Presentation By

• Sagar Singh
• Ramsha Siddique
• Zara Khalid
• Shabina Salaudin
• Aisha Khan
• Hina
• Naveed

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United Air Lines

• Q1.What happened on united flight 3411?

• Q2.What service expectation do customer have of airline? How did these
expectation develop overtime?
• Q3.Discuss importance of customer satisfaction &CRM of united. Classify the area
where CRM plays important role in aviation?
• Q4.What is service failure. Suggest a plan for root cause failure of service? Discuss
the GAP model of service quality to highlights various instances of service failure.
• Q5.How united prevent such incident from occurring in future?
• Q6.Steps united takes to build tarnished image.

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Q1.What happened on united flight 3411?

• In April 2017 united airline have a flight 3411, which gone into emergency that there crew member has to go into a
connecting flight, therefore they have to deplane 4 passengers from the flight to make space for them. 
• When the boarding is completed they give a announcement that anybody who can volunteer to leave the aeroplane by
their own will. They also give different promotion like giving 400$ vouchers, night stay in hotel and boarding another
flight which is in 21 hour after. 
• Later after this announcement and promotions still no body want to leave the plane. After that they said they will check
by computerised algorithm and select 4 passengers randomly excluding buisness class passengers and frequent flyers of
the airlines.
• One of the passenger which was selected was a doctor and have a appointment next day refuse this decision. Chicago
officer then dragged him out of the plane leave him all blooded and bruised. 
• One of a co passengers make the video of this whole event and upload on social media twitter account. After that the
video of this event become viral across the globe and got one million mentions in Twitter. 
• This fateful event was the biggest disaster in history of united airlines.

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Q2.What service expectation do customer have of airline? How did these
expectation develop overtime?

• In April 2017 united airline have a flight 3411, which gone into emergency that there crew member has to go into a
connecting flight, therefore they have to deplane 4 passengers from the flight to make space for them. 
• When the boarding is completed they give a announcement that anybody who can volunteer to leave the aeroplane by
their own will. They also give different promotion like giving 400$ vouchers, night stay in hotel and boarding another
flight which is in 21 hour after. 
• Later after this announcement and promotions still no body want to leave the plane. After that they said they will check
by computerised algorithm and select 4 passengers randomly excluding buisness class passengers and frequent flyers of
the airlines.
• One of the passenger which was selected was a doctor and have a appointment next day refuse this decision. Chicago
officer then dragged him out of the plane leave him all blooded and bruised. 
• One of a co passengers make the video of this whole event and upload on social media twitter account. After that the
video of this event become viral across the globe and got one million mentions in Twitter. 
• This fateful event was the biggest disaster in history of united airlines.

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Q2.Continued

- Following are some service expectations of customers:

• Convenient ticket reservations ,check-ins , departures and arrival times(delays have a lasting negative impact).
• Good services at low cost
• A management committed to customer service and satisfaction.
• An airline staff willing to meet requests and customer needs
• Courtesy of cabin crew
• The space on board should be comfortable having good knee and leg room
• Satisfactory and free in flight meals
• Some people view boarding a plane as a life and death situation so employees should emphasize safety features of their airline
• Temperature on board should be adequate
• In flight entertainment gadget
• Cleanliness on board
• Less time should be taken for luggage delivery

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Q2.Continued

• Customer's expectations develop overtime based upon individual experiences and what they have learned
combined with their pre-existing experience and knowledge.
• Another factor is also the growing competition in airline industry ,the services provided by different airlines are
being compared by customers.

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Q3.Discuss importance of customer satisfaction &CRM of united. Classify the
area where CRM plays important role in aviation?

• Customer satisfaction and building a relationship with customers is important because

when you serve the customers in the best possible way, exceed their expectations of your
product/services and build an increasing customer loyalty, will ultimately mean your
customers keep choosing you for their needs and generate more customer revenue.
• CRM more specifically in aviation means that your customers have a feeling of safety,
ensuring them that even in a state of crisis the company would look after them and not
be callous towards their needs. Being empathic to your customers, depicting warmth and
friendliness through your brand and customer experience, will mean that more people
who were choosing your competition before would choose you instead because of the
experience you give them. CRM eventually builds recurring customers.

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Q4.What is service failure. Suggest a plan for root cause failure of service? Discuss the
GAP model of service quality to highlights various instances of service failure.

1. Service failure: simply customer dissatisfaction.

2. Root cause failure:
 Acceptance of the incident:
• Negative: A major mistake made by the management was the delay in issuing the apology for the
incidence. They should’ve reacted immediately to calm down the uproar.
• Positive: The airline admitted their service’s failure and took full responsibility of the incident.
 Cancellation of the CEO’s promotion:
• The airline halted the promotion of the CEO, Munroz and made an announcement of using these
compensations for “customer satisfaction”.
 Preference because of low cost rides:
• The airline was still a preference for majority of the passengers because of low costs and its
associations with their passenger’s employers. This was also an effective strategy to polish their
tarnished image and to recover from their losses.

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Q4.Continued

• Gap model: A step by step process to comprehend customer satisfaction

• Knowledge gap:
• The gap between apprehension of what customer needs by the organization and customer’s expectations. E.g Dao the passenger
who was dragged out expected empathy but the airline didn’t understand his need.
• The policy Gap:
• Conversion of the understanding of customer needs into service policies.
• e.g. The policy of randomly selecting a passenger and bumping them out over resistance didn’t show that the company made any
effort to understand what are the needs of their customers.
• The delivery gap:
• One of the strategies to overcome the rate of last minute cancellations by the company was to overbook their flights and later
boarding them off (voluntarily or on the basis of random selection). This didn’t come of well as the company wasn’t fulfilling its
policy of providing warmth, concern and efficiency to the customers.
• The communication gap:
• United airlines weren’t providing the promised service to its passengers.
• The customer gap:
• The general customer expectation was an immediate apology followed by a compensation but the perception of Munroz’s of “re-
accomodation” statement didn’t turn out well and resulted in backlash.

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Q5.How united prevent such incident from occurring in future?

• After the incident on flight 3411 in 2017 company aimed to improve its CRM and worked to optimize its
network potential and improve its schedules and products, while perfecting its revenue-management
system to accurately predict demand and maximize profitability on each flight. United planned to have in
place several value-driven initiatives by 2018 to increase its incremental value of $3.1 billion. Some of
these initiatives included commercial enhancements (through improved customer segmentation and a
better MileagePlus program), cost structure improvements (by raising the quality of its aircraft and
installing slim-line seats), and strong operational performance. This last initiative was intended to
decrease costs related to delays and cancellations, reduce the number of passengers that needed to be
re-accommodated on other airlines, and improve schedule utility.
• United made great efforts to improve sustainability into its operations and worked towards reducing its
overall carbon footprint. Over the previous two decades, United had improved its aircraft fuel efficiency
by 33 per cent and had begun using advanced sustainable alternative fuels.

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Thanks

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