Airline Overbooking? Think Again

In case you missed it, United Airlines overbooked a flight on Sunday night in the US, an event that ended leaving a man being bloodied and dragged from his seat, and an already troubled airline with yet another public relations nightmare on its hands. The common practice of overbooking flights has been a frustration among travellers for years but until now, it has not resulted in aggressive action.
This event is the second recent public relations issue for the airline, a member of the Star Alliance with Air China and Eva Air. The first incident occurred three weeks ago when they refused to allow a complimentary fare passenger to board a plane due to an inappropriate wardrobe choice. United was quick to release statements on both occasions in order to quell bad press but both times their efforts were made in vain. The worldwide public is lashing out at United for its highhandedness.
There are two sides to every story and details on the United passenger ejection are sure to emerge over the next several days but my question is whether this shocking, very public incident will create changes to airline booking policies?
The practice of overbooking flights is an acceptable and largely functional airline practice that rarely results in situations like United’s but what I do hope changes is the public’s general abstention. In the case of United, the issue was that they chose to bump paying customers in order to allow crew members to travel and one passenger did not want to leave the flight.
Airline passengers often suppress rage for fear of getting removed from flights, being banned from travel or in the case of United being forcibly removed. With the rise of security in air travel over the past sixteen years, travellers focus on getting to their destination ignoring the variables that make air travel unpleasant like increasing ticket costs, frequent delays, cancellation of flights, etc. Why are we, the consumer, allowing airlines to continually force submissive behaviour?
Certainly, many airlines provide above-board travel and most passengers arrive at their destination unscathed. However, it is in times like these that customers have a small window to demand improvement within the industry. Perhaps the window is open and we should hope for all paying customers to be treated with higher regard, but in the meantime let’s all watch how well United’s marketing department revamp the company’s image after back to back public relations nightmares.