Contact: Frank Xu, President of San Diego Asian Americans for Equality, 8582151162,
On April 9th, a 69-year-old doctor, David Dao, was physically assaulted and dragged out by Chicago Security Officers from United Express Flight 3411 at O’Hare International Airport, after the airline targeted him for removal to insert UA employees into a fully booked flight.
On April 10th, Oscar Munoz, CEO of United Airlines issued the first statement and a letter to his employees stating that the passenger was “disruptive and belligerent”. However, in the face of public outcry, on April 11th, Mr. Munoz released the second statement apologizing and stating that the carrier will “communicate the results of our review by April 30th”.
SDAAFE firmly stands behind Dr. Dao and wishes him a speedy recovery. Using excessive force to remove a peaceful, seated passenger is unjustifiable and reflects a blatant disrespect and disregard for the safety of passengers. We demand Chicago Department of Aviation start an immediate investigation of the officers involved in this horrific violation against their conduct code.
While SDAAFE appreciates Mr. Munoz’s latest statement and his apologetic gesture, we strongly believe it is necessary to keep the topic active since numerous questions exposed by this incident remain unanswered. We demand United Airlines respond to the public by 4/30 addressing the following questions:
- How was this attempt of seating four UA employees AFTER all passengers were seated defined as an “overbooking” procedure?
- Who authorized those four UA-related individuals to board at last minute? And why were they deemed higher priority over paying passengers sitting on reserved seats? What are the policies and procedures for determining boarding priority?
- In what scenarios does UA allow forceful removal of seated passengers after boarding, and does this incident fall into one of them?
- What was the procedure to pick out passengers to be “bumped” in this incident? Was it done by a computer program deployed in the UA computer system as part of standard procedure before this incident, or was it done by arbitrary hand-picking?
- What instruction did UA employees give to the Aviation Officers, and were these instructions in line with UA policies? What procedures should UA employees follow after the violent force was applied to Dr. Dao?
“Any one of us could be in the position of Dr. Dao. We are launching this campaign in the hope to push the entire industry to take action to strengthen the rights of airline passengers and make sure to treat passengers fairly and consistently”, said Frank Xu, President of SDAAFE.
The FryUnited campaign will include but is not limited to, to encourage people to boycott United Airlines, to cancel its partner credit cards, and to personally demonstrate their anger and frustration towards this disturbing incident in airports all across the nation.
San Diego Asian Americans for Equality is a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering Asian Americans to win equal opportunity and justice through active participation in civic and public affairs in San Diego County. It has the largest nonpartisan Asian American PAC in San Diego with over 1700 members.