United Airlines is to blame for a screaming doctor being dragged from his plane seat, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Wednesday, and he has asked the Trump administration to do something to keep airlines from overbooking their planes.
"I have unique knowledge on this, because Newark Liberty International Airport is the United hub," the governor told CNN's "New Day" program. "They control 70 percent of the flights in and out of Newark. If I can tell you, I can fill a book with all the complaints I have about United Airlines from constituents."
Christie said he does not believe that United ever recovered from its merger with Continental Airlines, and has not yet established a "culture."
United Airlines CEO Oscar Muñoz vowed Wednesday that the airline will never allow a customer to be dragged from one of its jets, telling ABC that "to remove a booked, paid, seated passenger, we can't do that."
But Muñoz had already made three different statements, said Christie, to say "what everybody could see here, which this is unacceptable, to have somebody pay for a ticket, reserve a seat, be seated, and dragged off the plane physically by law enforcement officers by the direction of United. It's outrageous."
The flight in question, though, was not overbooked. Instead, United had wanted to get four employees onto the plane, and asked for passengers to leave voluntarily.
"It shouldn't take precedence over the people who are paying," said Christie. "As everybody knows, these tickets are not cheap ... passengers are fed up, and they should be."
Christie also said it's a good start for Muñoz to promise United won't drag other passengers from its planes, but it's not enough.
"Why do they offer you the option of paying you to get off the plane if it's not an option?" said Christie. "Once people didn't want to take the pay, they wanted to get to their destination, then you will call the police in to drag you off for a United employee? Work on some other solution to the problem. Do better planning ... with United the customer is always last."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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