Eliminating Change Fees a Brilliant PR Move by United

Perhaps this day will be known as a reckoning. Maybe even a humbling.

Even – ambitiously, optimistically – a good deed.

No matter how you view it, United Airlines’ decision to permanently eliminate the dreaded change fee was a stroke of public relations brilliance.

Especially coming from a company that, just seven weeks ago, defended itself for booking middle seats again during this coronavirus pandemic by throwing its fellow airlines under the bus and calling the decision to block middle seats “a PR strategy.”

In addition, United announced it will also allow customers who want to depart earlier or later the same day to fly standby without paying a $75 same-day change fee.