The hashtag of #unitedairlinessucks
United Airlines has had many scandals in these last few years such as United Airlines Passenger Is Dragged From an Overbooked Flight and After Barring Girls for Leggings, United Airlines Defends Decision.
This time, a United Airlines flight attendant told a passenger to put her baggage up in an overhead bin, but a dog was in this luggage. The dog owner’s mother said “It’s a dog, it’s a dog!” However, the flight attendant said, “You have to put it up there,” so the owner put the dog in the overhead bin. When the airplane arrived in New York, the dog was dead. The detailed article is following:
It was a tragic incident. This time, United Airlines admitted the dog’s death was their responsibility and gave condolence because United Airlines allows pets in the cabin when they are transported in kennels that can fit under the seat and shouldn’t have moved the dog. If United led to their policy to employees thoroughly, this incident didn’t happen. It seemed that the company’s carelessness invited this incident.
After that flight, the flight attendant said, “I did not know there was a dog in the bag and if so I never would have instructed it to be put in the bin above.” However, I’m not sure if her claim was true because, as stated above, the dog’s owner told the flight attendant about the dog. This claim was also bad because the general public thought the flight attendant lied.
United damaged their reputation again by themselves like their other scandals in these last few years.
Also, the company made an enemy of pet owners. Many pet owners wrote blogs and posted on Facebook and Twitter about this incident. Many people even started to use #unitedairlinessucks on Instagram for the first time.
Usually, pet owners post their cute dogs, cats, birds and other pets on Instagram. They know how to use hashtags effectively. Also, I watched some dog owners’ stories (a short movie on Instagram), and they talked about this incident in their stories. According to Edelman Trust Barometer 2018, people trust a person like themselves compared to the company’s people. If I were a dog owner, I would never use United.
In addition, people have started to talk about United’s incident rate for pet carrying which is very high. United is the largest transporter of animals, carrying 138,178 animals in 2017. Alaska Airlines is next. Alaska transported 114,974 animals, but their incident rate is 0.26, one-tenth the rate of United. This claim will also have a harmful effect on United’s reputation.
I hope no more people need #unitedairlinessucks.
