(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The majority of people who watched the video of passenger David Dao being forcibly removed from a United Airlines flight last week – which resulted in a broken nose, a concussion and other injuries – agreed that United acted irresponsibly and downright cruelly (they did). Despite this general consensus, United initially accused Dao of acting belligerently, which only added to its not-insignificant PR problem. Well, now the airline is unsurprisingly reversing course (it’s amazing what a barrage of mocking tweets will do to a company).
United Airlines will no longer allow employees to take seats from passengers on overbooked flights. The company is adjusting its policy for good following the Dao incident, The New York Times reported.
“We issued an updated policy to make sure crew traveling on our aircraft are booked at least 60 minutes prior to departure,” a United spokesperson wrote in an email to the Times on Sunday.
“This is one of our initial steps in a review of our policies.”
United said that its rule adjustment is an attempt to ensure that this type of incident will “never happen again.”
The airline made it clear that it will also no longer ask law enforcement to remove passengers that do not pose a security threat.
United Airlines has been in the news quite a bit lately for all of the wrong reasons. A few weeks ago, several women were kicked off a flight for wearing leggings. On Saturday, a bride and a groom were removed from a flight after moving to an empty row to allow another passenger to stay asleep in their seats.
“We thought not a big deal, it’s not like we are trying to jump up into a first-class seat. We were simply in an economy row a few rows above our economy seat,” Hohl told NBC about their attempt to move.
