United Airlines is back in the news after video emerged of an employee apparently pushing a passenger to the floor of Houston’s George Bush International Airport in 2015. The security camera video of the event was just made public and rapidly made the viral video rounds. In the video, a ticket agent, Alejandro Anastasi, is shown in an altercation with a passenger. The passenger, then 71-year old Ronald Tigner, fell backward and lay motionless for several minutes. Tigner is suing United Airlines for $1 million.
According to Tigner’s lawyer, Tigner was denied passage through the TSA checkpoint because his boarding pass was smudged. Tigner had asked Anastasi for assistance getting a new boarding pass. Anastasi reportedly laughed at Tigner, saying, “Can’t you see I’m busy?” Tigner then told Anastasi to “wipe that smile off your face,” and then it’s alleged Anastasi pushed him to the floor.
United said in a press statement after the video’s release: “”We have seen the video from 2015 that shows completely unacceptable behavior by a United employee. This employee was terminated from United in August 2015 following the incident. The conduct shown here does not reflect our values or our commitment to treat all of our customers with respect and dignity. We are taking a thorough look into what happened here and reaching out to our customer to profusely apologize for what occurred and to make this right.”
