Another week, another United P.R. disaster. This time, a giant pet rabbit died on a United flight from London to O'Hare, and the airline's... not exactly sure what happened. The news is enough to make any responsible pet owner pause and ask, "How can I best protect my pet when he or she has to fly in cargo? What are the best practices for making sure my darling is going to 1) live and 2) be as comfortable as possible?"
Everyone is horrified by how United Airlines has treated a paying passenger it decided to kick off a plane after he had boarded. One minor but chilling aspect of the horror? How United's own comments abuse what language actually means to try and justify its shitty behaviour.
Airlines in the US are within their rights to kick you off an overbooked plane, even if you've paid for a ticket and don't want to leave. According to United employees, a "computer" picked a man who said he was a doctor and needed to see patients in the morning to be dragged off a flight this weekend. How does the computer know who to pick? The airlines' policies offer some clues.
