I just looked it up and it has been 7 years now since SW abused Kevin Smith for being fat and I began my boycott of SW. I book travel for a number of people and I don't even check SW fares anymore. Of course their system makes this particularly easy to do even for someone in the heart of their territory who used to fly them often. I will now also boycott United. I don't know for how long. But it's not a matter of someone at AA or DL makes a mistake and I'll be right back, not by a long shot.
And I think those who keep mentioning UA 3411 and the leggings thing in the same message are WAY off base. UA was in the right on leggings, those young ladies were non-revs and clearly breaking the pass rules which I've known since I was a kid (friend's parent worked for airline) and I'm dead certain that if these young women didn't know the rules (which are printed on their passes) that their mom who tried to make the whole thing into an issue of sexism and misogyny DID know and also knew that if she wanted her daughters to be able to fly in the skimpiest possible outfits then she would have to pay for their tix and they wouldn't be able to NR. Simple choice to make--put on a skirt and fly free or wear leggings and pay. She had to try and not only have her cake and eat it too but also try to make it about sexism which it never was.
This has nothing whatsoever in common with UA 3411 where UA tried to use denial of boarding procedures to remove pax from the plane which is not within their rights, also tried to use denial of boarding applicable to oversold plane when the plane was not oversold by their own admission, then brought police in to use violence against peaceful pax who was simply standing up for his rights as I would hope that any American or citizen of other free Nation would do. We should honor Dr. Dao for his courage in standing up to the abuse he received and I certainly won't support UA in any way, shape or form until I see that Dr. Dao has been honored for standing up to the despicable lies and violence of UA associated people. UA took being cheap and they made it a human rights issue of global magnitude. I too had high hopes for Oscar but his response to this is absolutely unacceptable, completely beyond the pale.
I realize that codeshare staff and Chicago Aviation Authority played many of the active roles here but UA not only contracted with these people and wrote the policies they followed, UA all the way up to Oscar stood up for these people at first and called the passenger "belligerent" when there is no evidence whatsoever that he was belligerent. This was a coverup for the violence initiated by those UA brought in to try and enforce their will and avoid having to pay fair market value to clear seats on the plane for their crew. UA loves to be able to charge as much as they possibly can for the last seat on the plane, we all know this. But they are too cheap to pay even one single dollar of real cash to buy the seat back when they need it for their crew. For these reasons, buying a seat on UA would, in my opinion, be a human rights violation.