Comments on: United Airlines does the right thing http://www.elliott.org/blog/united-airlines-does-the-right-thing/ Consumer advocate Christopher Elliott's site. Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:25:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Scott http://www.elliott.org/blog/united-airlines-does-the-right-thing/comment-page-1/#comment-1955 Scott Sat, 05 May 2007 12:43:33 +0000 http://beta.elliott.org/photos/united-airlines-does-the-right-thing/#comment-1955 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. 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.

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