United Airlines CEO says overbooking incident won't happen again
Oscar Munoz, CEO of American Airlines, said he was embarrassed of the video that contained a footage of one of their passengers being dragged from his seat on one of their planes, United Express Flight 3411.
The video has now become a subject of criticism all around the world, calling out the airline for the way they handled the situation. Munoz vowed to the public that the incident will not happen again. Earlier this week, the video was shared on social media by one of the plane's passenger who had seen the incident. The video sparked outrage throughout the internet, with netizens calling out the airline for its 'inappropriate' behavior in handling overbooking situations.
United Airlines had then released a statement on its official Twitter account saying that CEO Munoz is deeply sorry for what happened with the passenger, Dr. David Dao, and ensured that they will resolve the situation as soon as possible. According to BBC, complications on the incident started when four crew members arrived after the plane has been boarded, resulting for United to ask four volunteer passengers to get off the plane.
After no passenger has volunteered, it reportedly prompted United to manually choose four passenger names. However, Dr. Dao, refused to get off for reasons stated that he has to go to work and attend his patient. One of the security officers were then seen on the video forcibly dragging Dr. Dao from his seat to the plane's aisle, while his nose was seen bleeding.
The incident has made many passengers expressing their disappointment with the company, with majority of them saying that United deserves a boycott. Some passengers who have already booked a flight with the airline reportedly cancelled their tickets and vowed they will never fly with United again. Aside from this, an online petition for CEO Munoz to resign has already gained over 80,000 signatures as of Saturday.
However, on an interview with Good Morning America, Munoz stated that he will not step down as the CEO of United Airlines. According to him, he was hired to make United better and further stated that he will continue to do it as long as he is in charge.
