United we fall

United airlines is learning some important lessons about customer service and the effectiveness of social media. After "re-accommodating" as passenger chosen by computer to lose his seat when the flight was "overbooked". (Re-accomodating meaning smashing his face in to an arm rest and then dragging him off the plane and overbooking meaning wanting to put 4 United employees on the flight so they kicked off paying passengers that had already been boarded).

It didn't take long for video taken by people on the plane to hit Twitter and Facebook, resulting in much discussion about airline policies, passenger rights, and the actions of the authorities who roughed up the disgruntled flyer.

Instead of continuing to offer higher compensation to passengers in an attempt to get someone to give up their seat, they instead are facing a $1.4 BILLION dollar loss in value as the market reacted. Making the decision to stop at $800 as their top offer to get someone to take a different flight seems pretty foolish now.

The Flying Games?