Opinion

Oscar Munoz, Get Your Baggage At The Claim

Jim Sumpter Freelance Writer
Font Size:

I have always wanted to be financially wealthy. The Lord has blessed me with so much in my life, but to this point, wealth has eluded me.

The opportunities for wealth creation have been abundant, but something always happened that upended it; there’s no denying the fault lies wth me, but even in my long history of doing dumb things at inopportune times, I have never done anything quite as stupid as what Mr. Oscar Munoz, President and CEO of United Airlines did following the video going viral of a passenger being forcibly removed from a United jet, due to overbooking.

Here’s a guy making millions of dollars a year, heading a company that has a video sleazing its way all over social media showing a man being manhandled by airport security, slammed into an arm rest, his face bloodied, being dragged down the aisle as he’s wimpering in pain – all on a United plane – and Mr. Munoz’s response/explanation of an incident, causing a world-wide uproar directed specifically at United, refers to it as a “passenger re-accomodation”!?!

To be fair to Mr. Munoz (although I can’t think of any reason why fair treatment should be extended to Mr. Munoz for his role in this), in all probability, the statement did not capture Mr. Munoz’s words, but was some sort of amalgamation of the “work” of PR people and and the all-too-careful language of lawyers; nonetheless, any CEO who could watch that video and not realize its potentially tremendously negative impact upon the perception of United Airlines, has no business being the CEO of a company with more than 1 employee.

Now, it starts getting scary. The forcibly removed passenger is a 69-year old doctor who is an immigrant to the USA who needed to get home to make his rounds to see patients the next morning and therefore was certainly a high-priority traveler. The scenario gets murkier in terms of the treatment of the doctor/passenger, who has been in trouble with the law and lost his license to practice medicine years ago as a result of some questionable prescription policies, laced with alleged aggressive homosexual advances toward an employee, and you’ve got a first class, low-rent WTF situation.

Mr. Munoz should’ve been able to sleepwalk through adroit handling of this, but instead appears to have reached for the gasoline, threw it on the blaze, and in the process got burned by the additional self-generated heat.

The airlines have employed the genius of virtually auctioning off their seats to maximize the profitability of each flight – book early, travel for less; book late, pay through the nose. So why don’t they employ the same strategy in enticing passengers to voluntarily being bumped from a flight?

By media accounts, United offered a hotel room and a $400 to give up one’s seat. When there were no takers, they bumped it to $800. Still no takers, the airline told its passengers the computer would select the name(s) of those who would be bumped.

Classic cold-hearted, we-can-make-you-do-what-we-want-you-to-do attitude on the part of the airlines.

Why couldn’t they have made it fun? Offer a hotel stay, tickets to Disney World, and $100 cash. No takers? Hotel stay, tickets to Disney World and $200 cash. No takers? You get the drift.

I’ll bet they would have had volunteers before they ever got to their pre-arranged $800 bounty. And so what if it would have gone up? Would it not have been chump change compared to harm done to United’s image through the wide dissemation of this video? And does anyone believe there’s not a gargantuan lawsuit on the horizon?

It’s a tragedy to see a geezer getting physically assaulted when it was so needless. It’s a tragedy to see a company so incredibly botch a situation whose game plan and strategy should have been thought out well in advance.

Planes are often overbooked. And this is the airlines’ (or at the very least United’s) action plan?

Mr. Munoz missed this because of the attitude that permeates the airlines: sit down, buckle up, shut up or get off. Or we’ll take you off. Mr. Munoz watched a video that horrified his customers and he apparently saw “just another day at the office.”

So amid all the chatter about what this means to United’s future, one thing appears certain: It’s just a matter of time until Mr. Munoz’s personal effects are ready for pick up at baggage claim.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel