Wednesday, April 12, 2017

United we fly, united we fall

If you have missed it, United Airlines is now famous for roughly hauling an elderly passenger off a plane that they overbooked.

For those interested in how business handles risk, this is an interesting case: one 'difficult' passenger, a routine request (I would surmise that the  'bumping' requirement is included in the ticket contract), staff with poor PR skills, lack of ability to increase the value of the alternative offer, a CEO who doesn't know the business and regards passengers as freight...and it all unravels in share price and ramifications in China...they picked the wrong passenger. How a small cascade of minor errors potentially wipes huge value off the company. I bet they didn't cover that one in their pretty risk matrix.

One has to chuckle.

No comments:

Post a Comment