Blocked from friendly skies
Faced with an indefensible situation this week, United Airlines chose to make it worse.
After United employees called Chicago aviation security officers to literally drag an elderly passenger off a flight from Chicago to Louisville, Ky., Sunday, bloodying him in the process — the terrifying videos went viral — the airline’s CEO, Oscar Munoz, defended the crew’s conduct in an email to the company.
Munoz said that the employees “followed established procedures” and that the decision to call in security was “necessary.”
That’s news to outraged fliers across the world. Munoz finally issued a public apology Tuesday, saying, “No one should ever be mistreated this way,” but it may be too little, too late.
There are calls for a boycott — not only in the U.S., but also in China, where United bills itself as a top carrier.
Tens of millions of potential Chinese customers have read or shared a report about the passenger, a 69year-old Asian American man named David Dao, that said he believed he was targeted for what Munoz called “re-accommodation” because of his race.
United’s stock price has fallen, the U.S. Department of Transportation has said it’s looking into the matter, and furious customers are demanding refunds from past flights.
Marketing experts — United will surely be hiring many of them in the days to come — will do their best to
spin the situation, but the fact is that the airline easily could have avoided this incident.
What the incident also did was shine a spotlight on how America’s air transit infrastructure represents a troubling gray legal zone for passengers.
For example, many Americans didn’t know that airlines can legally eject paying passengers who don’t volunteer to leave, but they can.
Many Americans didn’t believe airlines would be allowed to engage law enforcement to physically force passengers to do their bidding, but they are.
It’s worth noting, too, that U.S. courts have held that certain constitutional protections are loosened at the border, including sections of airports where people have not been legally admitted into the United States.
Americans who are concerned about their rights should be aware that they may not enjoy full protections in airports and commercial aircraft. This is a troubling reality, and it’s one that will persist beyond United’s terrible incident.