A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off • Hacker News Board

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#31

Post by mcphage » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #8

The outrage mob is pushing this pretty hard. Booting people off a plane is pretty shitty behavior for an airline. It's bad customer service and they should dealt with it earlier than after boarding. But if they have to do it, the passenger shouldn't be allowed to just refuse. This guy did. And he had to get dragged off the plane. I don't really see an alternative other than just letting anyone willing to scream to st…

> I don't really see an alternative other than just letting anyone willing to scream to stay and then boot off another customer with dignity.

Offer people compensation. Raise the offer until either (a) someone takes it, or (b) it's cheaper to send the employees via another route.

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#32

Post by namlem » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

joelrunyon wrote: post #15

manacit wrote: post #6

Someone on a different message board put this situation very well: By the letter of the law, United was correct - morally, they were not. Their 'contract of carriage' allows them to IDB (Involuntary Deny Boarding) to passengers due to overselling, and bump people off at-will. Depending on how delayed the passenger would be to their final destination, they would owe compensation (up to a max of $1350) for the trouble.…

Legally - is this considered assault?

No, but it might be grounds for a suit against the police.

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#33

Post by jackmott » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #8

The outrage mob is pushing this pretty hard. Booting people off a plane is pretty shitty behavior for an airline. It's bad customer service and they should dealt with it earlier than after boarding. But if they have to do it, the passenger shouldn't be allowed to just refuse. This guy did. And he had to get dragged off the plane. I don't really see an alternative other than just letting anyone willing to scream to st…

>But if they have to do it, the passenger shouldn't be allowed to just refuse.

why not? if the passenger in this situation was allowed to just refuse, Delta would have had to get its employees to another location via some other method, or delay/cancel whatever it was they were supposed to do when they go there.

why is that a worse universe than this one?

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#34

Post by panzagl » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

huangc10 wrote: post #9

This is just a guess...United needed to get a couple of pilots on the flight from Chicago to Louisville or else another flight would be delayed/canceled. Only reason I can think of an employee would take precedence over passenger.

Why didn't they figure this out before boarding everyone? It's much easier to deny boarding than to pull someone off of a plane.

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#35

Post by tomp » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

manacit wrote: post #6

Someone on a different message board put this situation very well: By the letter of the law, United was correct - morally, they were not. Their 'contract of carriage' allows them to IDB (Involuntary Deny Boarding) to passengers due to overselling, and bump people off at-will. Depending on how delayed the passenger would be to their final destination, they would owe compensation (up to a max of $1350) for the trouble.…

> Involuntary Deny Boarding

I don't have the contract at hand, but by the above wording, the man was already boarded...

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#36

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 4:51 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #8

The outrage mob is pushing this pretty hard. Booting people off a plane is pretty shitty behavior for an airline. It's bad customer service and they should dealt with it earlier than after boarding. But if they have to do it, the passenger shouldn't be allowed to just refuse. This guy did. And he had to get dragged off the plane. I don't really see an alternative other than just letting anyone willing to scream to st…

[deleted]

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#37

Post by bragh » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 4:51 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #8

The outrage mob is pushing this pretty hard. Booting people off a plane is pretty shitty behavior for an airline. It's bad customer service and they should dealt with it earlier than after boarding. But if they have to do it, the passenger shouldn't be allowed to just refuse. This guy did. And he had to get dragged off the plane. I don't really see an alternative other than just letting anyone willing to scream to st…

The current claim is that the passenger was a doctor and had appointments he had to make the next day. So I can't say that this was unreasonably escalated at all.

Actually, scratch that - the profession does not matter. Flying is an expensive form of travel and most people travelling do have a schedule to meet. Military can get very severely punished, businesspeople can lose critical deals, tourists can't get on connecting flights or get fired for being late back from vacation, and so on.

United just handled it completely wrong - instead of raising the offer as long as necessary, their staff decided that it would be simpler and cheaper to forcibly remove someone from the flight. It went wrong and now they must face the consequences.

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#38

Post by lotsofpulp » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 4:51 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #8

The outrage mob is pushing this pretty hard. Booting people off a plane is pretty shitty behavior for an airline. It's bad customer service and they should dealt with it earlier than after boarding. But if they have to do it, the passenger shouldn't be allowed to just refuse. This guy did. And he had to get dragged off the plane. I don't really see an alternative other than just letting anyone willing to scream to st…

How is the passenger unreasonable at all. United could have easily avoided the situation by paying the market price for a seat, they didn't even offer the maximum they could have per their own contract.

I'm sure someone would have opted to delay their lives if the offer was $1k, $2k, hell $3k. Why does United get to economically benefit by getting their pilots to the next flight and profit from it, while inconveniencing someone else who has already purchased the flight? Sure, they're legally allowed to do what they did, but they didn't even bother to offer the maximum amount their own contract says to, so not sure why they would get any sympathy.

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#39

Post by tdb7893 » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 4:51 PM UTC

Airlines operate in very uncertain and variable environments (weather isn't always what it is predicted, mechanical issues are pretty common, and pilots can get sick and other stuff) and having planes or pilots on call everywhere is prohibitive expensive so it's really not surprising that they have to do stuff like this sometimes. Airlines need to be more up front about their policies but there doesn't seem to be a good way to fix it without increasing prices, which they can't really do because people flying are generally so price sensitive.

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#40

Post by i80and » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 4:51 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #8

The outrage mob is pushing this pretty hard. Booting people off a plane is pretty shitty behavior for an airline. It's bad customer service and they should dealt with it earlier than after boarding. But if they have to do it, the passenger shouldn't be allowed to just refuse. This guy did. And he had to get dragged off the plane. I don't really see an alternative other than just letting anyone willing to scream to st…

The passenger didn't unreasonably escalate. If the airline screws up, they need to pay the price. And physically harming the customer crossed several lines.

Also, it looks like United violated their own rules: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...