【2018 Archives】

As the PR disaster for United Airlines continues to rage018 Archivesin the aftermath of a passenger being forcibly dragged off a flight, the airline is taking steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Now crew members who need to fly must book their seats an hour before departure, the company said in an internal email late Friday and confirmed to Mashable.

Previously crew members could get seats up until the very last minute -- a policy which resulted in the now-infamous video of Dr. David Dao being forcibly dragged out of his seat to make room for a crew member.

"This [new policy] ensures situations like flight 3411 never happen again. This is one of our initial steps in a review of our policies in order to deliver the best customer experience," spokewoman Maggie Schmerin said in a statement.

"Our review continues and we will share the results and additional concrete actions we will take by April 30."

The incident has highlighted the ways airlines handle bumping passengers off flights. At least two other airlines have changed or emphasised policies. Delta Airlines has reportedly authorised employees to give up to $10,000 in compensation to those on overbooked flights who give up their seats. American Airlines has said it won't remove a revenue passenger who is already on board to give a seat to another passenger.

As for United the image problems keep coming. The airline made headlines again over the weekend for kicking a bride and groom heading to Costa Rica for the wedding off a flight. The airline said they refused to leave seats they didn't pay for but the couple disagrees. However it really went down, it's still a headache for United and it doesn't seem like the headaches will go away any time soon.

UPDATE: April 17, 2017, 1:25 p.m. BST Added additional info from United statement.

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