In the wee hours of Monday morning, a passenger who had boarded a redeye United Airlines flight in San Francisco bound for Houston became enraged when they found a passenger sitting in the seat they thought should have been theirs. They were supposed to be in first class but demanded to sit in coach.
The angry man, who was “slurring his speech a little bit,” according to a passenger taking video of the incident, attacked a flight attendant and “nearly jumped out of the plane.” Here’s what’s even stranger – the passengers were sure they were supposed to be in coach, and were mad that someone was in that seat, and refused when a flight attendant tried to seat the couple in their first class seats.
After he paused for a minute, he ran toward where the pilot was, where the emergency exit doors are, and attempted to open it. (He) successfully opened the emergency exit and was about to jump down…The plane is elevated, so he would have jumped apparently two stories to the ground, and the flight attendants just kicked in, and everybody pulled him back to safety.
An unruly passenger was restrained after appearing to punch United employee during flight. @MonaKAbdi reports. pic.twitter.com/eFcgCUPRyo
— Good Morning America (@GMA) May 2, 2023
It seems to me like the best outcome would have been to offer up the first class seats to the passengers seated in coach, so the angry ones could downgrade themselves?
According to Untied Airlines,
On Sunday night, our team at San Francisco International Airport immediately contacted law enforcement officials after a customer became disruptive during boarding. We’re grateful to our team in San Francisco for their professionalism in this situation and for looking out for the safety of our customers and their fellow United employees.
The couple left the plane without further incident.
Can we all just agree on how unreasonably confusing this article is due to Gary saying “they” instead if “he”. Makes no sense, but at least you are politically correct.
Okay, that’s a new one.
I would have thought they’d have been ‘charged’ as disruptive passengers and taken by law enforcement? Where were the SFO Police?
An interesting point, Gary – you are probably gagging seeing how many bare feet are on this flight!
Slowing becoming the TMZ of travel/points blogs.
And once they were offloaded the real tragedy is the next two people on the upgrade list didn’t get upgraded – the seats went empty
https://www.united.com/en/us/flightstatus/details/505/2023-04-30/SFO/IAH/UA
New spot on the bingo card – guess he was so used to no upgrades, he assumed he lost a ‘good’ coach seat and was relegated to economy minus.
Wait a minute – watched the video more closely – you can see the foot cutout in the bulkhead and the armrests are first class.
The fight takes place in the first class cabin even though the reporter voiceover says ‘fists started flying in the economy cabin’.
I think this was a case of seat confusion within the same cabin – maybe he was a seat poacher.
2A and 1E are the seats that went empty on that flight – so even more likely he wanted to sit directly adjacent to his wife and one of them squatted
“(He) successfully opened the emergency exit and was about to jump down…The plane is elevated, so he would have jumped apparently two stories to the ground, and the flight attendants just kicked in, and everybody pulled him back to safety.”
Next time, the flight crew might remind this passenger that gravity is your friend and to jump off the United Airlines flight to help maintain an on-time departure, which helps to ensure punctuality, smooth the guest travel experience and increase customer satisfaction.
What a dumb shit. Charge him with assault and ban him from United Airlines forever so I don’t have to ever sit next to his fat, sorry ass.
Ambien is a helluva drug…
Next, he will be mowing his lawn at 2am in his birthday suit.
I understand this man’s frustration. Recently I was taking an overnight flight to Europe but was not feeling well. I get severe headaches due to a brain tumor and thought I might benefit from a flat bed seat. So 20 minutes before the flight boarded I asked if I could be upgraded to business. The airline sold me aa new upgraded ticket right there just minutes before the flight. After the plane took off I discovered they sold me a broken seat that had no ability to recline at all. The seat was locked in ‘takeoff’ position. When I complained by letter after the flight I was simply told too bad. I was never given the option to go back to an economy seat that might have given me a slight recline. A crew member told me it was well known that the seat was broken and that seat should never have been sold. In this story, the man acted badly. in my story, the airline did.
This is easy to remedy but the Biden administration hasn’t the guts or intelligence to do so. to mitigate these kinds of incidents, implement the following:
1. Lifetime no-fly list and banned from commercial air travel for life.
2. $15,000 fine, subject to wage garnishment or withholding from government payments such as income tax refund, social security or any other payment from the US government or agency.
Americans cannot control their behavior- on a plane or any where else.
@DFWSteve
If those rules were implemented, there would be far fewer Trumpers on flights, and far more Trumpers $15K poorer. Brilliant suggestion. Do it Biden!!
@DARKBrandon
Most violence an crime are committed by Democrats and their muscle.
Republicans pay more in taxes.