The Ethics of Overbooking: United Airlines Controversy and Lessons in Customer Service

Abstract

Institutional Affiliation’ Professor’s Name [Name] Work ethics is an essential factor for the success of a business. Business leaders are responsible for ensuring that their company embraces a high set of principles, morals, and work ethics so that their employees and customers feel confident and comfortable. Businesses that adopt a high set of business ethics realize huge profits due to attracting more customers to their companies (Ferrell et al., 2019). Business ethics is primarily the obligation of the body of management in charge. Hence, a company can successfully thrive in an environment that accommodates all its customers and employees through its set work ethics. This paper provides evidence of the adoption of work ethics in an organization. United Airlines once faced a scandal due to poor work ethics when dealing with one of its passengers. The company went wrong after security officers offended a passenger by dragging him off an overbooked flight (Hearit, 2021). The tragedy was unexpected despite that overbooking is a common thing that frequently happens when booking flights. Although overbooking is a legal practice in airlines, it was ethically wrong to handle the passenger in that specific manner. Many consumers of the flight were very disappointed to hear the news. The unethical state revealed much about United Airlines' corporate practice, although the passenger was unwilling to cooperate. The company can best fix the unethical behavior by ensuring that the security officers in charge are taught how to handle all hospital customers in a caring way, even when some of their customers reveal adamant behaviors. The company can fix the issue by sensitizing all employees on the importance of embracing virtuous behavior and a moral code of conduct. Employers caught mistreating customers should be sacked, and the airline should apologize to the public...