Airline, aviation police did not treat passenger fairly

Follow @csteditorialsUnited Airlines and Chicago aviation police were disgusting, appalling, insensitive, rude and unprofessional in their handling of a paid customer who was unwilling to surrender a seat on a United Airline flight out of Chicago to Louisville.

United Airlines personnel followed every known trick to lure passenger to surrender their seats so flight personnel could be in Louisville for a next-day flight. But when you cannot get anyone to bite at your offers, close the doors, lock down everything and start launch procedures and get to your destination.

Sure you can get passengers to take your offer, whether it be a cash offer, overnight accommodations at a nearby hotel, first class seating on the next flight out. But does the airline think about all what passengers have to endure to even get to the gate? With all the security checks and rechecks, pat downs, waving of the magic wand, subtle interrogation by security, and body scanning, just how willing are you to have to go and redo it again?

So in the situation where you have no takers to your offer, just who has the better right to those seats, airline personnel or a paying customer just wanting to get to their destination?

Overbooking a flight is nothing new and has been around for decades. You would think the airlines would have the handling of this kind of situation well thought out, with all the necessary steps and inducements to persuade passengers to surrender their seats willingly.

So which would give the airlines better PR, dragging off a doctor who states he was on his way to perform his job saving a life, delaying the flight, upsetting the other passengers, starting internet fury or putting their customers first?

John Thorsen, Jefferson Park

Don’t complain

If you support a property tax freeze then don’t complain when your local services like police and fire protection, public works, art, music and sports in schools are cut.

David Berkey, Elgin

Disappointing elections website

I’m writing to express my sincere disappointment with the DuPage County Election Commission’s election results website. This past Tuesday, the election results website updated slowly, crashed multiple times, and had races listed in the incorrect tabs. The results format looks to be from the early 1990’s.

A county with as many people and important elections as DuPage deserves a better website. I suggest looking no further than Will County — their results website is easy to read, updates quickly, and includes advanced statistics about vote totals that came in by mail and early voting, and the amount of precincts counted/ waiting to be counted.

There has been discussion of consolidating the DuPage County Election Commission in to the clerk’s office. If this consolidation would mean a greatly improved website, I would strongly suggest moving forward with this.

Justin Lynch, Carol Stream

Let in the refugees

Mr. President, Now that you have discovered that Syrians have “beautiful babies,” too, can we please let the refugees in?

Rebecca Wolfram, Little Village

Cost savings

Shutting down Northeastern Illinois University for the week of Spring Break is an excellent way to address the funding problem. The bad part is that this year it wasn’t planned in advance.

In the future, the university should be fully shut down and unpaid leave given to all employees for this week. A minimum staff only for maintenance and security could be maintained.

If the students are on a break, the library, the computer labs, the physical education building, the day-care center aren’t needed. Reducing the cost of operations by one full week would go a long way to meeting the needs of the school. Planning and scheduling this in advance would give the employees time to plan for, and accept, this operational cost reduction.

Illinois needs a BALANCED budget, and this is one cost savings way to reach that end.

Robert Kastigar, North Park

Political appointee

Justice Neil Gorsuch should take a moment to reflect on accepting a vote of 50.

All the other judges were correctly elected with a 60 or more vote total. If i were Judge Gorsuch, I would be ashamed to be elected with less then a 60-vote option. He is being elected to the highest position in American to represent all the people of America. A 50-vote total would signify he is a political appointee of the Republican Party not a justice of all the people.

Peter S. Gregory, Jefferson Park

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