The Daily Show host Trevor Noah is angry at United Airlines in a problem that seemed to involve a broken seat and oversold flight.
Trevor Noah Unloads On United Airlines In Extended Twitter Rant
Yesterday afternoon, Noah took to Twitter to berate United before his 11.5 million followers. His rant suggested that broken seats led to an oversold flight, which is hardly surprising considering how full domestic flights have been in the last few months:
Dear @united, if your seats are broken on your planes, maybe send a message to passengers before they get to the airport so they can choose a different airline. Your current tactic of surprising us with no seats when we get to the boarding gate is not great business.
— Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) October 1, 2021
Also can we talk about how the airline industry as a whole can just treat us passengers all like shit and we have almost no rights? They can overbook a flight and not tell you and there’s literally nothing you can do. 🗑
— Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) October 1, 2021
Imagine if you bought a meal at Macdonald’s and only after you paid they told you they actually don’t have food so your only option is to lick the fries that fell on the floor! 🍟
— Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) October 1, 2021
And what sucks even more is that the airline staff has to get shat on, by angry passengers, when they’ve done nothing wrong. They have no control over what happened but now they have mortal enemies wishing them dead. 💀
— Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) October 1, 2021
United quickly responded, request that Noah send a direct message:
Hi, Trevor. We’re so sorry for the disruption to your travel this morning. If there’s anything we can assist with at this time, please let us, or a crew member know. ^MD https://t.co/Y6hG6uklaR
— United Airlines (@united) October 1, 2021
I’m not defending United here, but it’s difficult to fault United for overselling a flight if it was only oversold because seats broke. The more pertinent questions are when the seats broke, did United know about it, should United have blocked them earlier, and how much effort was put into repairing them.
CONCLUSION
Showing up with a confirmed ticket and not ending up with a seat is aggravating (it’s happened to me too). Here, we need information to ascertain exactly what is going on, but one thing is certain: Trevor Noah is very angry at United Airlines!
image: Comedy Central (with United Airlines logo superimposed)
They’ll only listen to him because he’s Trevor Noah and has a large captive audience. Try that for people like you or me!
Trevor Noah for the most part is a self important narcissistic ass hat that thinks he’s witty for jokes he doesn’t write.
You can’t stand that a black man from South Africa has the successful career! Bigoted much?
He does…have a successful career?? More people listen to ham radio than watch him.
1.4MM daily per recent stats. And he wrote an incredibly well received book about his biracial upbringing. Educate yourself.
Race bait much?
@ GHuerta …. So all you’re saying is that because he is a black man from South Africa (successful or not) that anyone who disagrees with him or criticizes his take on things is automatically bigoted ? Where did anything racist come into this article?…… Oh right, nowhere. Nice try, ……..maybe YOU are the racist.
As usual, spouting off cluelessly and proudly!
Even United’s response is the same generic one they send to everyone. All they did was took the typical template, and wrote Trevor for the name. I don’t expect United to directly answer him on Twitter, but they probably should have made a better response. As much as I don’t like him, he has a potentially valid complaint.
Trevor Noah? Do people listen to him? Regardless, I think it should be illegal to oversell flights in general. They are selling a product that they don’t have. It would be like selling 30,000 tickets to a concert where only 25,000 seats are available and standing room isn’t allowed.
You’re racist assclown
He’s bright and hilarious
Trevor Noah is a woke racist. The worst type, because the media loves his version of racism.
His is a face I would not tire of punching. Piss off back to South Africa!!!
Would love to see HIS tax returns….
Like him or love him, he’s not wrong on part of this. The airlines can basically do anything they want to passengers and there is little recourse. They can even “kick you off” for the slightest reason and have you barred from flying again. The flight attendant’s are the ones left to take the brunt of everyone’s anger. The ones whom are making the decsions, are far removed from front facing customers.
Conan was the last good late night guy. Trevor Noah, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, and Seth Myers are all seriously unfunny. They all suck. Couldn’t care less what they have to say about UA. They should be relegated to 34E on Spirit on all future flights they take.
This dude sounds like he’s 70, and clinging to his job at United for the perks.
