Crisis communication fails when language attempts to sanitize reality. The video showed a man being dragged down an aisle. United's words described logistics. The gap destroyed credibility instantly. The 2017 Dr. David Dao incident as modern reference for how corporate language compounds rather than contains a crisis.
United Airlines' 2017 handling of the Dr. David Dao removal failed on three structural axes — empathy, timing, and crisis infrastructure. The EPR teardown of the textbook case in corporate missteps.
April 2017: United was in crisis after the Dr. Dao removal. Delta executed the canonical competitive comms move — indirect contrast, no direct attack, reinforcement of its own service narrative. The case study in competitive crisis capitalization.
United Airlines went from Team USA's official airline in 2012 to the textbook brand crisis case taught inside ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. The EPR master reference — every incident, every lesson, every link.