Summary
United Airlines apologized to Melissa Sotomayor after crew members tried to make her remove her son’s ventilator during a March 8 flight from Tampa to Newark.
Sotomayor, whose 2-year-old son relies on a ventilator and tracheostomy tube, said staff demanded the equipment be stowed for takeoff despite prior medical clearance.
A third flight attendant claimed the child would “be OK” without it. The captain called her “difficult” and said the equipment was a safety risk.
Sotomayor expressed feeling humiliated and vowed never to fly United again.
Everyone keeps flying on United despite a million stories happening to “other people” but it won’t happen to them. Fucking honestly I’m running out of sympathy for people who give their money to profoundly shitty companies and then are shocked when they’re treated badly.
I just was posting in a thread about boycotts, and mentioned how most shitty companies that are being called for boycotts are companies I started boycotting long ago, and my example was United.
I’ve already been boycotting them for years, for destroying guitars, and beating their passengers unconscious, or just offering the highest prices for the worst service, which is the main reason I avoid them. I just want to get to another airport, and Im happy with doing it the cheapeat way, as long as they don’t destroy my guitar or beat me senseless.
Did one or both of those things happen to you on a United flight? Was it the same flight? Did they break your guitar over you? Did you discover your guitar was broken and went to complain and the dude behind the counter just started beating the shit out of you?
I’m locked in and would love the context.
United Breaks Guitars
United security viciously assaults doctor on flight.
Ah, I had not heard about these. Thanks for the links!
Until you start up a “nice” airline and get the infrastructure going, maybe try to maintain a little of that precious sympathy for those of us with no other fucking choice.
Is there an airline we shouldn’t be boycotting?
Non-North America based if possible, Air Alaska group if not IMO, Southwest used to be a decent option but not since the hedge fund took over. Might be other choices if you’re East Coast based. Might be CA options better than Air Canada that I’m unfamiliar with too.
That’s completely unrealistic for US based people. All we have are asshole companies.
I’m US based, I only fly Air Alaska basically but obviously I live in the Northwest. There’s a fallacy though that “oh, ethical consumption is impossible therefore it doesn’t matter.” Just because it’s a choice between Delta, AA and United, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still pick the slightly less shit option and fly Delta.
Delta is like the fucking Target of air travel I swear. They’re still a shitty mega corporation but it’s where you pay a tiny bit extra to not use Walmart/United
I wasn’t suggesting anything of the sort. I was saying that only using alaska was not possible for the vast majority of americans. Of course you should be attempting to use the least shitty option. It’s just not possible to only use the non-shitty option. You gotta get where you gotta get.
Alaska isn’t even a non-shitty option to be clear. They have a storied history of cost-cutting at the expense of safety. They just seem to be reliably the least shitty.
I live in NA. There are no other options. Occasionally there is an Air Alaska flight.
I would like to say it’s due to empathy… But I stopped flying United just because it’s objectively the worst airline. Planes are cramped, tickets are expensive, cancellations have been an issue, treatment is atrocious. It’s shouldn’t be hard to vote with your wallet when literally any alternative is better