Woman Claims United Bumped Her From 1st Class For Congresswoman

HOUSTON, TX — A United Airlines passenger is claiming she was bumped from her first-class seat, which was in turn given to U.S. Rep Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Houston), and she is demanding a formal written apology from the airline.

Jean-Marie Simon, who was traveling from Guatemala to her home in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 18, was attempting to board her connecting flight on United Flight 788 at Bush Intercontinental Airport after a weather-related flight delay.

However, when the gate attendant scanned her boarding pass, Simon was told her name and reservation were not in the system.

Simon, who said in a Dec. 20 Facebook post that she’d purchased four first-class seats on Dec. 3 when booking her round-trip tickets from Washington, D.C. to Guatemala, was shocked and demanded her first-class seat, but United agents said her reservation from Houston to Washington, D.C., had been cancelled and her seat assigned to another passenger.

Officials from United Airlines Corporate Communicaitons Office in Chicago released the following statement:

"We were concerned by this issue and took immediate steps to fully understand what happened. After thoroughly examining our electronic records, we found that upon receiving a notification that Flight 788 was delayed due to weather, the customer canceled her flight from Houston to Washington, D.C. within the United mobile app. As part of the normal pre-boarding process, gate agents began clearing standby and upgrade customers, including the first customer on the waitlist for an upgrade. We were able to provide this customer a seat on the same flight in economy plus."

However, Simon has denied she cancelled her flight reservation.

Ultimately, United offered her a $500 voucher and a seat in the economy section of the same flight.

When she boarded the flight, Simon said she noticed that the flight wasn’t full, according to a Yahoo report.

Simon said a man who identified himself as a Texas congressman, told her he was happy to see she'd made her flight and that Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee was the reason she had been bumped from her first-class seat.

Since the flight was further delayed by a mechanical issue, Simon walked to the front of the aircraft and snapped a cellphone photo of Jackson Lee in her first class seat, and told a flight attendant she now understood why she’d been bumped from her first-class seat.

In a Tweet sent Dec. 26, Sheila Jackson Lee indicated Simon targeted her because of her race.

I noted that this individual came toward me and took a picture. I heard later that she might have said “I know who she is.” Since this was not any fault of mine, the way the individual continued to act appeared to be, upon reflection, because I was an African American woman,
— Sheila Jackson Lee (@JacksonLeeTX18) December" class="redactor-linkify-object">https://twitter.com/JacksonLee... 26, 2017

According to a Houston Chronicle report, she returned to her seat, and about five minutes later was approached by another flight attendant who asked Simon, if she “was going to be a problem.”

In her Facebook post, Simon said she asked the attendant if she’d heard her shouting or complaining about the incident, and the flight attendant allegedly told her no, but that she’d taken a photo and offered to have Simon escorted off the flight by security.

She arrived home that evening and on Dec. 21, wrote a letter to United CEO Oscar Munoz, which she also posted on Facebook and Twitter.

Simon was contacted Dec. 23 by a resolution manager from United Airlines, who apologized, however she has not received a formal apology.

Image: U.S. Rep Shelia Jackson Lee (D-Houston) sits in a first-class seat on United Airlines Flight 788 in Dec. 18. Passenger Jean-Marie Simon says she was bumped to economy classby United Airlines so Jackson Lee could sit in first-class. (Courtesy Jean-Marie Simon)