Kriz İletişimi Bağlamında United Airlines Overbooking Krizi’nin İncelenmesi(Examining United Airlines Overbooking Crisis in The Context of Crisis Communication)

Abstract

Crises are the leading negative cases that brands face in all areas they operate and may be encountered at any time. Brands’ approaches to crises (proactive-reactive) determines the course of crises which can arise due to various reasons (economic, ethical, natural disasters, customer-sourced, employee-sourced, corporate top management-sourced, competitor-sourced, etc.). The method of this study is based on a case study. Within the scope of the study, the "overbooking crisis" experienced by United Airlines has been undertaken. Overbooking incident had occured on United Airlines’s flight 3411. Upon the occurrence of this situation, company officers, used violence to deplane a passenger. The fact that the company blamed the passenger and did not apologize in the first stage of the crisis also deepened the crisis. A simple case of overbooking has gone far beyond being a problem and has turned into a multidimensional crisis such as violence and racism, and even into a “PR Disaster” as the public and media characterize it. The crisis, which competitor companies has also involved, had been discussed in the world agenda and been subjected to investigation by official authorities. Within the scope of this study; the overbooking situation, which is frequently seen in the aviation industry, and how overbooking might turn into a crisis are examined. The crisis has been examined in the context of various crisis communication approaches. In the study, it has been revealed that the crises has been arised and could not be managed due to the mistakes made by the senior management, especially the CEO, and due to the corporate policies.

Keywords

• brand
• crisis
• crisis communication