Protests rise demanding for compensation for the Asian passenger dragged out of his seat in a United Airlines flight. (Photo : Getty Images)
Donnie Yen and many other celebrities slammed United Airlines after a video of a passenger that was dragged from his seat went viral online. The airline needed to clear four seats to accommodate crew members who needed to fly from Chicago to Louisville.
The airline lost $1 billion in value and turned off many Chinese passengers. China is one of the largest sources of the airline's travelers.
The star of "Ip Man" and "Rogue One" posted on Facebook that he'd never fly with United Airlines after his son saw the viral video.
He posted, "How do you teach your children of such uncivilized, injustice, discriminated, publicly and proudly assaulted a 69-year-old man, treating him like trash. No one should be treated this way."
There is also speculation that the passenger was seen as a Chinese-American and was the main motivation for the abuse and escalating consumer's dismay on the United Airlines scandal.
The video is the most trending topic this week as it received 1 billion views and 360,000 comments. Many Chinese users cut up their membership cards and posted pictures of it on Weibo.
There was a petition named #ChineseLivesMatter, which was signed by 200,000 individuals who are demanding a federal investigation of the incident.
United Airlines received a lot of criticism in mainstream media and online because of the incident. Like Donnie Yen, many celebrities are calling for a boycott.
Joe Wong, a Chinese-born comedian who has performed multiple times on the "Late Show with David Letterman," posted on Weibo, "Many Chinese people feel they've been subject to discrimination."
He added, "They stay silent because they fear losing face. That's why the Western mainstream media and the public don't take discrimination against Asians seriously."
United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz has issued a public apology for overbooking and "for having to re-accommodate" customers.
The lack of sympathy was evident and made the situation even worse, according to Ed Zitron, a PR expert. He said that the incident "was a classic case of a company too afraid to make a categorical statement of compassion for fear of a lawsuit."
"Had United shown compassion and intent to make things right, they could have come out of this at the very least looking like an airline that cares. Instead, they've just made it even worse," Zitron added.
