"Just kill me, just kill me"

[Randy W]

The incident of the passenger literally dragged off a United Airlines in the U,S, has sparked outrage in China, even though the man may not be Chinese. It was reported, however, that the man claimed, ‘I’m being selected because I’m Chinese'. United says that passengers were selected randomly.

 

in the SCMP

 

We’ll thrash United Airlines until we get an apology’: millions of Chinese view eviction video as enraged users row vengeance

 

The incident sparked outrage across Chinese social media as the airlines’ decision to evict the passenger from the domestic flight was condemned as “racial discrimination”.

The 69-year-old passenger was seen being pulled by aviation security officers from his window seat and dragged down the aisle on a plane set to fly to Kentucky in mobile phone footage posted on social media on Sunday night. The passenger was shown later with blood on his face.

However, doubts over the man’s ethnicity arose after the video emerged on Sunday. Initial reports said the man was a Chinese-American but the BBC on Tuesday quoted another passenger as saying that the man was Vietnamese and had lived in Kentucky for 20 years.

. . .

“Many Chinese people feel they are racially discriminated against but don’t speak out for fear of losing face, causing Western mainstream media and the public to not take discrimination against Asians seriously,” he said.

 

 

 

‘Just kill me, just kill me’: appalling new video shows elderly United passenger begging for mercy

[Thomas Promise]

Very embarrassing for United and America.

[danb]

Shame on United and most the other airlines. Profits before the customer it seems. Definitely not handled properly handled. Should have been handled way before any of the passengers were boarded on the plane. I heard that he was Chinese. But haven't found out what his name is. It may give us a better clue if he is Chinese or Vietnamese or Irish?? I read the man also said that he was a doctor. Has any one here every been taken a flight to make room for other airline passenger. Danb

[Greg.D.]

His family name is "Dao". You can find a little more info at the Louisville Courier-Journal (had an excellent English teacher in grade school who made us memorize dozens of newspaper names; still remember them).

He was told he and his wife were chosen because they had paid the least for their tickets (evidence he IS Chinese). As they yanked him horizontally out of his seat, somehow ( ) the arm rest across the aisle hit him in the head. I like United's statement along the lines of "he refused to voluntarily give up his seat"

Not clear this flight was overbooked - and the terms of carriage refer to pre-boarding, I think. Really a bad look for United with whom I racked up about 75,000 miles mostly to China. Then they diluted the value of their miles and only award full miles to first class customers.

[Randy W]

They had four employees that they needed to get to their city for the next day's flights - bumping paying passengers for their own employees.

 

Compensation offered I believe was $800 - it would have been cheaper to have booked the United employees on another airline's space available.

 

Yes, settling these things before boarding will nearly always avoid any confrontation.

 

 

According to news reports, airline employees asked for four volunteers to give up their seats after passengers had boarded the plane in return for a US$400 travel voucher. When no one volunteered, the voucher offer was doubled to US$800, but there were still no takers.

 

Edited April 11, 2017 by Randy W (see edit history)

[dnoblett]

Poorly handled, yes they needed to deadhead a flight crew on that flight so they had to bump people, but they handled it very badly, from my understanding the flight was not overbooked, they needed the seats for a crew deadhead.

 

Really should have asked for 4 volunteers before boarding and if no one volunteered, contacted airport security to be on hand when they started boarding coach and randomly pick people from the last group to have checked onto the flight and simply blocked them from boarding when the line moved past the boarding agent, it gets ugly when they have to remove people after they are on the aircraft.

 

I remember one time years ago flying with my mother, the flight was slightly overbooked in coach, when we got to the boarding agent they took our tickets and replaced them with different seating numbers, got bumped up to first class to fill two empties in that class, but they handled it properly while boarding, not on the plane.

[Randy W]

Poorly handled, yes they needed to deadhead a flight crew on that flight so they had to bump people, but they handled it very badly, from my understanding the flight was not overbooked, they needed the seats for a crew deadhead.

 

Really should have asked for 4 volunteers before boarding and if no one volunteered, contacted airport security to be on hand when they started boarding coach and randomly pick people from the last group to have checked onto the flight and simply blocked them from boarding when the line moved past the boarding agent, it gets ugly when they have to remove people after they are on the aircraft.

 

I remember one time years ago flying with my mother, the flight was slightly overbooked in coach, when we got to the boarding agent they took our tickets and replaced them with different seating numbers, got bumped up to first class to fill two empties in that class, but they handled it properly while boarding, not on the plane.

 

 

I may just be reading between the lines here, but my understanding is that the gate crew was NOT informed of the four deadheads until the passengers had already boarded, at which point the directive from management was that the four deadheads WILL be boarded.

[dnoblett]

I may just be reading between the lines here, but my understanding is that the gate crew was NOT informed of the four deadheads until the passengers had already boarded, at which point the directive from management was that the four deadheads WILL be boarded.

If the gate crew were asking to 4 volunteers and offering $400 each before boarding they probably knew it was for 4 deadheads.

[dnoblett]

A few counter points seen on Gizmodo...

 

4/11/17 9:51am

This type of response only encourages more idiot to behave this way with companies. The passenger was wrong to stay on the plane after he was asked to leave. Now the company gets punished for and idiot passenger and violent airport security (who are not their employees). Great! This is why America is so F’d right now. If you want to be mad about how the man was removed from the plane blame the federal government’s airport security not the airline who called them to remove a belligerent passenger.

 

And...

 

Why is it that after nobody took United up on the offer of an increased voucher, United didn’t just pay for its employees to rent a vehicle and drive down to Louisville? Basic Google map search showed it was only like a 4 hour ride.

 

I understand that the T&Cs passengers signed may allow airlines to do this but still think that they should have had a bit more common sense when no one wanted the vouchers and hotel room.

 

http://gizmodo.com/united-loses-800-million-in-value-after-passenger-drag-1794208511?rev=1491918140414

[Randy W]

 

I may just be reading between the lines here, but my understanding is that the gate crew was NOT informed of the four deadheads until the passengers had already boarded, at which point the directive from management was that the four deadheads WILL be boarded.

If the gate crew were asking to 4 volunteers and offering $400 each before boarding they probably knew it was for 4 deadheads.

 

 

 

No, they weren't aware of the 4 employees nor were they asking for volunteers until the passengers were already on the plane - but again, I may be reading between the lines.

[dnoblett]

Not exactly a choir boy that was dragged off the plane...

 

Sex, drugs, and gambling...

 

http://nypost.com/2017/04/11/doctor-dragged-off-flight-convicted-of-trading-drugs-for-sex/

http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/11/united-airlines-passenger-dragged-off-plane-was-convicted-of-trading-drugs-for-sex-6568469

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/11/united-airlines-passenger-david-dao-convicted-soliciting-gay

[Randy W]

[dnoblett]

Oh boy now it's the president's fault...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/10/john-cho-blames-donald-trump-for-united-flight-341/

[tsap seui]

Oh boy now it's the president's fault...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/10/john-cho-blames-donald-trump-for-united-flight-341/

Yep, I thought, it either has to be the president's fault because of his racism and his raw hatred, or else them pesky Russians he calls friends hacked into United's data base and picked this guy for "re-accommodation". Who knows, but we know it had to be one or the other.

[dnoblett]

Another similar incident, however in this case the passenger simply gave up his seat and was moved to a lesser seat after being threatened with cuffing, in this case there was an empty seat, the real insult was he was already on the plane and the late VIP bumped him, United should have bumped or re-accommodated the late VIP instead.

http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-united-low-priority-passenger-20170412-story.html