United Airlines Customers Are Sharing Their Own Experiences

United Airlines sparked worldwide outrage when a viral video showed a passenger being violently removed from a flight. The episode was far more intense than any trip to the airport should be, but for United Airlines customers, the incident seemed to bring back all kinds of related memories. In response to the widely reported incident in Chicago on Sunday, United customers have begun sharing yelp reviews and Twitter stories about previous flights.

You may already know the details of the incident that occurred on Sunday: A man, Dr. David Dao of Kentucky, was forcibly removed by Chicago security personnel from United Airlines flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville. In the days since, United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz has issued several apologies, and the company has reportedly planned to reimburse flight 3411's passengers. "I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right," Munoz wrote on Tuesday. "I promise you we will do better."

More than inspiring the snarky memes and fake slogans that have circulated online since the aggressive altercation, United's handling of the situation has led many social media users to leave reviews and post tweets that detail previous alleged run-ins with the airline.

One such tweet alleges that a passenger almost lost his seat because of a "name-spelling error." The customer later tweeted that the episode left him "embarrassed." For its part, United responded to the customer, asking for more details.

Another Twitter user claimed that he and his service dog "are routinely treated poorly at the ticket counter and on board." In response, United again asked for more details, and wrote that "this is upsetting to hear."

The deluge of critical comments also spread to Yelp. In fact, the onslaught of nasty Yelp reviews hit the United Airlines page so hard that Yelp issued an "Active Cleanup Alert" to warn users that reviews motivated by the recent news and not by personal experience would be removed. Still, plenty of the new reviews didn't appear to report personal experiences.

And it doesn't end there. Closer to the beginning of the week, Twitter users called for the boycotting of the company after the video of Dao being dragged off of the plane surfaced and went viral.

As Yelp warned, plenty of the most recent reviews filling United's profile page have to do with Sunday's incident in Chicago. On Twitter, the United account has likely fielded more nasty tweets than firsthand complaints in the past few days. No matter what the details are, the most important message may be that when a customer is mistreated, people notice.