After a senior-citizen couple was kicked off a late-night United flight over duplicate seat assignments, the company branded the 68-year grandmother as 'belligerent.'
Professors Jessie Au & Guill Wientjes together. They say they were unfairly kicked off a UnitedA married couple, Jessie Au, 68, and her husband M.G. Wientjes, 66, both PhDs, were kicked off a late-night United flight from Washington, DC to Los Angeles earlier this summer.
I contacted United Airlines multiple times to hear their side of the story, but did not receive an on-the-record response before publication. On September 13, we received the following statement from a United spokesperson. "At United, we hold ourselves to the highest standards of professionalism. Following this issue, we reached out to our customers and our team to find out what happened.
They got boarding passes with assigned seats 21A and 21C in the exit row. The couple boarded in the first two boarding groups, stowed carry-ons and relaxed in their seats. About 20 minutes later, another passenger in the 5th boarding group appeared with a boarding pass for 21A. A flight attendant took both boarding passes and headed to the back of the plane, apparently to try to resolve the situation.
Au says, “The flight attendant and gate agent both yelled at us. We were traumatized. You could hear them screaming throughout the plane. “Don’t touch me! You are coming out! I’m going to kick you off the plane.” Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, May 2, 2017. Munoz faces the House panels grilling over the violent removal of a passenger from an overcrowded United flight in whats become a familiar Capitol Hill ritual, the rhetorical flogging of executives for corporate misbehavior. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/BloombergThe Wientjes, who say they were sitting in their assigned seats and felt “abused” by United, refused to leave.
“This event was caused by mistakes of two UA employees, the gate agent who double-assigned the same seat to two passengers and the flight attendant who misplaced our boarding pass,” claims Dr. Au. “But no one apologized for the UA mistakes nor acknowledged that UA violated their Contract of Carriage that a seated passenger cannot be removed unless the passenger presents a security or safety risk.”
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