The incident happened before takeoff on New Year’s Day. A video of what occurred was recorded by Norma Rodgers, an oncology nurse who was seated next to the fat-shamer, and went viral in recent days.
<!– –>
Airlines
Football fans stuck on a plane during the Super Bowl will be in luck on some United Airlines flights.
As part of a move to enhance the flying experience, the carrier is no longer charging passengers who want to watch DirecTV. That change takes place immediately, which will be welcome news for those in the air during the Super Bowl, which kicks off Sunday night.
“This year, we will be introducing a series of innovations and improvements designed to help build a great experience for all our customers,” chief customer office Toby Enqvist said in a statement.
The change will be seen on 211 United 737s that have DirecTV service. Previously, passengers had to pay either $5.99 or $7.99 to watch live TV, depending on the length of the flight.
Some of United’s competitors already offer free entertainment options on board. For example, JetBlue Airways has free DirecTV throughout its fleet and American Airlines passengers can stream live television from their personal devices on board many domestic and international flights
Making DirecTV free is part of United’s plan to improve its customer service image.
Last year, the airline was blasted after a flight attendant had a customer put a dog in an overhead bin for a flight. The dog died in flight, prompting days of bad press for United. And in 2017, United found itself apologizing, and ultimately paying a settlement, for dragging a passenger off of a plane that was oversold. The video of security officers pulling the passenger out of his seat and dragging him down the aisle created an uproar on social media.
While apologizing for the incident, CEO Oscar Munoz called the treatment of the passenger a shame, adding: “We will work to make it right.”
Since then, Munoz and his team have focused on improving the airline’s customer service. United has dramatically reduced the number of passengers it bumps from flights, and its on-time arrival performance improved in 2018.
CNBC’s
Leslie Josephs
contributed to this article.
Playing
Share this video…
Watch Next…
United Airlines is tightening its policy on emotional support animals on its flights.
Starting Monday, support animals are no longer allowed on flights longer than eight hours.
United says it’s making the change because of a rise in on-board animal-related incidents.
In addition, the airline will no longer allow kittens or puppies less than four months as support animals, in-cabin pets or service animals, saying animals that young typically haven’t had all the necessary vaccinations.
Delta and Spirit also recently changed their policies, now requiring at least 48 hours notice to bring service animals on flights.
Your emotional support animal in training may not get to fly business class anymore.
Or any other class, for that matter.
United Airlines is changing its policies regarding emotional support animals, banning animals under the age of 4 months from the cabin, “to further ensure the well-being of our employees and customers while accommodating passengers with disabilities,” the company said in a blog post on Thursday.
“This is just another move in a long line of moves to restrict pets on aircrafts,” said Christopher Elliott, founder of consumer advocacy organization Elliott.org. “Animals could go the way of peanuts on planes at some point in the future — ideally airlines do not want to have any animals in the cabin.”
The new policy will go into effect on Jan. 7 and comes weeks after Delta Air Lines made a similar change. “Animals under the age of four months typically have not received the necessary vaccinations that help ensure the safety of our employees and customers,” United said. The airline did not respond to a request for additional comment.
United will also limit animals allowed on flights, banning all emotional support animals that are not dogs and cats. Service animals, which unlike emotional support animals are trained to assist a qualified person with a disability, are still accepted on flights as long as they are a dog, cat or miniature horse, the new policy said.
This comes after United turned away one passenger in January 2018 for attempting to board with her “emotional support peacock,” for whom she had purchased a ticket.
The number of animals in the cabin has been on the rise in recent months, despite the fact that Delta, American and United Airlines have tightened paperwork requirements on emotional support animals. Most service animals, which are trained to assist a qualified person with a disability, are still accepted on flights
Delta said it had six biting incidents in a period of two months in early 2018 and the number of “animal incidents” on planes, ranging from urination to barking and biting, has increased 84 percent since 2016, Delta chief operating officer Gil West told The Wall Street Journal in August.
The airline carries an average of 700 emotional support animals per day on flights, up from 450 a day in 2016, West said.
Delta banned pit bull dogs from flights in July 2018 after a dog scratched a flight attendant, and United Airlines banned dozens of breeds of dogs from flights in May 2018, including bulldogs, Boston terriers, all kinds of pugs and boxers, Shih Tzus, mastiffs, American bully, pit bulls, American Staffordshire terrier, and Pekingese. Many of these breeds have been found to suffer respiratory problems on flights.
Elliott said the rise in animal passengers reflects a larger shift in how people view their pets — one airlines are struggling to combat.
“The role pets play in society has really shifted in the past couple years,” he said. “When people think of pets as children, they will do anything to fly with them. But pets should really stay at home.”
