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United saga brings back bad memories

This Sunday, April 9, 2017, image made from a video provided by Audra D. Bridges shows a passenger being removed from a United Airlines flight in Chicago. Video of police officers dragging the passenger from an overbooked United Airlines flight sparked an uproar Monday on social media, and a spokesman for the airline insisted that employees had no choice but to contact authorities to remove the man.
This Sunday, April 9, 2017, image made from a video provided by Audra D. Bridges shows a passenger being removed from a United Airlines flight in Chicago. Video of police officers dragging the passenger from an overbooked United Airlines flight sparked an uproar Monday on social media, and a spokesman for the airline insisted that employees had no choice but to contact authorities to remove the man. AP

Watching the video of the forcible removal of a passenger from a United Airlines flight reminded me of an issue I had with United several years ago. I flew from Tampa to San Francisco and, on landing in San Francisco, discovered that United’s baggage handlers had broken the back of my heavy-duty rolling duffel. I reported this damage to United’s baggage claim representative, and was given a claim form.

When I returned home, I contacted United’s “customer service” regarding my claim, and was told by a person with a south Asian accent that “You do not have a claim.” Strange, since United’s own representative had given me the claim form!

I subsequently sent two registered letters, complete with pictures of the damage, to United; one to their customer service office, and one to the CEO, regarding my broken luggage. I didn’t even receive the courtesy of a reply from United to either letter.

When I mentioned this to my son, a “diamond” frequent flyer, he commented that if that had happened to him, the airline would have likely bent over backwards to accommodate him, but, in my case, since I’m not a frequent flyer, he told me that United probably just didn’t feel that they needed to bother themselves with my problem.

It appears that this same attitude is still alive and well at United.

Ernest Soller

Bradenton

This story was originally published April 14, 2017 at 6:41 PM with the headline "United saga brings back bad memories."

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