THAT’S AN UNDERSTATEMENT: United Airlines’ public relations disaster.

So how could United have handled the situation better?

John Bailey is a specialist in crisis communications and has handled public relations for many of the aviation industry’s biggest players, including Malaysia Airlines following the disappearance of MH370.

“Any airline which allows its employees the discretion to take this kind of heavy-handed action against a paying customer is asking for trouble,” he says.

“Every other passenger on that aircraft was a potential citizen journalist. What’s astonishing is that United responded so poorly to an absolutely predictable reputational risk.

“But businesses generally are struggling to adapt to the new communications landscape. Research suggests that it takes companies an average of 21 hours to issue meaningful external communications in a crisis situation, leaving them open to ‘trial by Twitter’.”

The only way the situation could have been made worse is if United CEO Oscar Munoz had lawyered up and defended his company’s actions, instead of defending his company’s customers — which is exactly what he did.

United is in trouble, and Munoz doesn’t seem to understand that.