It’s been a bumpy road for United Airlines. As a public relations professional, I can’t help but offer my sincerest thoughts and prayers to the company’s PR team. That said, I feel no sympathy for a company that has consistently displayed a systematic failure to appropriately address what is clearly a deeply flawed system. A week after an innocent puppy died after being shoved in an overhead bin and another family’s dog was shipped to Japan instead of Kansas, United Airlines announced this week that it is reevaluating its handling of pets and suspending its animal-shipping cargo program as the company conducts a review.
Forgive me while I play the world’s smallest violin. I hate to break it to you United Airlines, but there’s just no coming back from this one. I was able to get over your assault of a doctor last year (Game of Thrones has given me an insanely high tolerance for violence) – but mistreating animals crosses the line. It’s more than just this one puppy (although I think we can all agree that one puppy dying on a flight is one puppy too many). According to TIME, in 2017, United Airlines had 18 pets die aboard its planes, while Alaska Airlines — closest to United in terms of total animals transported — had just two, according to Transportation Department statistics. Delta and American Airlines had just four combined.
I don’t know what’s next for the world’s worst airline. It’s obvious that there is a severe lack of leadership in place at the company. The unfortunate truth is that most airlines prioritize profit over consumer experience, but few are so blazon about it as United. Moving forward, United Airlines will never receive another penny from me, and I have no doubt that there are many Americans who will pledge the same.
