Whoah! Have any of you seen the news about the poor man who got beaten unconscious because he didn’t want to give up his seat on a United Airlines flight? Well if flying is going to be that savage, then you’d best work out. Here’s why.
Something Unbelievable Happened on an Airplane
I was doing my usual research last night for the next topic to write about. I came across this Fox News article about some guy getting stung by scorpions on a plane. Kinda freaky – he was on a United Airlines flight and was eating lunch, then suddenly a scorpion (yup) fell from an overhead bin onto his hair. He swapped at whatever fell on his head – just to shockingly find out he’s gotten stung by a scorpion!
I’m not an airways biologist or anything – so I reserved myself from insta-raging at United Airlines for allowing scorpions on a plane. I mean, give airlines a break – they land and fly off of African places, Asian places, Caribbean places, and other non-American destinations. So there’s bound to be something a plane picks up here and there, right?
Well that’s not what caught my attention – the article says that United Airlines had a bad week because apprently a few days or so earlier, they apparently threw a passenger off a plane. I figured they just told someone they couldn’t fly and made them leave the plane – and that was that.
But I was curious and clicked – and my goodness… what I found…
The Most Horrible Thing an Airline Could Do (at Least in This Modern Era)
Here’s what actually happened – and it’s not something you’d ever believe. United Airlines had this flight and it was fully booked. There were no free seats and every passenger showed up. Suddenly, four crew members from another flight needed to be on this flight. United Airlines decided to ask four people to volunteer to give up their seats in exchange for the usual limited vouchers. They ended up offering $800 (of course it’s not cash – you can probably only use it to buy more United Airline fares or their products) and a free hotel and maybe transportation.
Three people ended up volunteering without incident. But there was this couple who initially volunteered but then decided to decline because the next flight was the next day, which didn’t work for the husband. The husband is Dr. David Dao, who is a 69-year old medical physician.
There was no fourth person willing to volunteer, so the United Airlines staff decided to go back to the Daos and ask the husband to relinquish his seat. The good doctor explained that he couldn’t give up his seat because he had to see patients at eight or nine in the morning the very next day.
Well, United Airlines wouldn’t take that excuse – they told him if they couldn’t get volunteers, they were allowed to force people off (in nicer words, of course). But the more they told him he had to go, the more he refused and became “belligerent.”
It got to a point where the United Airlines staff pulled back and asked TSA to come aboard the plane. Three TSA agents went up to Dr. David Dao and tried to convince him that he had to leave. The doctor was adamant he needed to take this flight to get to his patients in the morning.
We’re talking about a well-educated wise man who is being seriously confronted by TSA agents – law enforcers. Anyone who didn’t have to be on the flight would have backed down by now. So if you think about it, the doctor must really need to be with his patients. At this point I would guess his patients needed some vital pre-scheduled procedures done or something critical like that.
And for some very odd reason, United Airlines and the TSA agents didn’t care about his excuse. They didn’t even try to ask anyone else on the plane if they’d like to “volunteer.” (At least I’m not aware of them trying a second attempt at getting volunteers after it escalated.)
Instead, suddenly one TSA agent grabs the SIXTY-NINE YEAR OLD MAN by the wrists and drags him out of his seat and he starts yelling and screaming in surprise. The poor man hits his head as soon as they forcibly grab him out of his seat, which knocks him unconscious. You can literally see blood on his face – the whole thing is caught on video and uploaded to YouTube.
They then haul his unconscious body out of the plane like they’re taking out the trash or something. He ended up with a concussion, a broken nose, and missing two teeth.
Let’s Analyze How Wrong United Airlines Was
Then the CEO of United Airlines apologizes to the customers that had to be “re-accomodated.” If beating someone up and hauling their unconscious body out from the plane is a “reaccomodation” then I’m not so sure United Airlines is the company for me (putting it lightly)!
Before I get into the emotional advocacy. Let’s look at the side United Airlines may take. They asked this man nicely to get off the plane. He didn’t want to comply. They escalated it to a situation involving TSA agents. The man still didn’t want to get out of his seat. In the ticket contract, United Airlines reserved the right to force anyone off a plane for whatever reason. So what else could anyone do but force him off physically – because it’s within their rights as per contractual agreement. If you look at the situation like that – then everything adds up, right?
