United is taking a day off the intense public scrutiny today – settling with an assaulted passenger – so that rival US airline Delta can have some attention.
A Delta Air Lines pilot has been filmed smacking a female passenger, who was mid-brawl with another female passenger, in what the airline says was an attempt to break up the fight.
Per TMZ, the flight had landed at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, and passengers were disembarking from the plane onto a ramp when the fight broke out. The two women violently attack each other before the pilot steps in to grab one woman’s wrist and smack her.
The women continued to fight and the pilot just walked away from the altercation.
Delta has said it is taking the incident very seriously and an investigation is already underway. Airlines seem to be learning from United’s mistakes, taking immediate action when an incident occurs, such as when this American Airlines flight attendant allegedly whacked a woman with her child’s pram.
A married couple also recently got into a brawl, delaying a flight as they had it out on the tarmac next to the plane.
In a statement to The Washington Post, Delta said it is taking the video “very seriously”, despite defending the pilot to a degree.
“We became aware of this incident and a video last week and immediately removed the pilot from duty while we completed a thorough investigation,” Spokesman Brian Kruse said.
“Local law enforcement was called to respond at the time of the incident. The pilot has since been returned to work as our investigation found that his actions de-escalated an altercation between passengers on the Jetway floor during deplaning.”
The Delta spokesperson claims the pilot only hit the passenger because she had the other female in a choke hold and he was trying to get her to let go.
United by comparison spent over a week cleaning up its mess after blaming Dr David Dao for being disruptive prior to being dragged off a plane, knocking out teeth and breaking his nose. They then apologised and said they’d scrap the use of police in removing passengers from overbooked flights, then overhauled their overbooking policies last Friday.
Twitter users suggested United needed a new slogan (with hilarious hashtags and tweets taking flight), before it copped a second bout of controversy when a bunny destined to be the world’s biggest died in their care on a flight into the same airport where Dao was assaulted.
Neither of the brawling women are pressing charges, and in fact are believed to have known each other and been in a bit of a rumble on the plane as well.
