Shares in United Continental Holdings Inc. fell nearly 4 percent today, as the airline continued to draw flak for having a passenger forcibly dragged off a plane Sunday and the backlash has reached worldwide proportions.
Video footage of the bloodied man, an Asian doctor, being snatched from his seat, his limp body pulled from the passenger cabin of United Airlines Flight 3411 sparked an outcry on Monday when the footage went viral.
Tuesday’s slump suggests many investors think the carrier’s business could suffer given the furor over the incident.
United Airlines parent United Continential Holdings Inc. could suffer a lot more than just reputational damage in China, as videos of a passenger being dragged off a plane spread widely in the country where the air carrier has its second biggest revenue exposure.
On Chinese social media, the incident attracted the attention of more than 340 million users on the Weibo platform, sometimes called the Twitter of China, by Tuesday morning. Its top trending story is the incident over the weekend in which a passenger identified as ethnically Chinese was forcibly “re-accommodated” to make room for another passenger.
Although the company’s statements that followed the incident made no mention of the passenger’s race, many of the comments posted on social media in China claimed discrimination, as the passenger reportedly alleged he’d been selected for removal because of his race, the Wall Street Journal reported.
