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Home » United Airlines » As More Details Emerge, United Airlines Bans Flyers Who Knowingly Flew With COVID-19
United Airlines

As More Details Emerge, United Airlines Bans Flyers Who Knowingly Flew With COVID-19

Matthew Klint Posted onDecember 5, 2020November 14, 2023 33 Comments

a man and woman posing for a picture

United Airlines has banned the couple who knowingly flew to Kauai with COVID-19. Key new details have also emerged about the incident.

As Timeline Emerges, United Bans Couple Who Knowingly Flew With COVID-19

Wesley Moribe, 41, and Courtney Peterson, 46, of traveled with a young child on United Airlines flight 1111 from San Francisco (SFO) to Lihue, Hawaii (LIH) on November 29th. But that wasn’t their first flight of the day. Their day begin in Seattle (SEA), where they had been visiting family after returning from international travel. It was there that a COVID-19 test was taken at the airport with Discovery Health.

While their Seattle (SEA) to San Francisco (SFO) flight was in the air, their test results returned positive.

A Kauai police spokesperson noted:

“The test taken in Seattle returned positive, but the couple was already en route to San Francisco. Officials notified the couple of positive test results and directed them to isolate.”

The couple were instructed by Discovery Health to self-isolate for 10 days, but the couple opted to take their connecting flight instead. As part of its protocol for reporting positive COVID-19 cases, Discovery Health also alerted the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). It was the CDC who reached out to the Kauai Police Department to let them know of couple onboard, though it isn’t clear how the CDC knew or verified the couple boarded their connecting flight.

Police knew the couple were coming and were waiting on arrival, promptly taking the couple to isolation rooms ahead of booking them on reckless endangerment. Kauai’s Department of Child Protective Services released the child into the care of a relative.

Airport officials in Seattle and San Francisco were not aware of the couple’s positive status. United Airlines also received no notification.

But United has banned the couple:

“We have banned these customers while we investigate this matter.”

CONCLUSION

Hopefully protocols in place including obligatory onboard masks and spaced-out boarding and deplaning meant no one else was infected. Nevertheless, the couple’s reckless behavior certainly merits a ban from United Airlines…

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About Author

Matthew Klint

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he travels more than 200,000 miles by air and has visited more than 135 countries. Working both in the aviation industry and as a travel consultant, Matthew has been featured in major media outlets around the world and uses his Live and Let's Fly blog to share the latest news in the airline industry, commentary on frequent flyer programs, and detailed reports of his worldwide travel.

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33 Comments

  1. debit Reply
    December 5, 2020 at 11:26 am

    All i can say is that guy could have done better. Unless she is very rich.

    • debit Reply
      December 5, 2020 at 12:24 pm

      Also i have to beg my fellow Americans for help. As you know i have predicted 3500 daily deaths by dec/15. Yesterday it was 2600. With only 10 days to go i am losing heart. So if you are planning on dying within next 2 weeks by covid please consider doing so before dec/15. It will be off immense help to me with no cost to you.

      To trump supporters, the fake story msm has been spinning has been detrimental to my projections. Remember it’s all fake news, all a hoax. Go out to the bars, have fun and then visit your parents and grandparents. I am counting on you guys. I didn’t realize how much i was relying on you.

      • Chris Jones Reply
        December 7, 2020 at 12:51 am

        Thank you for your consideration; however, we don’t have any time to go to the bars. You see, we were the ones with “essential” jobs so we’ve had to continue to work everyday while people like you practice sarcasm online.

    • Ravioli Kaye Reply
      December 5, 2020 at 7:04 pm

      American Exceptionalism,,,,, our second Original Sin.

  2. Santastico Reply
    December 5, 2020 at 11:42 am

    Actually United did them a favor. Why would anyone want to fly United?

  3. Christian Reply
    December 5, 2020 at 11:51 am

    What else is the airline supposed to do? Hopefully they’ll make the national no-fly list, although I’d exclude the child.

  4. WR2 Reply
    December 5, 2020 at 12:37 pm

    Isn’t it possible they didn’t see the notification during their layover? And if everyone is wearing masks, I thought we are all protected anyway, right? Isn’t that the narrative? Masks will save us? This is all just getting a little too authoritarian for a virus that now has the death rate of the flu.

    Oh, and debit is a dirt bag of a human being as usual.

    • debit Reply
      December 5, 2020 at 12:46 pm

      “Oh, and debit is a dirt bag of a human being as usual.”

      Is this your way of extending me an invitation to join the Republican party?

      • WR2 Reply
        December 5, 2020 at 1:34 pm

        You’d fit better with the CCP.

        • debit Reply
          December 5, 2020 at 4:14 pm

          Look michelle is talking about you

          https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/conservatives-turn-on-trump.html

          • Science2020
            December 7, 2020 at 12:27 am

            If masks work how come even though we have been wearing masks for months why are numbers going up??

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      December 5, 2020 at 12:50 pm

      @WR2: Not possible. Discovery Health spoke to them on the phone. They knew.

    • Willieron Reply
      December 5, 2020 at 1:00 pm

      Death rate of the flu? I don’t recall close to 300k dying of the flu, except in 1918. Where are you getting your facts?

      • WR2 Reply
        December 5, 2020 at 1:33 pm

        The death rate has gone down significantly since the early stages. In recent months the death rate is below 1%, on par with the flu.

