United Airlines, Aviation Department Grilled During City Council Hearing
By Stephen Gossett in News on Apr 13, 2017 9:05PM
United Airlines officials and the commissioner of Chicago's Department of Aviation apologized at a hearing in front of the City Council Aviation Committee for the violent dragging of Dr. David Dao from his flight—even as UAL officials were limited in what they could say, due to to pending litigation and investigations.
“We deeply, deeply regret what happened,” said Margaret Houlihan Smith, Managing Director Government Affairs for United, calling Dao's removal "unacceptable mistreatment."
Ginger Evans, Commissioner of the CDA, told the committee that she felt “extreme regret” for how officers handled the situation. Evans said the department would pursue increased training in verbal de-escalation tactics and emotional intelligence.
She also said that an outside, "international" security expert would review Chicago's airport policies.
A directive had been issued in January to change labels on aviation security officers' jackets to read "security" instead of "police," according to the CDA commissioner. Evans said she would “prefer to answer at a later time" as to why the ASOs' outfits still read "police" on Sunday.
Ald. Ed Burke (14th Ward) meanwhile, was in vintage demonstrative form as he laid into the panel. The incident took "passenger mistreatment to astonishing new levels" he said, adding that city law enforcement “should not be doing the dirty work for the Friendly Skies Airline.”
A United representative said most situations in which would-be passengers are asked to give up a space are handled at the gate, prior to boarding. "Unfortunately... we failed," he said.
John Slater, vice president of O’Hare operations of United, said he was “limited in what we can say today." But even without delving into policy detail, when asked about passenger "bumping," Slater said, "There's no script for this."
Passengers were offered compensation and a hotel to volunteer off the plane, he said. When asked how often United offers the maximum $1350 allowed under the law to incentivize removals, United said it would answer later through committee.
Deputy Commissioner of Security for CDA Jeff Redding said that aviation security officers are not supposed to board planes in order to handle customer service incidents, per department policy. Whether or not Dao's case constituted a customer service incident, Redding said he could not say due to the investigation.
Representatives from United said it will finish a review of pertinent policies by April 30.
Dao suffered a broken nose, a concussion and lost two front teeth in the violent removal, one of his attorneys, Tom Demetrio, said at a press conference earlier on Thursday. Dao was released from a Chicago hospital on Wednesday, Demetrio said. Three aviation officers have been place on leave due to the incident.
Dao's legal team filed documents on Wednesday to preserve key materials related to the incident, including the crew list, explanations of company policy and pertinent aviation-police files. Demetrio said there will "probably" be a lawsuit, one that could be directed toward both United and the City of Chicago.
This post has been updated.