Skift Take
From a public relations perspective, United CEO Munoz had to get out there on TV so the public could view his remorse. Written statements wouldn't suffice. He's now saying a lot of the right things.
Amid one of the worst public relations disasters in United Airlines' history, CEO Oscar Munoz said the incident in Chicago represented a system failure and pledged the airline won't use law enforcement to remove booked, paid and seated passengers from aircraft in the future.
Munoz sat down with ABC News' Rebecca Jarvis Wednesday in Chicago and part of the interview appeared on Good Morning America. This was Munoz's first interview since the incident on Sunday (watch the interview below).
Had United employees been more empowered to use their common sense, the incident could have been prevented, Munoz said. "We have not provided our frontline supervisors and managers and individuals with the proper tools, policies and procedures that allow them to use their common sense," he said. "They all have an incredible amount of common sense and this issue could have been solved by that. That's on me, I have to fix that and I think that's something we can do."
Munoz issued another apology about the incident after initially downplaying it earlier in the week. "My initial words fell short of expressing something that we were truly feeling and that's something that I've learned from. I do
