United Airlines issued a belated apology after video surfaced of an elderly passenger being forcibly pushed over at Houston Airport during a ticket dispute.
Channel 2 Houston published footage of the incident which took place two years ago but has only come to light as 71-year old Ronald Tigner has now filed a million-dollar lawsuit over the incident.
The confrontation began after Tigner asked a United agent for a replacement boarding pass because the one he had was illegible.
This was denied by United agent Alejandro Anastasia who then cursed Tigner.
When Tigner responded, Anastasia then pushed him to the ground.
Video footage shows him seemingly motionless on the floor with no one offering any help for several minutes until a passer-by urged someone to call for help.
Anastasia was later charged with the felony crime of inflicting injury on an elderly individual.
He was fined and ordered to write a letter of apology and attend anger management classes.
United and the actions of its employees have been under extra scrutiny in recent weeks after the notorious passenger dragging incident of Dr. David Dao.
"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," said Tigner’s attorney William Hoke said.
Tigner himself is a lawyer by profession.
United responded with a statement saying: We have seen the video from 2015 that shows completely unacceptable behavior by a United employee. 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. We are taking a thorough look into what happened here and reaching out to our customer to profusely apologize."
