United to pay $2.25M fine, won't be charged in flight case

[TexasTowelie]

United Airlines will pay a $2.25 million fine but won't be charged in connection with a special flight from Newark, New Jersey, that benefited the former head of the agency that runs the airport.

United Continental Holdings Inc. said Thursday that it reached a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney's office for New Jersey.

The agreement was accompanied by a narrative that described how United executives were pressured into adding a flight between Newark Liberty International Airport and Columbia, South Carolina, near where former Port Authority Chairman David Samson and his wife had a vacation home.

The executives knew that the route would lose money. They gave it fast-track approval anyway, however, because they were warned that failing to please Samson could hold up a new hangar that United wanted at the Newark airport.

Read more: http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/ap/united-to-pay-m-fine-won-t-be-charged-in/article_87f6b0a6-a33b-55be-a862-a82e1f8da3a9.html

[kristopher]

1. K&R for the info on Samson's coercion. nt

[TexasTowelie]

2. Thanks for that--

I didn't make the connection on Samson or the Bridgegate scandal.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

3. It is puzzling isn't it?

https://www.nsa.gov/

[thesquanderer]

4. Unclear - was United a culprit or a victim?

If they offered to add the route to get something they want, okay, that would be bribery.

But if the other side communicated that United needed to offer route in order to get something they were legitimately expecting, then it is the other side that would seem to be legally at fault for a kind of extortion.

Or would it be seen as some kind of conspiracy between the two?

[Sam_Fields]

5. This whole thing cost UAL $5M in profit.

All to satisfy a crooked Port Authority leader.