Way to defend your employer, Kevin.
Bunch of bitter Gutfeld! fans in this thread I see…bummed that their guy gets no press
not bitter…at least Gutfeld is funny on occasion. Jay Leno was the last funny night host. The rest?… Trevor Noah is just not funny. Colbert? a one trick pony when he was on John Stewarts show and now a media darling, without a funny bone in him.. Jimmy Fallon…nice and someone you could take home to Mom if you were so inclined. Now we come to Seth Meyers….all I can say is he was annoying on SNL and is pathetic on late late night TV….So in answer to you my young wokester you have no discernible sense of humor….just a self entitled view that things need to be politically correct to be considered funny. Sad.
But he gets ratings.
He is such a Diva throwing a tantrum. Try to get rights, any rights, in South Africa where he is from come back here and report.
How about you report from where you came from, namely, a $hothole country in Europe, Asia or wherever that’s not here?
Troll.
Is is not a $hithole? All the hobos and poor? Dissapearing midfle class.All sign for 3 rld world country. So Stfu!
Doesn’t that clown make enough to fly private? What a whiney a-hole, that’s how all the US airlines have been treating their customers for the last decade.
Whiny? Standing for what’s right is whiny?
No wonder your parents named you a “Kevin”.
Gee is this a hate Trevor Noah post? Or is you all hate his politics. I thought it was about broken seats. My question is why are these seats broken? How long were they broken and why in the he’ll haven’t been fixed. Each seat represents lost revenue. This is bad service and bad customer service.
Thank you Norm for bringing the topic back to center. The sad fact is corporations and millionaires have captured our government and now they can cheat us, abuse us, manipulate us, poison us, kill us, etc. and get away with it. Oh sure, there is the occasional slap on the wrist to make us peons feel better but overall it is a new Gilded Age (Google it).
The frog in the boiling pot of water is just about cooked…..
You’re right. I sense a Trevor haters rally. Why are some people so angry that he made a legitimate complaint? Some responded as though he wasn’t entitled to. Oh! Could it be because it wasn’t Trump or a conservative complaining? If it were Trump or one of his worshippers, UA ‘s name would be mud now.
While he’s right to an extent, it’s funny to see a celebrity complaining about things we all deal with on a daily basis and have just had to learn to live with.
TREVOR NOAH has a very valid complaint & viewpoint! He is the most intellectual comedian & journalist in today’s industry that I trust and admire. Yes, to someone that asks if he could fly private? He definitely can & he does when he desires. ALL AIRLINES SHOULD DO BETTER ESPECIALLY WHEN ADVERTISING CHEAPER FLIGHTS!!!!
Trevor Noah is angry at United. I have no clue what happened.
That’s all the copy that was needed.
BTW, Noah is berating the practice of overselling, not telling and then laughing in the face of passengers who paid. Even a unenlightened person like me could understand that, unlike this author, who seems to think he’s yelling at United. /SMH
Wow what a bunch of butt heads comment on here. Don’t like Noah? Hmmm. Why is that?
Because he’s just not funny. Although that Cuomosexual bit has become funny in hindsight; just not the way he intended.
Was he flying in economy? Why do such a silly thing!
Back to the actual subject matter of the article:
A few years ago when flying on United to Hawaii, my seat back was stuck in the reclined position before takeoff. I notified the flight attendant, who notified the pilot, who paid a visit and apologized. A mechanic came on board and determined that the seat could not be fixed quickly. So the pilot said that I couldn’t fly with the broken seat for safely regulation reasons. There were no remaining open seats so United immediately moved my spouse and I to the next flight (just two hours later), upgraded us to first class, refunded the value of the ticket, and gave us frequent flyer credit for both the cancelled flight and the flight we actually took. We couldn’t have been happier.
Easy transition for Noah, going from one crime infested s-hole in South Africa to another in NYC. Go ahead, bite the big apple, don’t mind the maggots
LOL!!! From someone who doesn’t know or understand how airlines sell their seats…and an article written by a “global passenger” is very laughable. So…from now on, before you ever do anything out in the world, you have to learn about the job/industry first so that you know how EVERY part of it works. No exceptions!
