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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.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @10:55PM (1 child)
Jmorris is a boot licking authoritarian dickbag who thinks such behavior is acceptable. Screwing over paying customers because of an airline screwup is really fucked up. Police states are fucked up. But hey it doesn't matter, justice has already been served many times over through their stock taking a big hit and god knows how many people choosing to fly other airlines. Falling back on fine print and lawyer talk to say this guy should have known better is victim blaming bullshit. The airlines should plan for such occasions and/or have small emergency planes available for just such occasions. Putting the burden on the customer is BULLSHIT.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday April 12 2017, @11:33PM
This isn't just screwing over paying customers, this was physical violence. I had a similar incident with United long time ago on a domestic flight - back then they had smarter staff on ground.
What they did was the evacuated everyone on our boarded flight that was ready to roll under some technical issue pretense to move to another plane. As we were all scurrying along and queuing to board the replacement flight, they were picking folks out and me and the then gf were picked out. Turns out they were overbook or something and we were the unlucky bastards that had to wait for the next flight available in 4-6 hours. There were about 6 of us unlucky bastards. No vouchers or anything, not even an apology. Now we were screwed.. but at least we didn't have our face bashed in.
It was a lot of hassle for everyone and more time wasted, but its a lot smarter than forcefully dragging folks off a boarded flight.