I promise our coverage of this United incident is slowly coming to an end, and there will be several miles & points posts today. However, Good Morning America just had a fascinating interview with United’s CEO, Oscar Munoz, that I think is worth sharing.
This follows United management responding to the situation horribly for 48 hours, only to finally issue a real apology after their market cap dropped somewhere around a billion dollars yesterday. Here’s the interview, where they ask him some really good and tough questions:
Some of the questions he’s asked include:
- What did Oscar think when he saw the video a person being dragged off one of his planes?
- Why wasn’t United’s “shame” initially communicated, if that’s how they felt?
- What will United be doing to make sure this never happens again?
- What does the passenger in question deserve from United?
- Was the passenger at fault in any way?
- Has Oscar considered resigning, given how poorly this situation has been handled?
If you have a few minutes, this is an interview that’s worth watching. Ultimately we don’t know whether this apology is sincere or forced — up until now Oscar has seemed like a good guy who wanted positive change, though his response the first 48 hours doesn’t reflect that. However, I don’t know how much of that was driven by United’s legal department rather than their PR department. He seems sincere in this interview, and I’m tempted to believe he’s a “good guy,” and has largely been failed by the people around him.
I’m happy to hear Oscar admit that part of the problem is that the systems United has in place don’t allow their employees to use common sense, and that’s on him to fix (that’s what Travis wrote about yesterday). It’s also nice to see him realize that they need to evaluate the ways they use law enforcement onboard their aircraft when it comes to enforcing non-safety concerns.
What do you make of Oscar’s Good Morning America interview?
This has been a quickly-moving story with myriad updates. The full coverage of the United incident from the One Mile at a Time team is as follows:
- Crazy Video: Passenger Forcibly Dragged Off United Flight
- What United Really Screwed Up With Their Latest Viral Incident
- The Horrible Video I Hadn’t Seen Of The Guy Being Dragged Off A United Flight….
- Why United’s Incident Is A Much Bigger Deal Than You May Think
- Pathetic: United’s CEO Makes The Denied Boarding Fiasco Even Worse
- What Are Your Rights If You Get Bumped From A Flight?
- United’s Removal Of Passengers May Not Have Been Legal
- The Root Cause Of United’s Denied Boarding Fiasco
- Wow: Emirates Throw Major (But Fair) Shade At United In New Video
- FINALLY: United’s CEO Issues A Real Apology For What Happened
- I’m Sorry: My Initial Reaction To The United Situation Was Wrong
- Fascinating: Good Morning America Interviews United’s CEO
- United Is Refunding The Fares Of All Passengers On Flight 3411
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