(Cover photo from United Twitter.)
United recently caused another big mess on Twitter. At Chicago O'Hare Airport, a United Express flight to Louisville, Kentucky, became the scene of an overbooking incident involving a pair of Asian passengers who were ordered to deplane; when they would not, they were eventually dragged off the aircraft by Chicago airport police. The footage looked graphic and inhumane. Fortunately, since phones are everywhere, many passengers uploaded on-scene videos helping reconstruct what happened.
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On-scene videos
Note that the videos below may be disturbing.
Incident
We are reconstructing the incident based on the information currently available.
On the evening of April 9, flight UA3411 (a United Express feeder flight operated by Republic Airline) was scheduled from ORD to SDF (Louisville), and all passengers had already boarded. However, United needed to assign four crew members to Louisville airport for operational reasons so they could operate flights the next day. Because the plane was full, there were no extra seats for them, so United staff boarded and, citing the overbooking policy, sought four volunteers to rebook on the next afternoon’s flight. The offer ranged from $400 up to $1,000 in United vouchers plus one night of hotel, and there were no takers.
Then United’s on-duty manager stepped in, selected four passengers, and had them deplaned. Two of the selected passengers got off voluntarily, while the passenger at the center of the incident, an Asian doctor, said they could not deplane because they had patients to see the next day. United staff then called the police, and that is when scenes appeared of the Chicago Department of Aviation police "kicking" the doctor off the plane. Another person said this doctor appeared to have been shocked or knocked unconscious, and therefore seemed to have no awareness while being pulled from the aircraft.
Due to the emotional impact on other passengers, the flight was delayed and finally departed about two hours late. It is unclear whether crew or passengers disembarked afterward, but before departure the doctor appears to have boarded the same aircraft again.
United apologized on its Twitter only for the overbooking, but did not comment on forcibly removing the passenger.
Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked,” the spokesperson said. “After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate.
We apologize for the overbook situation. Further details on the removed customer should be directed to authorities.
One day later, United CEO published the following statement:
Oscar Munoz later issued an internal email, providing UA’s version of the incident timeline.
The involved Chicago airport police have been temporarily suspended pending investigation.
We will analyze this incident in a future article.