2 Airport Employees Dismissed, 1 Suspended Due to David Dao Incident

The David Dao incident on a United Airlines flight occurred back in April 2017. It took over 6 months before we find out the consequences to the employees. The Chicago Department of Aviation to decide to fire two security officers and suspending another one for 5 days, who later resigned anyway.

You can read more about the story in this news report.

Thoughts going forward

The entire incident has been well-documented. Not to take away from the incident, because I am sure that there is always more to the story than what we read online, bottom line is, I just hope that airlines take a fairer approach to overbooking. The easy answer is to stop overbooking. But let’s say airlines are willing to accept the consequences of overbooking.

I understand that airlines want to maximize their profits, and some airlines already increased their compensation to passengers that get bumped off a flight because of overbooking. However, to simply put it, if the passenger is on the plane, do not take them off. If the plane is full, you do not let the passengers still standing at the gate to board. Unfortunately, they are the ones who need to get bumped.

Some may feel that this story has been excessively covered already, but I think it goes beyond David Dao. I cannot understand how you can take someone out of their seat. Imagine how this makes every passengers feel in the entire world? Just because we boarded the plane, does not mean that we get to stay on the plane? I almost have to hold my breathe until we take off to feel secure that I will not be asked to disembark because of overbooking.

Again, I am sure that there are more details to this story, but I just hope that airlines learned some hard lessons from this incident.

Feel free to share your thoughts! What do you think airlines should do to avoid this type of incident from happening again?