Landon Donovan puts United Airlines on blast after World Cup flight nightmare

Landon Donovan has gone nuclear (online) toward United Airlines. According to the former United States men's national team star who is crisscrossing North America as part of FOX Sports' No. 2 announce team for the 2026 World Cup, his flight from Houston, Texas, to Newark, New Jersey, was delayed, diverted to Dulles Airport outside of Washington, D.

C., deplaned and reboarded only for the pilot's shift to "time out" just before takeoff.Donovan's broadcast partner Ian Darke claimed they were stranded at Dulles into Monday morning and that United did not offer the stranded passengers hotel vouchers.

"I’ve been traveling 100k miles/year since I was 16 and this was easily the worst travel experience of my life," Donovan wrote on social media. "No transparency, no clarity and no respect for the passengers who were treated horribly all evening/morning. Absolutely shameful from @united."

Donovan continued: "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 3am." I’ve been traveling 100k miles/year since I was 16 and this was easily the worst travel experience of my life. No transparency, no clarity and no respect for the passengers who were treated horribly all evening/morning.

Absolutely shameful from @unitedhttps://t.co/K4ra5vf0q0— Landon Donovan (@landondonovan) June 15, 2026The airline's social-media team responded to Donovan's posts and asked to correspond privately. "There will be no private (direct messages)," Donovan wrote.

"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." 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 cre