It seems like United Airlines never runs out of problems to deal with these days.
On Tuesday evening (June 13), the airline was forced to cancel a Venice-bound flight from New York after the plane suffered a massive fuel leak while waiting to take off at Newark Liberty International Airport.
A passenger on board the Boeing 767-300 managed to take a video of a copious amount of fuel gushing out from its left wing.
Clearer video of the #united #gasleak. How not one crew member saw this is beyond me. Thank god we were lookin out the window at take off. pic.twitter.com/3BDZJ3S4xd
— Rachel (@RachelEPas) June 14, 2017
Definitely not a good sight before your flight.
The aircraft has since been taken out of service.
In a statement from United Airlines according to Business Insider, they wrote: "While taxiing to the runway yesterday evening, United flight 170 travelling from Newark to Venice, Italy returned to the gate due to a fuel leak, and was later cancelled. We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience.
"Our team helped provide customers with hotel accommodations for the night and are working to get them back on their way to Venice today," they added.
This is just the latest incident for United amid a rash of cases which made headlines for all the wrong reasons.
On April 9 this year, a Kentucky doctor, David Dao was dragged off a United flight after he refused to give up his seat to employees of a partner airline. He sustained injuries and a picture of him bleeding from his face swiftly went viral.
How #UnitedAirlines got into a flap over the #DavidDao media storm. Read my analysis https://t.co/JlHlrX218P #nuggetsforcarter @Commsrisk pic.twitter.com/aZg1WNKWAw
— Nadine Dereza (@nadinedereza) May 16, 2017
He was eventually compensated by United Airlines.
Just this week, United issued an apology over the case in which a Houston-based employee pushed a 71-year-old passenger to the floor during an argument over a ticket. The elderly man was left lying motionless on the ground for at least 50 seconds until a woman walked over to check on him.
While the incident happened two years ago, the passenger in question, Ronald Tigner, decided to take legal action after he saw what happened to David Dao. The video of the confrontation began to make its rounds online last week, going viral.
Tigner's attorney, William Hoke, told KPRC News that "we want people to come forward who've been treated just like Mr Tigner and like Dr Dao, any of the other people who've flown United and been treated this way, because this has to stop."
In a statement to KPRC News, United wrote: "This employee is no longer with our company. The conduct shown here does not reflect our values or our commitment to treat all of our customers with respect and dignity."
While unfortunate things are bound to happen, especially to large companies like United, let's hope that they continue to ensure that their customers are treated right and put these troubles behind them.
akosasi@sph.com.sg