If you’re someone who does any amount of air traveling, chances are you’ve had some kind of bad experience at an airport. For most of us though, the bad news ends once we’re on the plane, and heading for home. This was not the case for one doctor, traveling from Chicago to Louisville, KY on a United Airlines flight.
Apparently, United overbooked the flight and needed volunteers to take a later flight. They started off offering $400 and then eventually $800, but no takers. When that didn’t work, they decided to choose 4 people at random and make them wait. One of the cordially required volunteers was a doctor who had patients to see and had no intention of giving up his seat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zthf2IKkBk
As you can see, this man was far from a willing participant in the depopulation of the plane. This was pointed out in a very concise way by Merriam-Webster’s tweet.
📈'Volunteer' means “someone who does something without being forced to do it.” https://t.co/qNAcMyplhZ
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) April 11, 2017
And their take had some fans.
Voluntyranny
— Jed Whitley (@jedwhitley) April 11, 2017
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
— Perez (@ThePerezHilton) April 11, 2017
https://twitter.com/andyrexford/status/851623118187659264
Amen to that.
You can say that he should have just given in and surrendered his seat, and maybe it would have been better for his face if he would have, but the man bought and paid for his travel to Louisville, and he had a right to take that trip.
This is especially disturbing when you factor in that according to the New York Times, there were a few other considerations than just a simple overbooking:
“The employee specified that the airline had four United employees who needed to get to Louisville, he said.
Four passengers were selected to be bumped, and three left without incident, Mr. Hobart said.”
I’m all for big businesses having the ability to maximize their profits, and I’m not one to call out Police on just about anything, but in this writer’s opinion, some people overstepped and somebody needs to be held accountable. Maybe everybody was just following orders, but knocking a passenger senseless because he doesn’t want to accommodate your mistake is way over the line.
(Source: Red State Watcher)