Words are simply amazing. Crafted cleverly by astute public relations people, they can convey the opposite of their normal meaning. Take the MX missile, a land-based ICBM deployed by the United States starting in 1986. The missile could carry up to 10 re-entry vehicles, each armed with a 300-kiloton W87 warhead.
Now, I have no idea what any of this means, but I get the feeling you don’t want to be around when one of these things hits. President Ronald Reagan didn’t want to scare anybody, so the PR folks in our government decided to name the MX missile the “Peacekeeper.” That sure sounds soothing to me.
All of this brings me to United Airlines — you know, the “friendly skies” people — and their recent— let us call it a minor public relations problem. It is not every day that three men tear a 69-year-old doctor from his fully paid airline seat and drag him down the aisle to the shock of the other passengers. Apparently, he was not prepared to accept the airline’s bribe to depart voluntarily.
Oscar Munoz, the CEO of United Airlines, seemed oblivious to the full impact of this incident when he issued a statement that started off by saying, “This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United.” Quite frankly, it must have been far more upsetting to the airline passengers who had to witness this attack, to say nothing of the doctor who got dragged off the plane as if he were a meat carcass.
Now that Mr. Munoz had his foot firmly in his mouth, he decided to put the rest of his leg in there also: “I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers.” Okay, now I fully understand the true meaning of the word “re-accommodate.” If I see somebody I don’t like and decide to punch and kick him, the victim should actually be pleased since all I am trying to do is to “re-accommodate” him.
By some perverse twist of fate, I flew on United the day after this incident. My flight attendant was most attentive, and when I told her how difficult it must be for her to work on the day following such an episode, she just smiled. I ordered my drink, and when she put it down in front of me, she simply said, “Thanks for flying Delta,” and walked down the aisle.