TAMUNING, Guam—United Airlines announced its plans for extra sections to meet the demand for travel during the upcoming Spring Break and Golden Week holiday period in Japan. United added nine extra flights on Boeing 737 aircraft between Tokyo, Narita and Guam, beginning on March 31, 2019 (March 31, April 2, April 5, April 28, April 29, May 1, May 2, May 4, and May 5). These flights will add more than 1,300 seats each way between Tokyo and Guam. This year’s Golden Week holiday is expected to last 10 days from April 27 through May 6.
United reintroduced the Boeing 777-200 aircraft on two of three daily flights between Guam and Tokyo’s Narita International Airport through March 30, 2019. During the upcoming non-peak season from April 1 through July 31, a Boeing 737 aircraft will be used for all three daily flights. United will once again reintroduce B777s on two of its three daily flights beginning August 1, 2019 though the end of the Winter Season on March 30, 2020. The reintroduction of the B777s during this period will offer customers nearly 900 daily seats each way between Tokyo and Guam.
“We are extremely pleased to offer our customers more opportunities to travel between Tokyo, Narita and Guam during the Spring and Golden Week holidays,” said Sam Shinohara, United managing director of Asia/Pacific Airport Operations. “We continue to monitor the Guam market closely and adjust accordingly to the demand for travel in a very timely manner. We are committed to working with local stakeholders and the Guam Visitors Bureau (GVB) to boost traffic to Guam. Supporting the recovering Japan market has been a top priority for our sales teams.”
Due to a strong demand for travel between Nagoya, Japan and Guam after the Winter period, United will continue to offer 11 weekly flights between the two cities. This schedule will continue to meet the strong demand for leisure travel to Guam and provide customers with convenient morning and evening departure times.
GVB president and CEO Jon Nathan Denight said, “We thank United for their unwavering support and commitment to the Guam market with the addition of the new segments and quickly adjusting to the demand for travel to Guam. We will continue to work very closely with the United team in Guam and Japan to fill these seats so we can sustain the capacity and frequency we enjoy during peak travel seasons.”
United Airlines and United Express operate approximately 4,800 flights a day to 353 airports across five continents. In 2018, United and United Express operated more than 1.7 million flights carrying more than 158 million customers. United is proud to have the world’s most comprehensive route network, including U.S. mainland hubs in Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Newark/New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. United operates 770 mainline aircraft and the airline’s United Express carriers operate 559 regional aircraft. The airline is a founding member of Star Alliance, which provides service to 193 countries via 28-member airlines. For more information, visit united.com, follow @United on Twitter or connect on Facebook. The common stock of United’s parent, United Continental Holdings, Inc., is traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol “UAL.” (PR)
<!–
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
–>
Shares of United Continental Holdings, Inc. (UAL) surged in after-hours trading Tuesday after the airline topped analyst revenue and earnings estimates for the latest quarter.
United shares rose about 6% in late trading to $86.03.
The company said it made $2.41 a share, adjusted for one-time items, vs. expectations of $1.99 from analysts surveyed by FactSet.
Revenue hit $10.5 billion vs. expectations of $10.3 billion.
In the same period a year ago the company posted earnings of $1.44 a share on sales of $9.45 billion.
The stock had fallen about 4.1% since the company last reported earnings on Oct. 16.
We all know that, at times, flying can be stressful. From the rush to get to the airport in time to the hassles of security and finding the gate, tensions can be running at max by the time we eventually get to our seats.
However, here at Simple Flying, we believe in simple manners. There’s no need to ever ruin somebody else’s day just because yours isn’t going to plan. That’s a notion which is, apparently, completely alien to one particular United Airlines passenger, who was videoed having a crazy meltdown about being seated in the middle:
Woman Didn’t Want To Sit Between 2 People
Woman Didn’t Want To Sit Between 2 People, On A United Airlines FlightRegards #NormaRodgers Normarn722@gmail.com
Posted by Smash Da Topic Breaking News on Tuesday, January 22, 2019
The blonde lady has some issues with the seat she’s been assigned. Admittedly both people in the aisle and window seat are larger individuals, but her attitude towards the situation is absolutely out of order.
‘I don’t know how I’m going to do this for the next four hours’
OK, so United economy isn’t known for having the most comfortable or the most generously proportioned seats, but surely you’d just ask a flight attendant quietly and respectfully if there are any spare seats on the flight? Not if you’re this particular piece of work, it seems.
‘They’re squishing me’
Loudly complaining on the phone, she blatantly shames her neighbouring passengers, letting everyone on the flight know how disgusted she is with the situation. At one point, she jokes,
‘At least they’ll keep me warm’
The person videoing this episode does not see the funny side of things. Not. At. All.
The pinnacle of her rudeness is when she loudly exclaims that she eats salad. Not once, but twice she pronounces her dietary preferences, presumably to indicate she doesn’t think those other people know of the existence of green vegetables.
