Back in 1965, United Airlines unveiled what would become one of the most iconic advertising slogans of all time, just as big as Nike’s “Just Do It.” The slogan was, “Fly the friendly skies of United Airlines.”
There’s no telling the power of that slogan and all of the ad campaigns that amplified it. I have no doubt that the company would not have been as successful over the many decades without it.
The sad thing about some brands like this one, however, is that over time, a famous tagline can come back to bite the airline in a sarcastic way. Imagine being this passenger and then getting marketing messages from the airline, using that “friendly skies” slogan.
A United Airlines flight attendant called security on a disabled passenger after the passenger asked her to help with her bagspic.twitter.com/cZE58SNemZ
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) January 17, 2026
United officially retired that slogan in 1996, which is about the same time that airplanes started to become Greyhound buses in the sky. Let’s face it, the skies aren’t very friendly anymore, and United has faced more than its share of self-inflicted communications crises.
A United Airlines flight UA858 from Shanghai to San Francisco was forced to divert to Tokyo Narita Airport on June 24 due to an unruly passenger who allegedly exhibited erratic behavior.
— FL360aero (@fl360aero) June 27, 2026
United Airlines UA858 was en route from Shanghai to San Francisco when the middle-aged… pic.twitter.com/CcDeRnEIOS
So you may not be surprised that United may have done it again. Only this time, the problems erupted on the ground.
A blog called Live and Let’s Fly has reported that United Airlines is making plans for customers who may not want to fly into the former Palm Beach International Airport in Florida, which was renamed the Donald J. Trump International Airport (DJT) in March.
More to the point, the blog reported that United’s reservation agents have been authorized “to move those passengers to Fort Lauderdale or Miami without charging more.”
According to the air travel blog, this directive provides “unusual flexibility to accommodate customers” for the airline’s agents.
In case you doubt that TDS is real. https://t.co/P5SeKxLZHY
— Brit Hume (@brithume) July 17, 2026
Live and Let’s Fly quoted from that memorandum to agents at the center of the story, and United has yet to dispute its veracity, though the airline is saying that it was misunderstood.
Starting with that purported memo, the blog wrote that United told reservation agents: “If a customer does not want to fly to the airport, use your empowerment to offer acceptable alternatives such as Fort Lauderdale Airport (FLL) or Miami International Airport (MIA).”
And then Live and Let’s Fly said, “The memo even provides a suggested response: ‘I understand that you’d rather not fly to this airport anymore. We can look at nearby airports like Fort Lauderdale or Miami instead. Is that an acceptable alternative?’ Agents are then instructed to process the change as an even exchange.”
This little blog story blew up on United faster than it takes for a disposable diaper to back-up the lavatory onboard a 737. All the major media jumped on this, with the legacy media using it to latch onto the anti-Trump sentiments inherent in the story, while more conservative media latched onto it to gin up backlash against the airline.
Funnily enough, even though legacy media dwarfs conservative media in terms of collective size, conservative media has such a strong following that it’s been the backlash from pro-Trump supporters that forced United’s hand.
USA Today, one of the country’s leading leftist rags, reported that “United Airlines is pushing back on a report that passengers could change their destination airport for free if they object to flying into Florida’s newly renamed President Donald J. Trump International Airport.”
The national daily reported that United told it, “the message was poorly worded and not accurate. United customers are able to make changes to a ticket without a fee for many reasons. However, (their) policy doesn’t allow for changes because of an airport’s name or three-letter code.”
Ahh, the old “poorly worded message” excuse. In the world of crisis communications, that falls within the family of, “it wasn’t me, it was my words,” excuses. The most famous version of this is when a celebrity says something really offensive or dumb, and then later defends himself by saying, “That’s not the person I am. To anyone who was offended by my words, I apologize.” No, dude, the words came from you, and so, you offended other people with your words.
As for United, as much as they want to push back in this situation, the airline did not question the most important facts in the Live and Let’s Fly story: an email was sent, and the quotes the blog used came from that email.
Whether they were taken out of context, it’s hard to tell without seeing the whole email, but where United really lost the argument came when USA Today wrote, “The statement leaves some room for agents to accommodate travelers under United’s existing change policies, but the airline said an objection to the airport’s name or code is not, by itself, an official reason for a fee-free change.”
In the spirit of air travel and vacation season, let’s unpack this statement for those of you in Rio Linda, as our buddy Rush Limbaugh used to say.
It seems that United has an existing policy that allows agents to accommodate passengers who may not want to land at the Trump Airport. The policy is not new, and it’s not specifically centered on using the name of the airport as the reason for the change. But the memo to agents seems to suggest that the existing policy may be a good workaround for difficult passengers who may have Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).
If I’m reading this right, then United’s PR staff were too clever by half. They could have just been honest. They could have come out and said, in the very polarized environment in which we now live, we recognize that some of our passengers could make it difficult on our agents to do their jobs and serve other customers. So, as a workaround, to the extent possible, we will accommodate passengers with such irrational requests. This enables us to provide the best possible service to all of our customers, and minimize the chances that we’d see a certain number of disruptions at the gate, or God forbid, in flight.
OK, I know some of that language would never make it through Legal or the powers that be at United, but if you must know, it’s the much nicer version of what I’d like to say. What I’d like to say if I were United is, “Hey, let’s face it. Some of our passengers are nuts. A certain number of them have TDS, and we still have to find a way to deal with them while still keeping our planes flying on time and safely. We have other customers, you know. So this is the best we can do for snowflakes and Karens whom the president of the United States triggers.”
In the end, no matter what United said or says, we can all see what’s going on here, and in the long run there is nothing it can do about it. United will land its aircraft at DJT for many years to come, and whatever freak-outs may happen in the short term will fade into nothingness.
The 47th president is in the midst of creating a lasting legacy. These sorts of tantrums can’t stop that, and soon enough, they will all be forgotten. But he won’t be.
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