United we SIT! Scandal-hit airline announces 'Flex-Schedule' program to email passengers before check-in to ask if they mind being 'bumped'
- It launched a trial system which would offer incentives to passengers to voluntarily swap their seat on overbooked flights days before departure
- The airline's new Flex-Schedule Programme was created with start-up Volantio
- United battled a major PR disaster after a passenger was forcibly removed from a busy flight and was left bloodied and dazed when staff 'selected' him to leave it
United Airlines has hatched a new plan for dealing more smoothly with passengers on overbooked flights than it has managed in recent months.
It launched a trial system which would offer incentives to passengers to voluntarily swap their seat on overbooked flights days before departure.
The airline's new Flex-Schedule Programme was created in collaboration with start-up Volantio.
Passengers use self check-in kiosks inside the United Continental Holdings Inc. terminal at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) in Newark, New Jersey
In the incentive programme, the airline will e-mail passengers with asking is they are flexible on flight dates.
If the passenger responds that they are, they can be re-booked within 24 hours of agreeing to a different flight, on the same day and via the same airports.
In return, United will offer the passenger a $250 travel voucher.
Dr. David Dao, 69, was dragged from an overbooked United Airlines flight and was left dazed and bloody after he was 'selected' to give up his seat when no volunteers were found to swap
The airline's public relations team has been earning its money since a company forcibly removed a bloodied passenger from a flight in April.
A scorpion also reportedly fell from a baggage compartment and stung a passenger on the head, and a seat reserved for a toddler was inadvertently resold for $1,000 to a passenger on standby — leaving the mother to hold her child for the entire three-and-a-half-hour flight.
Crystal Dao Pepper (R), daughter of Dr. David Dao, pauses as she speaks about her father as she sits with her attorney Stephen Golan during a news conference on April 13 in Chicago
'We breached public trust, and it's a serious breach,' United CEO Oscar Munoz told NBC News in an interview after the now infamous dragging incident.
Munoz pledged to introduce changes to deal with overbooking at the time.
Oscar Munoz, Chief Executive Officer of United Airlines pictured at the Aviation Summit hosted by the U.S. Chamber Of Commerce in Washington DC on Mar 2
A United Continental Holdings Inc. airplane prepares for landing as the New York City skyline stands in the background at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) in Newark, New Jersey
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