The reason airlines are able to oversell any flight they operate is because the history of that flight would show that there is a percentage of people who buy tickets but fail to show up for the flight when it occurs. It is the failure of the general public to show up that creates this whole situation for the airlines in the first place. This isn’t just a United thing…ALL airlines have this policy to maximize their load factors on their flights.
Nice to see everyone getting their racist licks in.
Can’t stand this guy but he’s right
@Matthew – Remember recently when I asked you about hatred and racism? You never did respond.
Sorry, I missed that. Can you refer me to that?
It was an article you posted like this – maybe 2 weeks ago – that had a lot of not-so-veiled racism in the comments and I asked how you walk the difficult line between free speech and banning hatred and racism.
Sadly they have migrated here from VFTW (overrun with the same racist white nationalist types).
Ben does the best job of cleansing them from the comments. But they still flourish.
so you know about spirit, huh? too, who asked for your opinion?
Not to defend United about the oversale, but imagine them selling a seat to you and you don’t show up. Now the seat goes empty and they could have sold it to someone else. The only reason airlines oversell there flights is specifically because people don’t show up. If all airlines adopted the policy of “You buy a seat, it’s yours no matter what, then that would be a different story.”
The solution is that when a flight is oversold, an airline finds volunteers by offering enough cash (not vouchers) until they get enough takers
They still get the money… So what’s their beef? They want to resell the seat and make even more? Fine, but not at my expense. Let them do that at their risk.
Whoa, a lot going on here. I will cut past the racism and race card abuse that have made a side show here in the comments. So, a broken seat and Noah feels airlines should notify clients in advance. I guess he has never seen Passenger Shaming where we see seats and bulkheads abused on near every operating aircraft daily.. If the asshats that do that could advise the airline in advance, perhaps they could pair that notice with Noah and others to plan accordingly. But asshats don’t work like that. They like to keep airlines on their toes and let the next passenger find their disabling work when everyone has boarded. I expected stronger logical process thought of Noah than this.
I think there is potentially a very valid complaint here. The power differential between an airline and a customer.
For example if you miss a flight for reasons beyond your control your likely out the money you spent on the ticket. You can buy a ticket for a certain flight in a certain class of service at a certain time but the reality is that none of those things are actually guaranteed to you.
Look at so called mistake fares. An airline has virtually unlimited power to decide it sold a seat too cheaply and just cancel and refund your reservation.
Or another great example the changes in American’s contract of carriage that took place recently. AA has the unilateral right when a flight cancels for any reason to just refund some portion of your fare and wash their hands of you.
As an airline employee I get that things like broken seats happen sometimes at the last minute. Airplanes may hit a bird forcing a downgrade to a smaller plane with less seats. There are all kinds of events that are well and truly beyond the control of an airline that can negatively impact a customers experience. Airlines need and deserve some flexibility to deal with situations like those. But what needs to change is the massive power imbalance between airlines and consumers.
For example let’s look at mistake fares. The amount of time that an airline has to cancel a mistake fare should be strictly limited and customers should have an equal amount of time to cancel a mistake booking on their end. A rule like that would put both parties on a fair and equal footing.
I also think given how airline loyalty programs sell miles these days they should not be allowed to just unilaterally change the terms and conditions of those programs or the value of the miles that have been earned.
All of this of course requires changes in the regulations if not new laws to be passed.
I don’t agree often with Noah but he is correct on this one.
People like Mr Klint here are just as much part of the problem as the criminal airlines. You claim you are not defending them when you clearly are. If you purchase a seat and show up at the airport to be told there isn’t one, someone at the airline should go to jail for fraud. They should them be followed by the executive team and top management for violating labor laws requiring pilots and cabin crew to do hours of work every flight without pay. If any other business did this, they would be in front of a judge fast enough to make their head spin. Why is it allowed for the airlines? I don’t see any exemptions in the law for them, and don’t even get started on the tax payer funded bailouts these criminals get every time their bad business decisions put them in a tight place. So much for the free market economy.