Pretty much everyone is united against United at this point. Ellen DeGeneres weighed in on the airline’s recent controversy over a passenger that was dragged off an overbooked flight from Chicago to Louisville on Sunday, April 9. See what she said in the video above.
Video footage of the incident went viral, and the comedian, 59, gave her take on the horrific situation during her talk show on Tuesday, April 11. “There was a United flight in Chicago that was overbooked, and to make room for people, they forcibly removed one of the passengers — did y’all hear about this?” she said. “It’s crazy. They charged him a $50 removal fee. That’s not true. That’s not true. Your first forcible removal is free.”
She quipped that the flight was made even worse by the movie choice. “Everyone on the flight was very upset by this,” she said. “On top of that, the in-flight movie was Manchester by the Sea, so it was very depressing, the whole flight — can you imagine?”
On a serious note, DeGeneres blasted the airline and offered a simple solution to avoid future issues. “The biggest problem was the way United handled it. They had a computer pick a random person and just took them off the plane. That seems like a bad policy,” she said. “Here’s a better policy: Don’t overbook your flight.”
The TV personality was also baffled by an incident last month, in which two teenage girls were not allowed to board a United flight because they were wearing leggings. “A few weeks ago, a girl was told she couldn’t get on a flight because she was wearing yoga pants. United said yoga pants aren’t appropriate for flying, which is crazy because I’ve seen more yoga pants at airports than I’ve seen in yoga classes,” she joked. “I think United didn’t want people to wear yoga pants because there’s nothing to grab when you’re yanking someone to pull them out. There’s nothing to hold onto. I took it too far. I told the truth.”
