“I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right.”
United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz has issued a statement offering his deep apologies to the customer that was forcibly removed from United Express flight 3411.
Footage of the passenger being removed from the flight and suffering injury in the process was widely circulated on social media this week after United Airlines had overbooked the flight and were unsuccessful in their attempts to find a fourth volunteer willing to remove themselves from the flight.
https://twitter.com/Tyler_Bridges/status/851214160042106880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.joe.ie%2Fnews%2Fwatch-leaked-email-reveals-passenger-dragged-flight-584700
In a leaked email distributed to employees, United CEO Oscar Munoz did not apologise to the passenger in question, but instead said that he “refused to comply with crew member instructions” and “defied” security.
“We sought volunteers and then followed our involuntary denial of boarding process (including offering up to $1,000 in compensation),” Munoz wrote in a letter seen by ABC.
“When we approached one of these passengers to explain apologetically that he was being denied boarding, he raised his voice and refused to comply with crew member instructions.
“He was approached a few more times after that in order to gain his compliance to come off the aircraft and each time he refused and became more and more disruptive and belligerent.”
In a statement released on Tuesday, however, Munoz struck a far more conciliatory tone, describing the removal of the passenger as a “truly horrific event”, saying that he continues to be disturbed by what happened and offering his deep apologies to the passenger involved.
United CEO Oscar Munoz: I’m sorry. We will fix this. https://t.co/v8EPGsiDCi pic.twitter.com/eOPiYcagvo
— United Airlines (@united) April 11, 2017
You can read the statement in full below.
Dear Team,
The truly horrific event that occurred on this flight has elicited many responses from all of us: outrage, anger, disappointment. I share all of those sentiments, and one above all: my deepest apologies for what happened. Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard. No one should ever be mistreated this way.
I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right.
It’s never too late to do the right thing. I have committed to our customers and our employees that we are going to fix what’s broken so this never happens again. This will include a thorough review of crew movement, our policies for incentivizing volunteers in these situations, how we handle oversold situations and an examination of how we partner with airport authorities and local law enforcement. We’ll communicate the results of our review by April 30th.
I promise you we will do better.
Sincerely,
Oscar
