Why the United Airlines PR Disaster Is Far From Over

In this segment from Market Foolery, Chris Hill is joined by Motley Fool analysts Jason Moser andTaylor Muckerman to discuss the viral video that has resulted in major backlash for United(NYSE: UAL) Airlines.

Regardless of how the stock moves short term -- it has declined 2.5% this week -- the Fools believe this incident could hurt the airline going forward. And major competitors are taking the opportunity to step in and poach upset customers.

A full transcript follows the video.

10 stocks we like better than United Continental HoldingsWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*

David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now... and United Continental Holdings wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

Click here to learn about these picks!

*Stock Advisor returns as of April 3, 2017

This video was recorded on April 10, 2017.

Chris Hill:The head ofpublic relations for United Airlines,whoever he or she is, ishaving a tough day,and that is because,as you have probably already seenby the time you're listening to this episode ofMarket Foolery, video has surfaced of a passenger being forciblyremoved from a flight that was going from Chicago toLouisville. This was on Sunday. Everything about this, I think, is bad for United Airlines, because the backstory -- this is not somepassenger who was drunk or causing trouble. This was,United overbooked the flight, they asked forvolunteers to leave so that they could get four United employees to Louisville to service another flight. And they offered $400, and then they offered $800, and then they said, "You know what? We'rejust going to have a computer pick people at random." So apassenger who had paid for his flight got removed. And Taylor, as you were saying before we started taping, theaviation police,who were doing their job,seemed relatively unconcerned that so many people on that flight had their phones outand were videotaping thissituation. And I know this isn't going to hurt their stock today, but among other things, I think,if I were another airline,I would be trolling Unitedso hard with this for so long.I don't know. I think there could be some potential long-term trouble here for United,but maybe I'm wrong.

Taylor Muckerman:It'sunfortunate for them, because like you said,it was the Chicago Aviation Police. It wasn't their employees thatapparently knocked this gentleman unconscious whiletrying to drag him off the airplane. Yeah, theFacebookvideo I saw I had been viewed 360,000 times, and it wasn't a company's page that was liked 360,000 times,it was a regular citizen who probably only had a few thousand friends on there, but 360,000 views shows the virality of this video andhow widespread it become in less than 48 hours. Was it yesterday that this happened?

Hill:This was yesterday.

Muckerman:Less than 24 hours, viewed almost 400,000 times on one person's account. Yeah,they're definitely going to see this on social media for quite some time.

Hill:And,you're right, it wasn't United employees who removed this guy. But I look at the underlying business systems that United put in place, and I think,ultimately, it falls back on them. It highlights how airlines overbook.

Muckerman:Yeah,they're not the only ones that overbook. All of them do it.

Hill:Yeah. But in this case, they'reoverbooking so that they can get employees from point A to point B. Why are you stopping at $800 if you'retrying to get people to leave a flightvoluntarily?

Muckerman:This is going to cost them way more than $800.

Jason Moser:And if you think, too, if you go 10 or 20 years back, to when this was something airlines would do, and I think travelers probably assigned more value to thattravel voucher back then than they do. I think a lot of that is because the waythe internet has changed everything we do, from e-commerce to travel to banking. What I think the internet hasultimately done is helped us realize placing more value on our time. In any scenario,you value your time moreso today than I think we could have 10 or 20 years ago,because there were not as many choices. So when you get stuck on an airplane and they're trying to get people to take off andtake a travel voucher and take a later flight, like, "That $400,I guess I could do something, butit's such a nightmare going to the airport anddealing with getting through security and getting on the plane,nobody likes flying on those planeswith those little tiny seats." All of the sudden, United becomes ...any airline is going to have to look at that and say, "Maybe$400 isn't going to cut it." Maybe $800 does cut it. Maybe there are a few people on the plane that will go ahead and take that offer. But, again, I think,why in the worlddo they so consistently overbook flights? You have a fixed number of seats. It's not like it takes a PhD to figure this out. So obviously, they do something where they're relying on some sort of statistical measure, where it sayshow many people might not show up for a flight, orhowever many cancellations might exist, and they can overbook by this amount. But, I do think, for someone, I look at myself and I am, generally speaking, about asapathetic to any given airline brand when it comes to flying.I'm just looking for a plane that's not going to go down,and I want a reasonable price, andI want you to get me there quickly. But man, after this, I have to say,I don't think I would want to buy a ticket for a United flight because of this. I don't seeanything good that came of this. There was thedress code thing that wasn't too terribly long ago, either,which I found to be pretty absurd, honestly. They'rejust not doing themselves any favors.

Hill:AndI don't know if you saw this, but in response to the whole United flight not letting the two young women on because they had leggings,Delta Air Linestweeted outsomething about how, "Flying Delta means flying comfortable,even if you just want to wear leggings."

Moser:Yeah,you should go out in public and you should be dressed insuch a way that is not provocative or questionable. But hey,instead of focusing on the dress code,why don't you focus on people that smell bad? Right? Have you ever sat on a planenext to somebody who stinks? Because that's offensive.

Hill:I think that's going to be a tough one to put into a system.

Muckerman:Well, they're both subjective.

Moser:I don't think so. I think fashion is subjective. Objectively,you either smell or you don't. And if you smell, I don't want to sit next to you.

Chris Hill has no position in any stocks mentioned. Jason Moser has no position in any stocks mentioned. Taylor Muckerman has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.