‘They’re both so big, I can’t even sit here’
She complains that she can’t breathe, that she’s squished and can’t take it. The blatant rudeness of this passenger is astounding, and yet United’s cabin crew do little to diffuse the situation.
‘I will not be verbally abused’
The lady filming is not at all happy about the way this woman is handling her business. Worse still, she’s a frequent flier, at one point exclaiming, ‘As a Platinum member, I don’t tolerate this sh*t from anybody’
Eventually the woman gets moved. It’s just a shame United didn’t move her to another flight, or perhaps into the waiting arms of airport security, in return for her shocking mistreatment of other paying passengers.
Since the video was posted on social media, it’s had a whole lot of views and stirred up a whole lot of opinions. Right now we’re looking at 11k comments and counting, most of which have come down on the side of the people sitting either side of our moaning madam.
But other’s thought she was right to complain. Several have commented that they wouldn’t be happy to sit there either, although the way she ‘fat shamed’ her neighbours was definitely not right.
Sadly, an awful lot of viewers have taken this issue as a racial slur against the two people she was sitting between. There’s really no need to make it anything more than what it was; simply a person who wasn’t happy with her seating but went about her complaint in entirely the wrong way.
At the end of the day, it’s the chance you take when you book a seat on a regular, economy flight. If you’re concerned about being seated in the middle and are uncomfortable with that eventuality, surely you’d pay to assign a window or aisle seat before you fly?
We reckon Lauren Lo hit the nail on the head:
In video of the incident, the female passenger is sitting between two larger passengers and complaining loudly on her phone about the seating arrangement.
(iStock)
A passenger reportedly flying on a United Airlines flight earlier this year was called out on social media after loudly complaining about her middle seat assignment.
In video of the incident, the female passenger is sitting between two people and complaining loudly on her phone about the seating arrangement while calling her seatmates “so big.”
WARNING: Video contains strong language
“Oh my goodness, I don’t know how I’m going to do this the next four hours. This is just impossible because they’re squishing me,” she can be heard saying on the phone about her seatmates.
MOM SPEAKS OUT AGAINST DELTA AIR LINES PASSENGER WHO ALLEGEDLY FAT-SHAMED HER DURING FLIGHT
“At least they’ll keep me warm,” she continues.
Eventually the woman hangs up the phone and says “find me a window, get me out of here. I can’t do this,” to someone off camera who comes back and tells her there are no other seats available.
The passenger sitting in the window seat, who is recording the exchange, becomes upset with the woman’s words and rings a flight attendant for assistance.
“Excuse me, can you find her another seat? Because I will not be verbally abused by this b—- or anybody else,” the passenger recording the incident says to the flight staff.
The woman in the middle seat begins to demonstrate the cramped quarters, referring to each passenger as “so big” that she can’t move before saying for the second time that she “eats salad.”
BETHENNY FRANKEL CONTINUES SLAMMING AIRLINES THAT SERVE FISH
As the woman is escorted to another seat at the back of the plane, other passengers weigh in telling her she should be “ashamed” of herself and call her “disgusting” for her remarks about her seatmates.
“I’m not politically correct,” she responds.
Since the video was uploaded on social media last week, it has been viewed over 2.3 million times and received split responses.
Some defended the woman in the middle seat wanting to move, though many said she went about it the wrong way.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“I fly long distance a lot. 10 hour flight in this condition? Absolute no. But she could have gone to the flight attendant and spoke privately about the room issue. Humiliating humans around you is never ok. Her goal here is not to just change seat, but to also insult,” one commented on the video.
“Honestly, I can’t blame her…..she has no room at all. You barely have room with people that aren’t big, let alone the size of these two people. They’re both touching her on each side. I would be uncomfortable too, no matter who it was,” another wrote.
“I don’t blame her for wanting to move because they were all too big to share that row however she did not need to be a rude cow about it. She could have spoken discreetly to the attendant save feelings being hurt,” one woman wrote.
While others feel she should have stayed in her seat without complaining – or paid for an upgrade.
FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS
“Should’ve paid for first class then, princess,” one wrote.
“So she’s gonna act like she’s not the size of a linebacker. She going down the aisle sideways. I hope she gets the same treatment she gave,” another said.
“Her whole salad must be croutons. I would have happily sat there. Seem like cool people for not putting up with her awful ass,” one woman commented.
It was not reported if the woman was given another seat.
United Airlines’ newest aircraft type – the Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner – is now in service at the carrier.
United Flight 2418 marked United’s official debut of its “Dash 10,” departing from Los Angeles at 8:49 a.m. local time (11:49 a.m. ET) on Monday morning en route to Newark, New Jersey. Though United touted the flight as the 787-10’s “entry into scheduled service,” the airline has quietly subbed the 787-10 onto some flights in recent weeks ahead of the formal debut.
