“Fly the friendly skies” may be the most ironic slogan in the airline industry these days. Two major disruptions happened on United Airlines flights recently. In the first, Dr. David Dao was dragged off an airplane after he refused to give up his seat so crew members could board.
A couple, on their way to their wedding, were told to get off an airplane because they were in seats other than the ones they reserved and supposedly refused to go back to their purchased seats.
In both instances, the circumstances become a “he-said-she-said” fiasco where one claims the other was belligerent, obstinate and caused a disruption.
We learned quite a few lessons from these two incidents. First, nobody at United Airlines seems to have paid attention in the “Customer Relations 101” course. Secondly, they let incidents get out of control and then made wrong decisions to rectify the fiascos.
Maybe the folks at United Airlines need to talk to kindergarten teachers about class management because the parties involved exhibited behavior similar to 5-year-old children.
A typical kindergarten scenario: Child A sits in the blue seat where Child B had been sitting until he got up to get a drink of water.
Child B returns and begins to whine that someone is sitting in their blue seat. Child A stays in the seat and ignores the whining until the child starts tugging on the chair.
At that point, a war has started, and the referee – the teacher – has to decide who’s right – the blue seat was technically Child B’s or Child A took advantage of a situation.
In the adult world, we’d call Child A an opportunist.
We’d call Child B out of luck. For grown-ups, possession is 9/10ths of the law.
But we’re talking kindergarten, a place children go to learn and conflicts are handled a little more delicately.
The teacher might ask both children to state why they think the chair belongs to them. Then she might suggest they take turns in the chair, and both children would immediately start whining that the chair belonged to them.
The teacher might then try distraction to see if she could get one of the children to lose interest in the chair by offering up a different prize. That could be the empty dress-up play center or to be the special helper, a title always tempting to a 5-year-old.
If those tactics don’t work, then the teacher might say neither child is sitting in the seat which gives her two crying children instead of one. Ultimately, she makes a deal where both children might not get exactly what they wanted but they walk away happy.
Back to United Airlines. They lost track of the kindergarten rules. Unhappy children make for an unhappy class. Unhappy passengers make for an unpleasant flight and instant notoriety on social media.
Biggest mistake — United didn’t offer a big enough incentive for the passengers to either leave the plane or move to another seat.
People on airplanes want to get to their destination. They want to sit in the blue chair. But when something shinier, the dress-up play center or $500 cash, is offered, most people will take the prize and everybody walks away satisfied if not entirely happy.
I was on a Southwest Airlines flight when the attendant announced that the plane was overbooked. She began offering cash, but she did so while hamming it up like Monty Hall on “Let’s Make A Deal.”
By the time she got to $300, she’d also thrown in some, in her words, “cheap” airline blankets, a box of airline peanuts, a photo op with the captain and a voucher for free drinks and burgers in the airline bar. In 15 minutes, people were laughing, but some took the bait and the flight quietly proceeded as planned.
She made giving up the blue chair, in this case the airline seat, worthwhile.
So, United Airlines, if you want to solve your customer relations problem, start talking to some kindergarten teachers.
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.