Wrong. This is a customer who paid for this flight and made reasonable arrangements that relied on the flight. The flight wasn’t overbooked – United Airlines just wanted to fly four of their employees at the last minute and decided to kick paying customers off. They basically wanted to force this paying customer (with physical force) to get off the plane so that their employee could take his seat. It wasn’t a matter of overbooking. From this point of view alone, United Airlines is in the wrong.
Also, we live in America – this happened in the United States. We aren’t savages like some parts of the world where this kind of thing is routine. United Airlines decided to resort to physically removing a paying customer with brute force instead of being civilized and offering more incentives to other passengers to volunteer to give up their seat. This speaks volumes about the company – they’d rather beat you up to save having to shell out cash – it shows how they view customers (and I dare say, it might suggest how they view people in general).
Think about it – if you were on the plane and didn’t have an emergency to attend to the next day, would you have given up your seat if United Airlines offered you $2,000 and up? How about $5,000? But instead, they wanted to save cash and violate someone’s human rights. (Now they’ll have to pay millions in the upcoming lawsuit.)
And even if they wanted to be thrifty, what they did was illegal. If you’re going to resort to physically throwing someone off a plane to exercise your rights – you have to do it reasonably. You can’t give someone a concussion, break their nose, and knock out their teeth and say it’s okay because you had the right to kick them off your plane. Of course, if Dr. Dao was being physically unruly, then it might be reasonable – but he was just verbally refusing without even raising his voice!
What’s worse? THE MAN IS 69! Is it even fathonomable to give a 69-year old person a beating when they haven’t given any physical resistance? What is this, Nazi Germany? Because that’s exactly what it feels like to me. If this man was your father or grandfather and you had to watch this horrifying thing happen to him – what would you do? I, for one, despite any illegality, would be up in a second trying to get those TSA agents’ faces to meet the floor. I might get arrested and have a criminal record – but I’d accept that because no one does that to someone I love who is that old.
But the bottom line is: They charged this man for a service and he made accomodations to rely on that service. They suddenly require him to leave and deny him the service he paid for under an unfair clause in the contract. Why? Because they wanted the man to give his seat to an employee who never signed up for the flight beforehand. The man refused, and instead of being civilized, they acted like barbarians and beat him up and threw him off the plane. Not only did he suffer physical trauma, but humiliation and dehumanization.
Never would I guess such a horrific thing could happen on our own first world soil where we have progressive rules and laws in place. This is a scene straight from a Middle Eastern war documentary or something. (Maybe that’s going too far, I don’t know).
United Airlines should have upped their financial incentive and acted civilized. Instead, they showed the world how they really view a fellow human being – simply an object that makes them money. Very disgusting.
The Well-deserved Aftermath
As soon as YouTube videos went viral with the scene recorded by fellow passengers, United Airlines’ stock went down by about a billion dollars (it recovered though). Their public relations got shot to a new low as people took to twitter with rage and comic memes, like United Airlines Is Really Fight Club and This is how we re-accomodate you.
People started tearing up their United Airlines membership cards and posting pics. Boycotts started happening. Protests started happening. It’s a well-deserved disaster for them.
I don’t usually care this much about corporate foulups – but this one truly is vile. Nobody in America should be mistreated that way when we’ve gone to such great lengths to advance human rights and other progressive policies to be an example to developing nations. Then this happens aboard an airplane? That’s truly repulsive.
On the bright side, Dr. David Dao will be receiving millions in a very probable settlement with United Airlines. I’m not sure getting a concussion at 69 years old is worth millions of dollars – but those are his forced rewards now.
How You Can Protect Yourself
Okay – sorry about the rant. But at least now you know about this super horrible incident. Let’s get to the health part. If you’re now worried that you’ll get physically handled (in a dangerous sense) when taking a plane, working out will protect yourself.
Researchers found that people who exercise regularly have stronger bones and constitutions. When you exercise your muscles, it puts strain on your bones, which forces them to become stronger. So if TSA tries to mishandle you, at least you won’t suffer broken bones (or as many and severe).
Also, working out regularly has been found to keep your body younger. Women past their sixties who worked out for an hour a day were found to have bodies that were at least 20 years younger than people of their age who didn’t work out. If you’re getting on in years, working out keeps your body young so it can withstand the TSA.
I’d rather protect myself from any weird incidents at the airport instead of “hope it doesn’t happen to me.” Better to be safe than sorry.
Also, remember to boycott United Airlines. They’re inhumane – probably the epitome of corporate greed. It’s like a throwback to the early industrial period when children were allowed to work in factories and got injured. They don’t care about people – they care about the money people give them even if it costs them their health.
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