Now, United will roll the 787-10 onto more of its existing flights that already connect the carrier’s hubs at Newark Liberty and Los Angeles. In addition to the LAX-Newark flights that begin today, United’s 787-10s will begin to pick up some of its Newark-San Francisco flights starting in February.
The 787-10s expand to international service in March, when United adds the jet to routes from Newark to the European cities of Frankfurt, Germany; Paris Charles de Gaulle; Barcelona, Spain; Brussels and Dublin. United also will fly the jet between Newark and Tel Aviv, Israel.
PHOTOS: WestJet’s first Boeing 787 Dreamliner takes flight from Everett, Washington
TODAY IN THE SKY: First look: United shows off its first Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner
The 787-10 is the newest and biggest version yet of Boeing’s Dreamliner. Essentially a stretched version of the smaller 787-8 and 787-9 variants, the 787-10 is 18 feet longer than the 787-9.
United, which already had the other two variants in its fleet, is now the only carrier in the world to be flying all three versions of the Boeing Dreamliner.
United touted its new 787-10 in a statement, saying that its addition “continues United’s comprehensive fleet plan, while providing an improved experience for customers. The aircraft is United’s first Dreamliner model delivered with the airline’s signature Polaris business class seats, and new United Premium Plus seats.”
TODAY IN THE SKY: United reveals first international routes for new Boeing 787-10s
TODAY IN THE SKY: Boeing celebrates delivery of its newest, biggest ‘Dreamliner’ yet
The 787-10 is the newest airplane variant to be rolled out from Boeing, which delivered its first one just this past March to launch customer Singapore Airlines.
United is the first North American airline to both receive and put the 787-10 into passenger service.
United’s 787-10s seat 318 passengers. Included in that configuration are 44 of United’s new “Polaris” lie-flat business-class seats and 21 international-style “Premium Plus” premium economy seats, United’s newest class of service that debuted in 2018. It’s not yet widely rolled out to United’s fleet, but is being installed on all 14 787-10s that United has ordered.
Completing United’s 787-10 layout are 54 extra-legroom Economy Plus seats and 199 in standard coach.
By comparison, United’s 787-8s seat 219 passengers and its 787-9s seat 252.
TODAY IN THE SKY: ‘New airplane smell’: Aboard a 24-hour Singapore delivery flight
Singapore Airlines unveils new cabin interior for Boeing 787-10 ‘Dreamliner’
TODAY IN THE SKY: Boeing celebrates delivery of its newest, biggest ‘Dreamliner’ yet
Passengers aboard a United Airlines flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Hong Kong were left stuck on the ground for more than 14 hours in frigid weather with a dwindling supply of food.
The nightmarish incident began when the 3:05 p.m. flight was diverted to the Goose Bay Airport in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador due to a medical emergency. The plane
, and medical personnel met the aircraft and a passenger was taken to a local hospital.
But as the flight was set to take off again, it experienced a mechanical issue.
That’s when the waiting began.
Passengers were not allowed to leave the airplane because the Goose Bay Airport did not have a customs officer on duty during the overnight hours. Saturday bled into Sunday, and still the flight remained grounded.
Sonjay Dutt, a passenger on the plane, said on Twitter that the plane’s door had broken and that they were stuck on board as the weather dipped to negative-20 degrees outside. Unable to leave for hours upon hours, he began tweeting at United for help, saying that they were running low on food.
On Sunday morning, Goose Bay officials brought on donuts and coffee from Tim Hortons, the classic Canadian fast food restaurant.
United had food delivered to the passengers and “the crew is doing everything possible to assist customers,” a United spokesperson said.
Finally, after more than 14 hours, Dutt was able to get off the plane with the rest of the passengers.
“Its been a long long long long day,” he tweeted.
Lloyd Slade, another passenger on the plane, said he was “just very tired, at this point” on Sunday. “Cabin/flight crew have been excellent and very helpful (United HQ/dispatch, not so much.)”
An alternative aircraft containing meals for the passengers was flown to Goose Bay to transport customers back to Newark.
“We apologize to our customers and our crew is doing everything possible to assist them during the delay,” the company said.
Passenger Steven Lau thanked those who brought Tim Hortons on board.
“(I) feel partly relieved to be on a new plane, but the crew is still loading bags and preparing the aircraft, so not certain when we’ll actually take off,” he said. “It’s nearing 24 hours since we originally took off from Newark, so we’re all feeling restless and frustrated. I’m just ready to be off the plane and finished with this experience.”
Lau said some passengers on the flight had decided to scrap their trips entirely in the wake of the overnight stay on the tarmac. He is planning to wait to see how United can get him there ASAP, he said.