Former Team USA soccer pro Landon Donovan put United Airlines on blast over alleged poor treatment during a recent flight.
“I’ve been traveling 100k miles/year since I was 16, and this was easily the worst travel experience of my life,” Donovan, 44, began in a series of posts via X on Monday, June 15. “No transparency, no clarity and no respect for the passengers who were treated horribly all evening/morning. Absolutely shameful from @united.”
The athlete’s post came in response to his Fox Sports broadcast partner Ian Darke, who also wrote about his experience on the social media platform.
“Every passenger on @united 404 from Houston to Newark will think twice about using that airline again. Delayed, diverted, reboarded, then pilot says shift ‘timed out’ as about to take off from Dulles. Still there 5 hours later. No hotel offer,” Darke, 72, wrote.
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In another post, Donovan claimed, “We were on the runway about to takeoff and the pilot was literally ONE minute past his time and decided to take us back to the gate at 3 a.m.”
The airline’s official X account responded to Donovan’s complaints by asking him to send them a private message.
Donovan wrote back, “There will be no private DMs. People want transparency and accountability so we’re going do this right here in public. You can start by apologizing to all impacted and then reimburse them all of their expenses with extra flight credit/money for the trouble caused.”
Us Weekly reached out to United Airlines for comment.
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Both Donovan and Darke have been providing commentary on the 2026 World Cup for Fox Sports. The pair will next cover the match between France and Senegal on Tuesday, June 16, at 3 p.m. ET from MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
As the World Cup kicked off on Thursday, June 11, Donovan made headlines for something noticeably different about him: his hair. The soccer star received a hairpiece last year, marking a dramatic change from the bald ‘do he once sported.
“You have no idea the messages I’ve received,” Donovan, who first experienced hair loss as a teen, told The Athletic in October 2025 after undergoing the transformation. “The messages and responses have been insane. I had no idea how many people deal with this and feel like I did. I could read you thousands of messages from people saying, ‘Thank you so much, I’ve dealt with this.’ Famous people, tons of people I know, [people I] don’t know, who have just said ‘Thank you for being honest about this. I’ve been struggling with this. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do and it’s given me some motivation to just do it and go with it.’”
