Are the Airlines in Trouble

Recently many of the major airlines including Delta, American Airlines, and United have been under scrutiny for their customer service. Passengers have been asked to give up seats they have paid for, slapped and even forcefully dragged off a plane.

It all started with the airline United, when a man was forcefully dragged off his flight because it was overbooked. This man suffered a concussion, a broken nose and in addition he also lost his two front teeth. According to his daughter, he is undergoing reconstructive surgery to repair the damage. Senator Chris Van Hollen has called for an investigation on the incident involving the United passenger being dragged off of his flight.

Delta airline is also facing scrutiny due to an incident in which they told Brian Schear to give up his child’s seat, that he paid for, or he and his wife could face jail time. The female worker told Schear that not giving up his seat was against Federal Aviation Administration guidelines. She then told Schears that according to FAA children under the age of two cannot occupy a seat and they must sit in the guardian’s lap, when in actuality according to the FAA children are safer in government approved car seats than on a lap.

The Schears family eventually was escorted off the plane and had to fly out the next day. Schear didn’t ask for his money back but he did ask for an apology. The airline responded with the following statement to CBS, “ We are sorry for what this family experienced, our team has reached out and we will be talking with them to better understand what happened and come to a resolution.”

In addition Delta has also been in the spotlight for throwing a passenger off a plane during a tarmac delay, a well as being accused of kicking a passenger off the plane solely because he was speaking Arabic. The big questions is how is their business doing after all these problems arising in the media? The answer: not well.

After the incident in which man speaking Arabic was kicked off the Delta plane, #BoycottDelta was trending very quickly on social media platforms. Deltas shares dropped 36.3% to $603 million and Deltas stock fells 7.9% which is tracked on Yahoo Finance.

In addition Congress has made a statement on how terrible these situations have been. DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton who is also a senior member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has called for a hearing of the aggressive removal of the United flight passenger on an overbooked flight.

If the company keeps up this behavior they are going to continue to drop and take hits financially. They have a lot to make up for the issues they have caused.