Today’s Economic Shakers

United Continental’s stock takes a dive following airline overbooking PR fiasco…

Shares of United Airlines parent company, United Continental, experienced strong turbulence after video of the forceful removal of a United passenger went viral across the internet.

Monday’s incident occurred when a passenger of the airline was forcibly removed from the plane by police when he refused to give up his seat due to overbooking by United.

The company’s CEO released a statement following the incident, but the tone-deaf comments seemed to make matters worse rather than better, causing a negative PR whiplash that included 270 million views on China’s version of Facebook. The passenger was reputedly of Asian descent.

The passenger suffered injuries during the event, and had to be taken to a nearby hospital where he was reported to be in stable condition.

Before Tuesday’s opening bell, shares of United Continental fell by as much as 6% to to $67.03 in pre-market trading before recovering about half of those losses just prior to the regular trading session on Wall Street.

While traders impacted the price of United’s stock this morning, the bigger concern for the company may be a brewing threat to boycott the company.

In that event, the stock’s price could see a more serious impact.

The stock is coming off of its own record high of $74.09 that was seen at the end of February, though the price has come down since then, leaving United Continental down about 4.7% for the year to date.

========================================================

Libya crude output tumbles to lowest levels in more than six months…

Oil prices fell slightly this morning, partially in response to news that Libya production levels dropped by about 30% due to continued internal strife.

Libya, which is in the world’s top 10 in terms of proven oil reserves and has the largest total reserves in Africa, has seen its output reduced over the last month following the halt of production at the country’s biggest oil fields.

The halt in production was due to the fighting between rival armed forces, which also resulted in the temporary closure of Libya’s largest oil shipping terminals, the key distribution point of crude exports for the country.

The port has just recently been reopened, allowing for distribution to resume. However, the same oil fields have once again been shut down, despite having been reopened just last week.

The fighting among the armed groups has resulted in a major decline in production output as the Sharara field, the nation’s largest, produced just 490,000 barrels per day, a significant drop from its normal output of just over 700,000 barrels per day.

Additionally, the country’s export of crude suffered a blow as the pipeline from the Sharara field to a major refinery also was forced to shut down.

Crude oil prices were down about 0.40% in early morning trading.