        • Frontline Healthcare Worker Reply
          December 5, 2020 at 3:34 pm

          With a hospitalization rate five times that of influenza.
          Your statement predicates an inordinate burden on the healthcare system.
          Not to mention the long-term side effects of it which we learn about with each passing week.
          So shove your “death rate” statistic.

          • Hank B
            December 5, 2020 at 10:14 pm

            I dont think WR2 understands big words like “predicates” and “inordinate”

            Please use more simple language so he can understand

          • Matthew Klint
            December 5, 2020 at 11:08 pm

            Unnecessary…

          • Brandon
            December 6, 2020 at 6:12 pm

            Five times? Lmao….you love lying, don’t you…..

    • Brandon Reply
      December 5, 2020 at 6:27 pm

      No kidding. They may not have knowingly boarded a single flight c19+ and as a lawyer, one would think matt would know that. But clearly he gets off on political fear mongering.

    • Pete Reply
      December 5, 2020 at 10:05 pm

      I don’t understand how they even flew. Covid is so dangerous…they were on respirators while on board , how many days they spent in hospital. Jeeez they were so lucky. They had 0.26 % to be dead by now yet still survived…
      Wake up people

    • 747always Reply
      December 6, 2020 at 1:11 am

      Nah mate. Its not only masks. But nice try. The Trumpette in you must spout nonsense consistently.

    • UA-NYC Reply
      December 6, 2020 at 10:56 am

      The virus is now the leading cause of death in the US. Not exactly “just another flu”.

      SMFH at you effing morons…go hang out on Parler and create your own reality.

      • JMM Reply
        December 7, 2020 at 12:23 pm

        For readers not familiar with the above poster’s lack of credibility, it is in fact the 3rd leading cause of death in the US – constituting half the deaths from cancer (#2) and heart disease (#1), separately.

        Summarized source: https://usafacts.org/articles/top-causes-death-united-states-heart-disease-cancer-and-covid-19/, and in more obfuscated form on the CDC tables.

  5. JoEllen Reply
    December 5, 2020 at 12:38 pm

    As usual, the right hand didn’t know what the left was doing. If you’re going to be an “authority” making a decision (the testing site – Discovery Health), wouldn’t you determine what flights these passengers were on or going to connect to? …. and then ACT accordingly — notify the airlines of the results ?? Now they exposed hundreds of people to their Covid-19 positivity thanks to their own selfishness and the withholding of the results by Discovery Health to the airlines.. What is the point of even testing if you’re setting people free to knowingly roam about. Kind of all too late by the time they got to Hawaii.

  6. Andy K Reply
    December 5, 2020 at 1:32 pm

    Wow this is insane. Reckless endangerment? Had their child taken away? It’s not like they knowingly committed a heinous crime. They were on their way home. I would have done the same thing.

    • Brandon Reply
      December 5, 2020 at 6:28 pm

      This is the problem with letting the Karen’s make laws and not checking their stupid actions.

  7. Too Many Reply
    December 5, 2020 at 2:21 pm

    As more details come forward, it’s becoming clear the couple willfully continued their travel while fully aware of their status. While I can sympathize with their desire to go home, it’s apparent they didn’t care for those around them.

    I question how they planned ahead of this the entire time. If they came back from traveling internationally, they knew there’s a risk of being infected. Yet they forged ahead, not following the guidelines. Same mindset is in many people: if I’m not impacted, I can do it. I know of many people who don’t care about curtailing activities, simply because they don’t care about being responsible beyond their own interests. They won’t isolate, despite feeling ill (but not ill enough) and possibly being COVID-19 positive.

    That’s why flying and travel is so difficult right now. To be a responsible traveler requires such a hit (and cost), that it isn’t worth it for leisure travel right now.

    This is why we can’t control the spread. We’re putting our own interests above the good of the society. While it has also served us well, in this scenario, it’s causing a lot of damage. An interesting event that occurred was from the video game realm, specifically World of Warcraft. Google “Warcraft corrupted blood”, similarities of the pandemic were shown in the game play, particularly the human behavior/sociological elements that are not easy to model.

  8. Rose Reply
    December 5, 2020 at 11:31 pm

    Where should they have stayed in SFO? Does the CDC pay for a hotel? I mean, I wouldn’t want to quarantine in a city that expensive particularly not with a small child!

    As a side note, estimates for the infection fatality rate of covid-19 are between 0.00 and 1.63%. You will find studies presented on the CDC webpage with similar estimates https://www.cdc.gov/library/covid19/112420_covidupdate.html. If you look at it that way, it is comparable to the flu.

    • 747always Reply
      December 6, 2020 at 1:24 am

      Of course you would cherry pick the data. Ultimately you’re so selfish that you don’t care what health care workers have been going through for the last 8 months because “duh Covid is just the flu”

      • Rose Reply
        December 6, 2020 at 12:44 pm

        I beg your pardon. I am a nurse :).

  9. Joey Reply
    December 6, 2020 at 8:16 am

    I don’t know the rules but wouldn’t it make more sense if the airline required everyone to have a negative Covid test before boarding the plane? It would have avoided scenarios like this one.

    • Scott Reply
      December 6, 2020 at 6:25 pm

      They already have a “you haven’t tested positive” requirement which was ignored so not sure how a negative test requirement makes it any better.

  10. Frank Reply
    December 9, 2020 at 4:07 pm

    Time frames matter. For the year, COVID will probably be #3. Last 2 weeks, it’s #1 with a bullet.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-leading-cause-of-death-united-states-this-week/

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