United is paying a hefty price for the viral outrage over a passenger being dragged off an overbooked flight Sunday.
Shares of United Continental had plummeted 3 percent by noon Tuesday, cutting hundreds of millions of dollars off the company’s value.
After holding steady Monday, shares in the airline fell Tuesday as the controversy spread over social media in response to video showing a passenger, Kentucky doctor David Dao, being forcibly and violently removed from his seat on an overbooked flight from Chicago to Louisville, Ky., Sunday night.
The public relations debacle for United was compounded by a response from CEO Oscar Munoz Monday that was widely viewed as insensitive. Munoz called the event “upsetting” and described the incident as the airline having to “re-accommodate” the passengers. That euphemistic characterization of the altercation resulted in widespread mockery on Twitter and Facebook throughout the day Monday and early Tuesday.
Dao had been randomly selected to be taken off the flight after the airline offered $800 for four passengers to give up their seats for a flight crew that needed to get to Louisville. After nobody volunteered, the airline used random selection. Dao refused to exit the plane, resulting in the scuffle, caught on bystanders’ cell videos, that left him bloodied.
