Bart Jansen and Maureen Groppe

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Todd Rokita offered a rare voice of support for United Airlines at a congressional hearing Tuesday where lawmakers of both parties blasted airlines for crowded flights that sometimes leave passengers and crew members testy.

The Brownsburg Republican said that a passenger dragged off a United Airlines flight to make room for a crew member should have obeyed police and crew members who told him to leave the plane.

“This is a bit of a two-way street. What happened on that United flight shouldn’t have escalated to where it was,” the Indiana Republican said at a hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “But a grown man, assumedly sane, when approached by law enforcement on an aircraft should abide by the request being made.”

Rokita, a general aviation pilot, also said he doesn’t think Congress needs to address the issue with legislation.

“I would be very hesitant, Mr. Chairman, to have this committee go down an avenue of regulating this,” Rokita said.

The hearing was scheduled after passenger David Dao was dragged by aviation police off a United Express flight April 9, leaving him with a concussion and two broken teeth. The airline needed to remove four passengers to make room for crew members after Flight 3411 from Chicago O’Hare to Louisville had loaded. Dao sued the airline but settled for an undisclosed amount.

United CEO Oscar Munoz apologized again at the hearing to passengers including Dao. Munoz repeated policy changes that had been announced earlier to no longer remove passengers seated on planes for overbooking or calling police to remove passengers for reasons other than safety and security.

United also raised its incentives for bumping passengers to $10,000 and will require crew members to check in at least an hour before departure.

“We had a horrible failure three weeks ago,” Munoz said. “We are here to talk about certain issues that won’t happen again.”

Rokita told Munoz and other airline executives at the hearing that he appreciated their response to the incident.

“I think that the response has been appropriate, and I appreciate each of your leadership in that regard,” he said.

William McGee, an aviation consultant for Consumers Union, advocated an end to involuntarily bumping passengers.

Rokita asked how that would work — whether it would prevent a flight if nobody agreed to accept a payment for taking a later flight. But McGee said he thought passengers would agree to wait for incentives up to $10,000 now offered by United.

Rep. Andre Carson, D-Indianapolis, also serves on the House transportation committee and attended the hearing. But Carson had to leave before he could ask a question, according to his spokeswoman, so will submit questions in writing.

The committee will debate aviation policies this year because the Federal Aviation Administration’s policy legislation expires Sept. 30. Lawmakers have already proposed bills to prevent airlines from selling more seats than are available on flights or preventing airlines from removing passengers once they are seated, unless for safety or security reasons.

The chairman, Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said airlines would have to demonstrate that they are making changes or the committee would act. But Shuster and others said they would prefer not to legislate around issues about how airlines sell their product.

“We will hold you accountable and we expect real results,” Shuster said.

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