In an attempt to submerge the public fury against a recent incident of an airline passenger being forcibly dragged off a plane, United Airlines has announced on Tuesday that it is going to refund the tickets for all the airline travellers who were present on board the flight when the man was removed.
It has added that it would no longer request the police to remove the passengers from full flights.
The airline said that passengers on the United Airlines flight 3411 on Sunday would be compensated an amount that equals to the price of their tickets and could accept the compensation in cash, travel miles or even credit.
The man was dragged off the flight of United Airlines when the Sunday flight was completely loaded and was preparing to take off.
Videos captured by the other fellow passengers of the flight portrayed the man being dragged away and it sparked protests all across social media. Oscar Munoz, the CEO of United’s parent company said that he was ‘ashamed’ to notice the man’s video that showed him being forced off the flight and has promised to review the passenger-removal policy of the airliner.
He said that in future he would ensure that no law enforcement is involved in removing a ‘booked, paid, seated passenger’.
Munoz said that he incident is indeed a ‘system failure’ and that United Airlines needs to reassess its policies related with seeking volunteers to make its passengers give up their seats when a flight is full.
On Tuesday the US transportation department announced that it has started reviewing the events of Sunday to check if United violated rules on the overselling flights. The four top-ranking members of the Senate Commerce Committee asked the airline and also the Chicago airport officials for more detailed information about the course of events in this incident.
