Navang Oza
United Airlines has apologized to Navang Oza after he wasn’t allowed to board a return flight home because of a dispute with a ticket agent.

SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — United Airlines has issued an apology to an Indian-American Bay Area resident after one of the airliner’s ticket agents bumped him off a flight over a filming dispute.

Navang Oza, 37, posted a video clip he’d recorded during a dispute with a United Airlines counter employee in New Orleans, he was checking into his return flight home to San Francisco and was told it would cost him $300 to check a bag that had cost $125 on his first flight.

When the airline employee started treating him with hostility, Oza whipped out his mobile phone and began recording the incident. The video, which lasted nearly two-and-a-half minutes, was posted to his Twitter account and retweeted more than 5,000 times. The video shows the airline employee telling Oza he wouldn’t be boarding the flight until the video he’d recorded was deleted.

“Until that is erased you’re not travelling,” the agent can be heard telling Oza.

The agent, then calls a police officer who says Oza has the right to do whatever he wants, since the airport is a public space.

“The video does not reflect the positive customer experience we strive to offer, and for that we apologize. We are reviewing this situation, including talking to Mr. Oza and our employees to better understand what happened,” a statement in response from United Airlines read.

“If people are being rude, if people are making up rules at kiosks of airlines, I feel like that’s something we should be recording and sharing with everyone,” Oza told NBC Bay Area. 

In the end, he said he bought a ticket on a competing airline and wants United to reimburse him for the flight.