier of service providers” could enter into. This endeavor proved to provide a consumer savings of billions per year. Thus in June of 1971, after a tumultuous battle with other Texas-based

Piedmont Airlines recently invested over $1 million in state of the art equipment and employee development in order to forecast and analyze the appropriate amount of discounted fares to offer per flight. The company discovered that by offering several discounted flights to consumers willing to book their travel well in advance of their departure date left many options available for the business traveler who needed to book much closer to the actual departure date. The analysis was the task of the Revenue Enhancement Department (RED) managed by Marilyn Hoppe. While this state of the art equipment was a step in the right direction, Marilyn believed that there were still a lot of subjective decisions being made and

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.

The company apologized and decided to offer Carroll $1,200 in tickets and cash. He ultimately denied this offer. Carroll recommended that United Airlines give the money and vouchers to someone else who had been negatively affected by the airline, the company instead opted to donating $3000 to a music school. United Airlines should have taken the money and fulfilled Carroll’s request. It would have beneficial for the company to show that they do care about their overall customer’s needs. It seems that by just donating to the music school they were only trying to erase the problem as quickly as possible. This incident could have helped United Airlines to show that they do in fact care for the everyday customer, however it was handled

These large companies swept the nation buying out and replacing smaller, regional companies; eventually creating a monopoly. This amassed to a hand full of wealthy and influential people holding the majority of economic and political power. As these companies have gained in size, so have their political influence and development of bureaucracy and “depersonalization of the work environment” (Hodson, R. & Sullivan, T.A., 2008, p. 26).

In light of recent events, United Airlines has been receiving intense media attention due to their quality of customer service that led to a passenger being escorted off a flight in an abnormal way. Airlines are not very popular in the customer service spectrum to begin with. In fact, many people consider flying a hassle and hate to deal with it completely. However, the media has always covered aerial news. The United Airlines story was a big deal in headlines and received an impressive amount of coverage. The British Broadcasting Corporation, Washington Post, and Charlotte Observer news sources all covered the United Airlines scandal with different angles, showing the variety of point of views on the story. However, The British Broadcasting

Southwest Airlines provides short haul, high frequency, point-to-point, low-fare services to and from 58 cities across the United States. The company is known for its low-cost fares and superior customer service in the airline industry. The company was started in 1971 with a motto still lived by today, "If you get your passengers to their destinations when they want to get there, on time, at the lowest possible fares, and make darn sure they have a good time doing it, people will fly your airline." This motto has been effective for the company because they recently reported their 58th straight quarterly profit.

Two United and two American Airline airplanes were hijacked by terrorists and flown into four targets in the United States. There were at least four to five hijackers on each plane. The hijackers were armed with knives, and had at least one person who was capable of flying the plane. The hijackers took over the planes, bounded the pilots, took over the cockpit, and flew the planes on suicide missions. Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center 's Twin Towers in New York City, another into the Pentagon in Washington DC and a fourth in Pennsylvania. The result of the attack, the Twin Towers collapsed, part of the Pentagon was crushed, and thousands of people died. The attack was part of a jihad, or holy war by the Muslims in the Middle East against America. They resent us for our freedom and for our occupation in the Middle East. All of the news stations repeatedly showed the buildings plunging to the ground. Americans responded with true American spirit and patriotism by volunteering, donating goods, and flying American flags. (“I cried and felt extreme sorrow for the families of those who had not made it out alive. They had to relive that horrible moment over and over again,” said my mom. “I was also outraged: How could such an act be committed on American soil?” The events of 9/11 rocked my mother to her core and began a year of soul searching into her life as a wife, a mother, and a professional. My mom and my dad began to recognize the many challenges and changes

JetBlue is an American airline company whose headquarter is located in the New York City. They are a low-cost airline who is rapidly growing in the Unites States. According to Wikipedia, “David Neeleman founded the company in February 1999, under the name "NewAir.” Many of their approach come from Southwest Airlines include low prices airfares. However, they differ in the amenities offered to the customers.