Man dragged bleeding from United flight

Man dragged bleeding from United flight
By Hannah Edensor


Not long after the leggings fiasco and the celebrity boycott that followed, United Airlines is in deep trouble over the manhandling of a passenger.

A doctor who (regretfully) chose to fly with the airline was dragged, bleeding and shouting, from the plane after the flight was overbooked.

According to The New York Post, the man was pulled from his seat at Chicago O’Hare Airport before a flight to Louisville, Kentucky.

According to a United spokesman, the overbooking of the flight saw crew look for volunteers to give up their seats, and when the man in question refused law enforcement wrestled him off the plane.

“After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate,” the spokesman said.

“We apologise for the overbook situation. Further details on the removed customer should be directed to authorities.”

The footage is actually quite distressing, with the man bleeding after suffering an injury to his mouth, and being dragged down the aisle with his stomach exposed.

One woman can be heard shouting, “Oh my God! What are you doing?”

Facebook user Audra Bridges captured the incident, although footage has since been removed. Here’s more:

Already the backlash has been enormous, with one passenger Tyler Bridges tweeting, “Not a good way to treat a doctor trying to get to work because they overbooked”, while celebrities and other Twitter users have also started expressing their disgust.

United CEO Oscar Munoz has issued a statement following the outrage, per The New York Post.

He said, “This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologise for having to re-accommodate these customers.

(Side note: this was not the definition of ‘re-accommodating’?)

“Our team is moving with a sense of urgency to work with authorities and conduct our own detailed review of what happened,” he added.

“We are also reaching out to this passenger to talk directly with him and further address and resolve this situation.”

According to the Facebook user Audra Bridges, passengers were told United offering AU$530 and a hotel stay to any volunteers who would agree to take another flight the following day, per Courier-Journal of Louisville.

Passengers were informed the flight would not take off until the crew had seats, with the offer to get off the flight jumping to AU$1000.

By this stage, per New York Post, a manager started using a computer to randomly select four passengers to leave, with one couple removed before the man in the video was confronted.

The man said he was a doctor and needed to see patients at a hospital in the morning and became “very upset”, Bridges claimed.

Three security guards then confronted him and threw the man against the armrest before dragging him off the plane.

He managed to run back onto the plane, according to the New York Post, and a medical crew was called to treat the bloodied man. Passengers were then told to get off so staff could “tidy up” the plane.

“Everyone was shocked and appalled,” Bridges told the newspaper. “There were several children on the flight as well that were very upset.”

The flight was delayed two hours following the incident.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

    Latest comments

    1. Ignoring the (hopefully one-off) insane out of control escalation by the one crazy guy in airport security.

      Looking at the reasons behind how this even came to confrontation, it is ridiculous that the airline thinks it is normal to forcefully inconvenience your CUSTOMERS, asking THEM to take another flight for your staff.

      Have they lost their minds as to the core purpose of their business…that is to fly customers.

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