Airline, aviation police didn’t treat passenger fairly

United Airlines and Chicago aviation police were disgusting, appalling, insensitive, rude and unprofessional in their handling of a paid customer who was unwilling to surrender a seat on a United Airline flight out of Chicago to Louisville.

United personnel followed every known trick to lure passengers to surrender their seats so flight personnel could be in Louisville for a next- day flight. But when you cannot get anyone to bite at your offers, close the doors, lock down everything and start launch procedures and get to your destination.

Sure you can get passengers to take your offer, whether it be a cash offer, overnight accommodations at a nearby hotel, first- class seating on the next flight out. But does the airline think about all passengers have to endure to even get to the gate? With all the security checks and rechecks, pat downs, waving of the magic wand, subtle interrogation by security, and body scanning, just how willing are you to have to go and redo it again?

So in the situation where you have no takers to your offer, just who has the better right to those seats, airline personnel or a paying customer just wanting to get to their destination?

Overbooking a flight is nothing new and has been around for decades. You would think the airlines would have the handling of this kind of situation well thought out, with all the necessary steps and inducements to persuade passengers to surrender their seats willingly.

So which would give the airlines better PR, dragging off a doctor who states he was on his way to perform his job saving a life, delaying the flight, upsetting the other passengers, starting internet fury or putting their customers first?

John Thorsen, Jefferson Park

Cost savings

Shutting down Northeastern Illinois University for the week of Spring Break is an excellent way to address the funding problem. The bad part is that this year it wasn’t planned in advance.

In the future, the university should be fully shut down and unpaid leave given to all employees for this week. A minimum staff only for maintenance and security could be maintained.

If the students are on a break, the library, the computer labs, the physical education building, the day- care center aren’t needed. Reducing the cost of operations by one full week would go a long way to meeting the needs of the school. Planning and scheduling this in advance would give the employees time to plan for, and accept, this operational cost reduction.

Illinois needs a balanced budget, and this is one cost- savings way to reach that end. Robert Kastigar, North Park