Sheesh: United Airlines Employee Fights Passenger

What is wrong with people?

United ticket agent & passenger get in fight

A United Airlines ticket agent got into a physical altercation with a passenger. The video has been viewed over 10 million times since it was posted to social media around 12 hours ago, so it's likely that everyone will see it soon.

You can find the main 45 second clip that is posted to social media below, but note that it is pretty graphic and bloody, so use your own judgement.

The United employee makes the first physical contact in the first version of the video. There is another version of the video that shows the passenger making their first contact.

There is no context here, as both videos show an active dispute, and it is not clear who punched first. It is not clear how this dispute started.

For those who don't want to watch the video, it depicts the passenger and employee provoking one another. The United employee fell back and hit the floor after the passenger hit him.

The United agent has a lot of blood on his face and tries to fight. Even though the United employee is clearly asking for it, the passenger just talks to the United employee and doesn't hit him again.

There’s enough blame to go around here

We don't know who started the situation, so we can't say that the passenger or United employee is at fault. An airline employee is supposed to deescalate situations, and the United employee here most definitely wasn't doing that.

Many passengers have been badly mistreated during the Pandemic, and airline employees have had to put up with a lot. The United employee is definitely not innocent. He hit the passenger even though he did nothing to walk away from the incident. He wanted more of a fight even after he was knocked to the ground and bloody.

The passenger is not innocent either. It should be common sense that you shouldn't pick a fight and punch people. He should have left the situation.

I think there is enough blame to go around here, but in the case of the United employee, this definitely isn't the level of professionalism you would expect from someone on the job. This is going to get a lot more attention than United's new ad campaign.

Bottom line

A United Airlines employee and a passenger got into a fight. The behavior on both sides is terrible, we don't know what the dispute was about or who started it. The United employee doesn't deescalate situations even after the daylights have been knocked out of him.

Hopefully the passenger gets banned from United for attacking an employee, and the employee is no longer employed by United, but isn't seriously hurt beyond that.

What do you think about the United incident?

The tip of the hat was given to Mike.