SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
NPR reports
Passengers on a United Express flight from Chicago to Louisville, Ky., were horrified when a man was forcibly removed--violently wrenched from his seat and physically dragged down the aisle. [...] Videos of the scene have prompted calls to boycott United Airlines.
[...] The Chicago Department of Aviation [...] says the actions of the security officers were "not condoned by the Department" and that one individual has been placed on leave pending a review.
[...] Passengers had already boarded on Sunday evening [April 10] at O'Hare International Airport when United asked for volunteers to take another flight the next day to make room for four United staff members who needed seats.
The airline offered $400 and a free hotel, passenger Audra D. Bridges told the Louisville Courier-Journal. When no one volunteered, the offer was doubled to $800. When there were still no bites, the airline selected four passengers to leave the flight--including the man in the video and his wife.
"They told him he had been selected randomly to be taken off the flight", Bridges said.
[...] The man said he was a doctor and that he "needed to work at the hospital the next day", passenger Jayse D. Anspach said.
[...] Both Bridges and Anspach posted videos of three security officers, who appear to be wearing the uniforms of Chicago aviation police, wrenching the man out of his seat, prompting wails. His face appeared to strike an armrest. Then they dragged his limp body down the aisle.
Footage shows the man was bleeding from the mouth as they dragged him away. His glasses were askew and his shirt was riding up over his belly.
"It looked like he was knocked out, because he went limp and quiet and they dragged him out of the plane like a rag doll", Anspach wrote.
Previous: Days After United Settlement, Baggage Handler Locked in Cargo Hold on NC-to-DC Flight
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:28PM (2 children)
"Stampede of booking cancellations may bankrupt United".
Nuff said, vote with your feet/wallet. Economics 101.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @10:36PM
Haven't they been bankrupt before? Weren't they bailed out by the American taxpayer?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @05:15AM
"Stampede of booking cancellations may bankrupt United".
it won't make a difference in the US, its effectively an oligopoly here, there aren't enough available seats on other carriers to accomodate enough boycotting passengers.
But they are fucked in China. They make a fair amount of money in China and the chinese see this as a case of straight-up racism.
I'm inclined to agree too. He probably wasn't selected because he's chinese. But his foreign accent and over-all non-whiteness almost certainly contributed to the escalation. An old white guy, wearing decent clothes who said he was a doctor would have been treated a lot more respectfully. Especially considering the cop most directly responsible for the escalation has a long history of pulling shady and was forced to resign from his previous job with the chicago PD which itself has major problems with racism. [nytimes.com]