The Hits Keep Coming

Suppose for a moment that a random customer of yours has just saved your company from a disaster that would have meant the loss of an asset worth at least $100 million, plus at least a few hundred wrongful death lawsuits, each of which can easily run into the millions of dollars all by itself. Let us further suppose that the employees to whom they initially reported the impending disaster did not believe their report, and only reluctantly verified the story while being particularly rude to those customers. And while we are at it, let’s suppose that the signs of impending doom that they discovered could have been noticed by any ordinary school child, and that enough witnesses exist that trying to cover up the details of the story would be asinine. Where would you expect to find those customers when the dust clears?

Well, unless you said “Sleeping on the floor in the Baggage Claim area because no one gave them a hotel voucher” you have, again, over-estimated the customer service and public relations skills of our old friends over at United Airlines. According to a story from the New York Post a United flight was departing from Newark for Italy when two of the passengers noticed fuel leaking from the airplane’s main tanks in the wing. Not just a dribble, either; they described it as looking like the stream from a fire hose. The flight attendants reacted to the report of this information by yelling at the passengers to get back in their seats, and only reluctantly looked out the window – whereupon they immediately called the cockpit and told the flight crew…

After aborting the takeoff and returning to the gate the flight crew were nice enough to the heroes of our story, personally thanking them for saving the plane and everyone aboard from the fiery (and idiotic) death the airline had unknowingly been courting. United’s ground personnel were less effusive, however, proceeding to attempt to cover up the incident, issuing a statement downplaying the leak, and trying to get everyone on the flight rebooked and overseas before they could start talking to the press. They managed to get meal vouchers to all of the passengers, but somehow failed to supply hotel vouchers to all of the customers they had just massively inconvenienced (and nearly killed), including the couple who had noticed the leak in the first place…

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that these two people, a couple on their honeymoon, were the only thing standing between United and total disaster. We can probably assume that the flight crew would have noticed the rapidly dropping fuel levels, either on a routine check or when the flight computer’s alarms went off, and returned to the airport. I’m also not suggesting that the airline go to any special lengths to thank them, although one would imagine that customer retention concerns alone would make that worth the effort. I’m just pointing out that I’ve gotten better care than that when a flight I was supposed to be on was canceled at the last moment, and all I have ever done for that particular airline was buy a ticket…

Okay, so this wasn’t really an atrocity. The worst thing that seems to have happened is that a group of passengers was moderately to severely inconvenienced (if the worst thing that ever happens to you while traveling is having to sleep in an airport, you’re an extremely fortunate traveler), and any of that could have happened on any ordinary day, even without mechanical failures and employees who appear to be thick as a brick. But it does make you wonder how many close calls a single company can survive, even leaving potential air disasters out of it for the moment. Sooner or later people are going to get fed up with the various United shenanigans and start voting with their feet. You might expect that the company would want to put off that day for as long as possible, or at least avoid any billion-dollar disasters in the meantime…

But unless this story turns out to be a hoax, you’d be wrong about that, too…