Opinion: Over-Reaching to Call United Flight “Overbooked”

By Charleston Wang

On Sunday April 9, an Asian American passenger was forcibly removed from his seat, screaming and blood covered his face, by United Airlines at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Since then, the whole world has witnessed the violence through the internet and is struggling to understand how United Airlines could use such force against a paying customer.

Worse yet, United Airlines CEO publicly issued an “apology” for having to “reaccommodate these customers” and at the same time circulated internal memo to its employees justifying the violence as “an upsetting event to all of us here at United,” but that the employer “emphatically stands behind all of you and I commend you for continuing to go above and beyond to ensure we fly right.”

Can United Airlines lawfully use this kind of force to remove a passenger that has boarded and taken his assigned seat?

In my opinion, United Airlines does not have that right. Four United Airlines crew members claimed privilege to bump off passengers already seated on a plane preparing for take-off. The company used violence on a man who had as good a reason to be on this plane as the four United employees. United Airlines was wrong to bodily drag him off the plane screaming, bloodied and finally silent. The whole story about an overbooked flight, circulated through the mainline media seems a pretext to me – it appears from some gross mismanagement. These four crew members suddenly showed up at the last minute before take-off without prior notice i.e. they never booked themselves on this flight. Nonetheless United Airlines decided for its selfish business reason, that their crew had more right to be on that plane than the paying customer after he had been allowed to board and take his assigned seat. Otherwise why did United Airlines board and seat all the passengers? It seems obvious to me that United Airlines had no idea these four crew members existed in Chicago until they showed up without prior notice because they were late getting to Louisville. Not once did management consider other alternatives to get their tardy crew to Louisville so they can work a flight on Monday. United Airlines is over-reaching to continue to call this flight “overbooked.”

In my opinion, the incident was a wrongful assault which caused serious injury, specifically a concussion, broken nose, and missing teeth. Arguably United Airlines had the contractual right to refuse to board any customer, but this Asian American passenger already had been permitted to board and was comfortable in his assigned seat with every expectation to arrive home. Arguably, United Airlines has the power under aviation regulations to remove certain passengers for cause. The other convenient standby is “flying right” which encompasses ensuring the safety of the flight. However this bloodied and humiliated passenger had never been a safety risk. All he wanted to do was to  get home and to work the next day. There is no reason to treat him like a resisting criminal. All he was doing was trying to say he had a right to his seat and he did say he was calling his lawyer. No need to silence him and drag him off like some animal, or charitably, excess luggage. No, United Airlines has no such authority anytime, anywhere. This leaves open the very disturbing question, why did they use so much force – was it because he was Asian in appearance? As a paying passenger who had boarded and taken his assigned seat on an United Airlines flight he cannot be deprived of his civil rights to travel from Illinois to Kentucky where he resides. Dr, David Dao definitely does not fit the stereotype of the docile, compliant model minority American of Asian ancestry,

The legal aspects aside, there is the business operations to consider. Sure employees are vital to a company’s success, but can a company continue to accommodate its employees when it has no customers? Especially United Airlines when it is dreaming making money from the large China market.

The incident itself certainly was an outrage felt not only by the violated passenger, the other passengers, and indeed many in the world, especially in Asia. The position staked out by United Airlines after the outrage just makes it mile high worse. United Airlines owes this Asian American passenger not only an apology. In my opinion, United Airlines not only wrongfully assaulted and battered him but also violated his civil rights. The passenger deserves his day in court and have his grievance before a jury,

Charleston C. K. Wang. He is an immigration and civil rights lawyer.

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