Passenger Refuses To Get Kicked Off Flight – And United Lets Her Stay [Roundup]

by Gary Leff

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • I think this is a first for an inflight incident I’ve ever seen. A passenger melted down at the start of a United Airlines flight. It reached the point that staff came on board the aircraft and asked her to leave. She refused, saying she was going to stay and fly home. And the airline is just like, “ok fine.”

    The memory of David Dao looms large, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a passenger just decline to get off in a situation like this and actually be allowed to stay. Have you?

  • United expected to upgrade transcon business class catering.

  • No due process for dogs pets are getting banned from United. (HT: @crucker)

  • Do ANA international inflight meals taste better on the ground than they do in the air?

  • Mom flew business class, while her baby flew coach. No, the baby wasn’t alone in the back of the plane.

    @ellcochlin Am I horrible for leaving them both in economy?It was my only opportunity to have a baby free flight and I took it, what would you do? #flying #businessclass #longhaul #traveltiktok #luxurytravel ♬ original sound – A

  • Europe has signed off on the Korean Air-Asiana merger. Can a Biden administration that hasn’t ever seen an airline partnership it liked possibly ok it, too? Surely they would insist on terminating the Korean Air joint venture with Delta, right? The troika would have a near-monopoly on flights between the U.S. and Seoul.

    Aside from Air Premia service, United flies from San Francisco and American from Dallas. Or are we back to “the administration enforces competition rules in whatever way benefits Delta?”

  • This seems like it can’t be true

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  2. Re; the “I’m not leaving..” woman: you are amplifying a couple of context-free videos without knowing any back story, the flight number, the ID of the main character in question, etc. This strikes me as a journalistically risky thing to do. There was obviously much more going on here than these short squirts of video indicate, and none of us know the rest of the story.

  3. Closer to a quarter century ago, Delta at DCA tried to kick me off a DL Shuttle flight that I had already boarded since they thought my ticket coupon wasn’t valid despite having already issued me a boarding pass and having accepted it for boarding. I got off the plane on their demand, but I refused to say whether or not I had taken off my cabin baggage when I deplaned empty-handed. DL didn’t want to empty the plane and re-board everyone, and so a supervisor who may have recognized me from other flights said to let me back on to get the flight out on schedule. Worked out well for me.

  4. What is it with the need to drag a dog everywhere? Did they also take it to the funeral and wedding mentioned in the stories?

    Love people who show up and blithely say, oh, you don’t mind if I bring my dog along, do you? Yeah, I do. Take it home.

  5. Well played GUWonder

    For this video no context at all – dont’ see anything disruptive. But odd that the guy who appears to be her companion gets up and off the plane saying ‘you deal with it.’ Unless he was the complainant?

    Things don’t add up.

  7. Nothing in the video would justify removing her. Her behavior may be a little odd or atypical, but odd or atypical alone should not get one kicked off a flight. I am NOT saying this applies to her, but for example, do we start kicking off individuals with autism because they rock or repeat words, etc.?

  10. I am a serious animal lover. But dogs are appearing in far too many places these days. It’s ridiculous to bring your dog grocery shopping. It’s ridiculous to bring your dog to an outdoor event when the temp is 85 degrees. People who ‘drag their dogs everywhere’ have some kind of emotional need that’s not being met. As usual, they get away with it by screaming loudly … common sense has been replaced by self-absorption. He who screams the loudest gets his way in America. Unless they’re service dogs, they should not be allowed in many places for many reasons.

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