Maryland family forced to sit in vomit on United flight
A Rockville dad says his family was forced to sit in vomit on their flight home from Orlando, Fla. Sunday.Take a seat, Alton Brown. Your rather tame United horror story has been one-upped.
The latest victim in United's assault on human decency is the family of one Scott Shirley, who claims his group of Shirleys was forced to close its Orlando funfest with a tragically newsworthy in-air experience: a two-hour flight seated atop human vomit.
As relayed by WUSA9, the Shirleys were packed and ready for their return trip to Rockville, Md., when things took this unfortunate, sickly turn. The family of three boarded in Orlando when they dutifully moved to store their carry-ons beneath their seats. The innocent realization that the bags were wet followed shortly – and then, with a deeper investigation by Shirley's wife, the reality of the situation came sweeping into view — vomit!
At that point, Mrs. Shirley's composure had seen enough, and the poor woman apparently began shaking and sobbing. And so what did United do? The airline offered the family either seats on an alternate flight or they could stay in the same vomit seats they'd already been awarded. Mrs. Shirley's work, at the FDA of all cosmically fated places, could not accommodate a later flight, and so option two it was. And off the Shirleys went, home to Rockville, with only those thin airline blankets to cover up the mess.
The airline has since responded, saying:
The situation Mr. Shirley described is certainly one that we wish no customer experiences, as our cleaners did not fully clean the seat area prior to departure. We offered them an alternate flight, but they decided to remain onboard. Our agents did the best they could in the short time they had to accommodate Mr. Shirley and keep the flight on time. We're reaching out to apologize for his experience.
While this story is pretty shocking, the airline involved is not. Of the major U.S. airlines, United had by far the most customer complaints. Overall, only budget carrier Frontier vexed fliers more.