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Lasse Fuss
Last Sunday, the police officers at the Chicago airport forcibly expelled a passenger from an airline United Airlines. This event kindled a scandal, which keeps stirring the public up. United Airlines’ management, which on Tuesday apologized and promised to carefully consider what had happened and take action, decided to take a new conciliatory step. United Airlines CEO Oscar Muñoz promised to pay each passenger of the Sunday flight 3411 compensation in the amount of their ticket’s price. According to him, passengers can choose from several options for obtaining compensation: cash, bank account or bonus miles.
On Sunday, before Flight 3411’s departure from Chicago to Louisville (Kentucky), United Airlines officials told passengers that four of them would have to leave the plane, because the flight sold excess tickets. Passengers who agreed to voluntarily leave the salon were offered compensation of $ 400 and a paid night stay in a hotel. After some time, the compensation was doubled, but still nobody expressed a desire to go out. Then, United Airlines employees chose four "volunteers" themselves on the list of passengers. Eventually, three of them agreed to leave, and the fourth - a 69-year-old doctor from Louisville - refused, explaining the negative response by need to urgently go to Louisville, where he works. The explanations were not accepted, and the doctor was dragged out of the plane by force. Later he returned to the salon with a bloodstained face. Video of the event spread widely on the Internet and caused a flurry of indignation towards United Airlines.
Yesterday, in an interview with ABC News, Mr. Muñoz said that he felt shame because of cruel treatment of the passenger. He admitted that he regretted a number of other statements he had made in recent days, many of which were rather harsh and blamed the passenger himself. Yesterday, however, Mr. Muñoz said the doctor from Louisville was not to blame for what happened. "He paid for the ticket, sat on his place on the plane of our airline, and no one should be subjected to such treatment", he said, promising that "this will never happen on United’s flights." "I promise", - assured Head of the airline. In addition, now passengers will not be threatened with force expulsion from the plane, even in the case of overbooking.
Social networks are still actively discussing what happened on the United Airlines’ plane. In particular, one of the passengers of that ill-fated flight Joya Cummings, who, by the way, actively defended the doctor from the police, published her comments and opinion on the airline’s offer on Facebook. "Last night, when I was putting my son to bed, a United Airlines representative phoned me with an apology and proposed to fully compensate the tickets’ price. Such a small gesture after all the horror that we all experienced in the plane, and what the whole world is currently experiencing about this injustice", the woman said. United Airlines’ quotations have reacted to the situation. Over the past three days, they have fallen in price by 1.34%, reducing the market capitalization of the company by almost $ 300 million.
source: abcnews.go.com, forbes.com
On Sunday, before Flight 3411’s departure from Chicago to Louisville (Kentucky), United Airlines officials told passengers that four of them would have to leave the plane, because the flight sold excess tickets. Passengers who agreed to voluntarily leave the salon were offered compensation of $ 400 and a paid night stay in a hotel. After some time, the compensation was doubled, but still nobody expressed a desire to go out. Then, United Airlines employees chose four "volunteers" themselves on the list of passengers. Eventually, three of them agreed to leave, and the fourth - a 69-year-old doctor from Louisville - refused, explaining the negative response by need to urgently go to Louisville, where he works. The explanations were not accepted, and the doctor was dragged out of the plane by force. Later he returned to the salon with a bloodstained face. Video of the event spread widely on the Internet and caused a flurry of indignation towards United Airlines.
Yesterday, in an interview with ABC News, Mr. Muñoz said that he felt shame because of cruel treatment of the passenger. He admitted that he regretted a number of other statements he had made in recent days, many of which were rather harsh and blamed the passenger himself. Yesterday, however, Mr. Muñoz said the doctor from Louisville was not to blame for what happened. "He paid for the ticket, sat on his place on the plane of our airline, and no one should be subjected to such treatment", he said, promising that "this will never happen on United’s flights." "I promise", - assured Head of the airline. In addition, now passengers will not be threatened with force expulsion from the plane, even in the case of overbooking.
Social networks are still actively discussing what happened on the United Airlines’ plane. In particular, one of the passengers of that ill-fated flight Joya Cummings, who, by the way, actively defended the doctor from the police, published her comments and opinion on the airline’s offer on Facebook. "Last night, when I was putting my son to bed, a United Airlines representative phoned me with an apology and proposed to fully compensate the tickets’ price. Such a small gesture after all the horror that we all experienced in the plane, and what the whole world is currently experiencing about this injustice", the woman said. United Airlines’ quotations have reacted to the situation. Over the past three days, they have fallen in price by 1.34%, reducing the market capitalization of the company by almost $ 300 million.
source: abcnews.go.com, forbes.com
