United Airlines forcibly kicked out passenger Dr. David Dao off flight 3411 after the trip was confirmed to be overbooked. Meanwhile, United Airlines CEO defended their employee who forced Dr. Dao off the flight, which caused negative responses and caused the company's stocks to drop.
Last Saturday, after the passengers have settled in their seats, flight 3411 was announced as overbooked. The passengers who would have to be kicked off were to give way to four crew members of another flight who needed to be given seats on this particular flight, CNN confirmed.
Since no one wanted to give up their seats, the crew chose randomly, and one of them was Dr. David Dao.
According to another passenger, Jayse Anspach, Dr. Dao and his wife were initially willing to give up their seats. However, upon learning that the next flight would be scheduled on Monday, Dao refused and explained that he had to be at his work soon to attend to his patients.
Regardless of Dr. Dao's pleas, he was still forced out of the flight. As seen from the viral Facebook video of Dr. Dao getting dragged from the isle, he had blood dripping from his mouth because his head hit an armrest.
There were speculations that Dr. Dao was chosen to be forced out of the flight because he was Chinese, yet there are no details to confirm this claim.
Meanwhile, United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz shared an internal memo where he defended the flight crew that took Dr. Dao from his seat.
Munoz explained that their employees were only following protocol and that he commends them "for continuing to go above and beyond to ensure we fly right." This caused a riot among customers of the airlines, and they have begun protesting by disposing of their United credit cards.
The stock market of United Airlines also took a big drop by 4 percent, leaving the company's value to decrease by $1 billion.
Dr. David Dao's family refuses to speak to the media until he has gotten out of the hospital and has fully recovered.
