Overbooking?A Doctor Was Dragged Out From Seat Violently!

April.10th, an incident happened in Chicago O'Hare international airport, on the flight 3411 of United Airlines from Chicago to Louisville. Due to overbooking, 4 passengers were chosen randomly to give up their seats since nobody want to.  

One of the 4 passengers, a 69-year-old Asian doctor, who refused to give up his seat, was violently dragged off from his seat and was removed from the U.A flight by the security officers.

👇Let's watch the video shot by a witness 

It's reported that the Asian doctor had to be at the hospital to scheduled a surgery in the next morning, so he refused to get off the flight. Later on , the violent incident happened.

Then this controversial incident was soon spreaded across the internet. Many people expressed their anger against United Airlines because they held an opinion that, the 69-year-old doctor had been assigned a seat and boarded successfully, so he should had right to keep his seat and be respected. 

# United Airlines issued an official apology after the incident.

Genearlly, airlines can't make passengers get off their flights unless the reasons as below:

• Suspected terrorist

• Drunk heavily and disorderly conduct

• Outbreak of diseases

• Fake tickets

But when you are chosen to give up your seat due to overbooking, what can you do? 

You can ask for a written application letter with the rights in details and the reasons why you are ask to give up your seat but not others. 

Especially, some airlines will ask those passengers who pay the lowest price or those who check in at last to get off the flight.

• If the airline books another flight for you and the delay time is less than 1 hr, you have no right to claim compensation. (both domestic & international flight)

• If the delay time is less than 2 hrs, you can apply for double of your ticket price as the compensation.

• If the airline books another flight for you, and 2 hrs at the scheduled time of arrival( 4 hrs for international flight), then you can get double of your one way ticket as compensation.(Maximum : $650)

• If the delay time is more than 2 hrs, or the airlines don’t make any arrangements for you, your claim will be doubled  again.

• If the airline doesn’t book another flight for you, or more than 2hrs longer than scheduled time of arrival(4 hrs for international flight), you have right to enjoy 400% of the fare(Maximum : $1300)

• If the compensation offered by airline is much less than the value you give up the flight, you can try to talk with airline's complaints department. If not, you have 30 days to decide whether to accept it or not.

source: 走进美国休斯敦/BBC

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