Lawyer accuses airlines of bullying, says passenger dragged from plane likely to sue
The passenger dragged from a United flight lost two front teeth and suffered a broken nose and a concussion, his lawyer said yesterday, accusing the airline industry of having “bullied” its customers for far too long.
“Are we going to continue to be treated like cattle?” lawyer Thomas Demetrio asked.
The passenger, Dr David Dao, has been released from hospital but will need reconstructive surgery, Demetrio said at a news conference, appearing alongside one of Dao’s children. Dao was not there.
The 69- year- old physician from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, was removed by police from the United Express flight on Monday at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport after refusing to give up his seat on the full plane to make room for four airline employees.
Cellphone video of him being pulled down the aisle on his back and footage of his bloody face have created a public- relations nightmare for United.
One of Dao’s five children, Crystal Pepper, said the family was “horrified, shocked and sickened” by what happened. She said it was made worse by the fact that it was caught on video.
For Dao, who came to the US after fleeing Vietnam by boat in 1975 when Saigon fell, being dragged off the plane “was more horrifying and harrowing than what he experienced in leaving Vietnam”, Demetrio said.
Demetrio, who indicated Dao is going to sue, said the industry has long “bullied” passengers by overbooking flights and then bumping people, and “it took something like this to get a conversation going”.
“I hope he becomes a poster child for all of us,” the lawyer said.
In a statement issued immediately after yesterday’s news conference, United insisted that United CEO Oscar Munoz and the airline called Dao numerous times to apologise. Munoz himself said on Thursday that he had left a message for Dao.
But Demetrio said neither Dao nor his family had heard from United.
Demetrio said his client accepts the apology.
But the lawyer questioned its sincerity, suggesting United acted because it was taking a PR “beating”.
Demetrio was unable to say precisely how Dao was injured. Dao didn’t remember exactly what occurred because of the concussion he suffered, Demetrio said.
Pepper said her father and mother had been travelling from California to Louisville, Kentucky, and had caught a connecting flight at O’Hare.
After what happened, Dao “has no interest in ever seeing an airplane” and will probably be driven to Kentucky, Demetrio said.
United had selected Dao and three other passengers at random for removal from the plane after unsuccessfully offering US$ 800 ($ 1145) in travel vouchers and a hotel stay to customers willing to give up their seats.
The three officers who removed Dao have been suspended from their jobs at the Chicago Aviation Department. The department’s roughly 300 officers guard the city’s two main airports but are not part of the regular Chicago police force, receive less training and cannot carry guns inside the terminals.