Jimmy Kimmel has some questions for United about forcibly removing passengers

Jimmy Kimmel Live! has some feedback on removing passengers and a new ad for United.

Sunday night, video surfaced on a man in Chicago being forcibly removed from a United Airlines flight to Louisville and Jimmy Kimmel had a few things to say about that in his monologue on Monday.

The incident started fairly routine: United overbooked a flight and began offering incentives for passengers to take a different flight. The passengers all refused the $400 vouchers, then the $800 vouchers, at which point United randomly selected four passengers. Three left the plane begrudgingly, but the third refused. The man, who is a doctor, told the airline he needed to get home and needed to be at the hospital in the morning. What appears to be airport security then pulls the man out of his seat and drags his body through the aisle and off the plane. To make matters worse, United employees filled the seats.

Needless to say, Kimmel had a lot of follow-up questions for the airline.

See the segment, which includes the disturbing footage of the man’s removal as well as new ad for United, below.

Oscar Munoz, the CEO of United, responded in a predictably corporate way with, as Kimmel puts it, “sanitized, say-nothing, take-no-responsibility, corporate bs-speak.” Munoz apologized for having to “re-accommodate” the passengers
(“Like when we re-accommodated El Chapo out of Mexico”) via a statement on Twitter. Then, he doubled down in an email to staff, targeting the passenger as disruptive and belligerent.

must read: 30 times Bill Maher bodybagged Republicans

Overbooking is, of course, a thing that airlines can and frequently do, and removing passengers is, apparently, acceptable operating procedure. (You know, like barring teenage girls for wearing leggings while flying on a travel pass.) That said, both the federal Transportation Department and the Chicago Department of Aviation are conducting reviews.