Tag: United Airlines

  • A witness

    A letter from someone who was aboard United flight 3411 when it all went wrong:

    Unfortunately, I was aboard United Airlines flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville, Ky., on Sunday. Even more unfortunate was the fact that I was returning from a spring break trip with seven of my students from Louisville Male High School who also witnessed the unconscionable treatment of the passenger.

    The disgusting mishandling of the situation included everyone from the rude ticket agent who demanded that this man give up his seat on the flight United overbooked, to one of the officers laughing in the midst of the incident, to the violent, abusive way the passenger was dragged off the plane by the officer. It was the worst possible model for my students, and frankly, was traumatizing to many of us who watched this from such close proximity.

    The reporting said that a high school teacher got off with a group of students, saying they didn’t need to see any more of that kind of thing. Perhaps this is that teacher.

    I was appalled at how United Airlines and the officers handled the situation, but I was also encouraged by my fellow passengers’ attempts to interfere — despite how helpless we all felt. Some passengers audibly protested to the officers, some stood and removed themselves from the plane rather than continue to witness the abuse, and one father, while trying to console his 8-year-old daughter, confronted the officer saying, among other things, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” These are the models of which I hope our children will see more.

    — Jason Powell, Louisville, Ky.

    Really though I’d rather children didn’t see the kind of violent bullying that calls for people to resist. I’d like this whole fashion for bullying to go away.

     

  • Mood swing

    Belatedly, and therefore unconvincingly, Oscar Munoz issued a statement saying he feels just terrible about the whole thing. If that’s true why didn’t he mention it yesterday?

    The truly horrific event that occurred on this flight has elicited many responses from all of us: outrage, anger, disappointment. I share all of those sentiments, and one above all: my deepest apologies for what happened. Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard. No one should ever be mistreated this way.

    Very true, so why didn’t you say so yesterday? Sir. Why did you say yesterday that the passenger who was beaten up was “disruptive and belligerent” while you didn’t say one word about a truly horrific event or your outrage, anger, disappointment at that event? Why didn’t you apologize to him yesterday? Sir.

    I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right.

    That’s nice, but it would be nicer if you’d done that yesterday. Sir.

  • Let Us Re-Accommodate You

    Hashtag New United Airlines mottoes:

    https://twitter.com/Warbot2003/status/851690182709354496

    https://twitter.com/thomaslockes/status/851691792856698880

    https://twitter.com/j_millerworks/status/851696760267448320

  • They call in the brute squad

    The United story is still running, and I’m still as disproportionately fascinated by it as everyone else. I guess that’s just because it’s so perverse – so [I would have thought] blatantly wrong and yet so defended. It’s like Trump that way.

    In the US, that is. Outside the US people are pointing and laughing.

    The Times and the Post both are still reporting the story as if the guy did something wrong in refusing to be thrown off the plane, as if it were just obvious and taken for granted that a plane ticket isn’t what it seems to be. This amounts to saying: just expect to be mistreated, even when you’ve paid for the service in question and arrived on time and combed your hair neatly. I don’t want to expect to be mistreated, thanks.

    The Independent, on the other hand, is less inclined to see things from the airlines’ point of view.

    if you’ve ever wondered what happens when airlines can’t bribe a single paying customer off of a flight, now we know: they call in the brute squad.

    This morning, newsfeeds across the globe were flooded with viral videos of some poor guy getting dragged kicking and screaming out of a seat he paid to sit in. It didn’t matter that he claimed to be a doctor who needed to get home to tend ailing patients, and it didn’t matter that his fellow passengers protested his removal. A profit-driven airline company wanted to make room for employees, and so private security staff were more or less given the green light to beat somebody up to make it happen.

    Now we know. I must say I didn’t know before. I didn’t know they would just order me off if they felt like it. I sure as hell didn’t know they would back it up with force if I said no.

    And what was United’s stellar PR response? To claim its staff were all “following established procedures” and call the customer “disruptive and belligerent”. Translation: the shockingly violent treatment of our passengers isn’t that big a deal. Shares in the company are already starting to take a slide, and by day’s end, United Airlines very well may have become the most mocked company in the history of the Twitter. “Board as a doctor, leave as a patient,” said one contributor to the #NewUnitedAirlinesMottos hashtag. “We put the hospital in hospitality,” wrote another.

    OK, so people are forcibly removed from planes all the time. United had to kick 3,765 paying customers off flights last year alone. But the scary thing is, this blood-soaked guy who simply wanted to go home and get to work the next day could have been any one of us. The newly emboldened security services have rendered our airports xenophobic battlegrounds, and emboldened those who might otherwise have stopped to think before resorting to violence or abuse.

    Or perhaps even not have wanted to resort to violence or abuse in the first place.

  • Calling the passenger “disruptive and belligerent”

    Unbelievably, the CEO of United is unrepentant. He says it was all the passenger’s fault – you know, the passenger who had a ticket and duly boarded the plane and sat in his seat, and then was told to get out of it because the airline wanted it back. It was his fault.

    United CEO Oscar Munoz doubled down in a letter to employees on Monday evening, claiming that employees “followed established procedures” when removing a passenger from a plane because it was overbooked, and calling the passenger “disruptive and belligerent.”

    That’s established procedures? Smashing your face onto an armrest and then dragging you bodily up the aisle while you bleed freely from a broken lip?

    Video circulated of the incident earlier in the day, showing the man being dragged from the plane and later returning with blood on his face. The incident drew scorn on Twitter and other social media, especially when Munoz used the euphemism “re-accomodate” in a public statement to describe the customers booted from the flight.

    According to the letter, which was obtained by CNBC, when crew members first approached the passenger to tell him to leave, he “raised his voice and refused to comply,” and each time they asked again “he refused and became more and more disruptive and belligerent.”

    I don’t care. He’d bought a ticket. You didn’t warn him it was only provisionally his. How do I know? Because I have never once been warned by an airline that they might just decide to throw me off the plane if they want to fit someone else onto it. Not once. Yes no doubt it’s in the fine print, but that’s not the same thing.

    And why is he the one who is disruptive and belligerent? Why isn’t it disruptive and belligerent of United to throw him off the plane simply because it wants his duly purchased seat back?

    Crew members “were left with no choice but to call Chicago Aviation Security Officers to assist in removing the customer from the flight,” Munoz wrote, and at one point the passenger “continued to resist – running back onto the aircraft in defiance of both our crew and security officials.”

    Munoz acknowledged to employees that the company could learn lessons from the incident, but said: “I emphatically stand behind all of you.”

    Well I emphatically stand behind all of us in saying fuck you to United Airlines and its CEO.