I’ve just learned that United Airlines quietly offered free domestic and international tickets to those who lost someone in the recent Virgina Tech massacre. Most impressively, it did so without issuing a press release. It was just the right thing to do.
It’s easy to forget that the folks who are running the airlines are real people who are capable of emotions like compassion or charity.
Passengers tend to think of airline managers as cold-hearted bean counters. But I’ve visited with United’s executives, and nothing could be further from the truth. Generally speaking, they’re good people who just happen to be managing a business during challenging times. (Just have a look at United’s latest quarterly earnings if you don’t believe me.)
I don’t know how many other airlines offered free airfare to the victims of this horrible shooting. There may be others.
But I’m extremely impressed by United’s actions. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t be.
Update: United isn’t alone. A source with close ties to American Airlines wrote to say that the carrier had also offered free flights to family members of the victims. American “set it up so that whenever anyone mentioned to its agents that they needed to get to Virginia in a hurry, they were transferred to a special help desk that explained to the customer the ability for [American] to help them for free,” my source said. “They also transported some human remains back home free of charge.”
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Call me cynical if you will, but one of the motivations has to be that a travel writer such as yourself would sometime write about United “doing the right thing.” Public relations practioners are taught to use press releases and self promote under certain circumstances, and keep quiet and let positive word of mouth build under other circumstances.
United is doing this plain and simply because of the media visibility of the catastrophe. A simple litmus test can prove this. Does United have a blanket corporate policy offering ALL homicide victim families the same tickets? What about victims family members of drunk drivers? To say one families’ suffering outweighs anothers because of the media sensationalism is to deny the other families’ pain. And to not make the same exact offer to other suffering families whose relatives died in other, less visible circumstances proves the point that it was done for media purposes ultimately.
I wish the airlines and all businesses would “do the right thing” more often. I just don’t ever see it unless it is connected to some major media circus, press release or not.