United Continental Holdings Inc. fell as outrage on social media over a passenger’s forcible removal from a flight spread across the globe.
The stock dropped 3.3 percent to $69.17 at 9:46 a.m. Tuesday in New York, marking the biggest decline on a Bloomberg index of U.S. airlines.
Officers pulled a passenger from a flight Sunday evening after he refused to give up his seat, dragging him down the aisle as travelers yelled at them to stop. Recordings of the incident posted on social media sent people into a rage.
By Tuesday in China, the incident was a focus of social media and government editorial. The hashtag #UnitedForcesPassengerOffPlane was the top trending item on Sina Weibo, the equivalent of Twitter, with more than 270 million views. The man who was removed appeared to be of Asian descent.
The incident demonstrates how airline bumping can veer into confrontation. Carriers around the world routinely oversell their flights because people don’t always appear for a flight. Overselling is a way to cover that situation while maximizing the airline’s revenue.
The swift social-media condemnation, which extended to Washington, was sparked because the man wasn’t being ejected for misbehavior or a security threat. United said initially that the flight was overbooked, its staff chose him and he didn’t want to get bumped. The airline later said it needed room for its own employees to get to another flight.
Video posted to Facebook and Twitter showed the man being dragged out of his seat and down the aisle of Flight 3411 to Louisville, Kentucky. The man said he was a doctor and had to be in Louisville on Monday for work, according to a Twitter account by a passenger who said he was on the flight. The plane from Chicago O’Hare International Airport arrived at 10:01 p.m., almost two hours late.
China Editorial
China’s state mouthpiece the Global Times questioned in an editorial if “the victim’s Chinese ethnicity potentially made a difference” in how the passenger was treated. By dragging the man from the plane, officials “left the man with no dignity,” the editorial said.
An online petition called “Chinese Lives Matter” calling for a U.S. investigation into the case has garnered 38,000 signatures.