United Airlines Flight 3411

Incident
PowerPoint presentation by Pramila Thing
How the Incident started

On April 10th, 2017 a passenger was injured and forcibly

removed from a United Airlines flight by law enforcement and
Chicago Aviation Security officers on Sunday refusing to give
up his seat. There was a viral video of the incident captured by
passengers on board the flight.
According to some articles and videos from the internet uploaded by the
passengers on board the flight was scheduled to depart O’Hare
International Airport in Chicago for Louisville at 5:40 p.m. but was
delayed for two hours. The incident started when the Airlines staff told
the passengers that some of them would have to be removed from the seat
for four of their employees who needed to get to Louisville urgently and
the passengers who got off would get 800$ compensation for their
troubles. Later four out of three people agreed to get off the Airplane
while the fourth passenger David Dao Anh (A Vietnamese American
Pulmonologist) who was selected refused to get off his seat saying that he
needed to treat his patients, later it escalated into a conflict between the
guards resulting in injury to Dao.
 Mistake in managing conflict
Conflicts are a common in our world, they arise because there are needs, values or
ideas that different among individually as well as in terms of organizations, and
there is no means to reconcile the dispute. Very often conflict leads the way
towards negative emotions, Violence as well as blocked communication between
concerned parties. In the Incident of Flight 3411, the Airlines were clearly at fault
for over booking their tickets and using forceful tactics to convey a point to their
passengers, this is clearly a bad way of managing a conflict. In any Business, the
customers are the ones whom the providers should prioritize. The way they handled
the conflict was not professional and certainly not appropriate for their Public
Image. The officers who confronted the issue were clearly not guided properly on
how to inform certain things to the passengers, they quickly resorted to violence
even though the passenger politely declined to get off the aircraft and ultimately
that action came off as an issue of cultural differences and violence.
The Aftermath of the incident
After the incident the CEO’s method of handling the situation was
completely chaotic. His disco-ordination with his staff and the fact that he
was unaware of the need for clear communication between his internal staff
resulted in the conflict. The issue could have been simply resolved if the
airlines did not overbook the flight, because of this the passengers who had
been removed faced the consequences. Usually this type of organizational
conflict does not end well.Two days after the incident, the CEO issued a
statement. Apologizing and promising that this type of incident would never
happen again on their airlines. .United Airline suffered a drop in stock price
on Wall Street. Later, Munoz was denied a promotion to chairman as a result
of the incident and Mr.Dao (the victim) reached an settlement with the
airlines on April 27.
 Conclusion
The conflict is clearly not well managed in the initial stage, there was miss-
communication especially between the Security staffs, out of the three officers involved
one made misleading statements in the reports, one removed essential information about
the incident and the last one used excessive force which caused a broken nose,
concussion and the loss of two teeth of the victim. Two of them received suspension and
the violent one got discharged from his duties. United Airline flight 3411 incident
displayed the lack of conflict management inside a big aviation industry but it also gave
its way to improve their flaws because conflicts fosters an awareness that problems
exists and it needs to solved. Conflict itself is neither good nor bad. In fact, engaging in
conflict can have positive effects on relationships and organizations. After this incident
the airlines provided compensation to all the passengers on board with money equal to
their tickets, changed it’s entire security section and appointed a new CEO and the
previous CEO was transferred to become chairman of parent company “United Airlines
Holdings”.

THE END