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

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

#41

Post by striking »

whitepoplar wrote: post #10
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.…

The problem is that what's legal and what's ethical have diverged into two wholly different things. "The law" is now often used to aid in unethical activity, not to prevent it.

You mean to say it hasn't always been that way?

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

#42

Post by jfk13 »

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.…

> Their 'contract of carriage' allows them to IDB (Involuntary Deny Boarding) to passengers due to overselling, and bump people off at-will.

But my understanding from the article is that the problem here was not overselling; they decided to give priority to moving their employees around over providing the contracted service to ticketed passengers. It's hard to see how that's justifiable even by the letter of the law.

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

#43

Post by hellopat »

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.…

Does this mean they can still bump people off the flight at-will even though he already boarded the flight?

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

#44

Post by phil21 »

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?

I'd venture to guess likely not at first glance - the guy was trespassing at that point and refused to move. The only alternative from that limited perspective is use of force.

You can't just refuse to leave an aircraft when instructed to do so by the crew. The reason simply doesn't matter - the time to fight about that is off the aircraft.

It may be considered excessive force however - which likely opens up avenues for assault and similar charges. Heck if I know though, IANAL and now I'm well off into the speculation weeds.

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

#45

Post by panzagl »

bello wrote: post #21

They messed up and overbooked the flight, sure. But why on earth would they forcefully drag people out of the plane, while they could just find volunteers? They could offer cash/miles to whoever volunteered, increasing the offer until someone accepted. I've seen other airlines do this on several occasions. They couldn't have handled it worse than they did.

They did, they went up to $800 and nobody volunteered. They were too cheap to offer any more.

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

#46

Post by treehau5 »

whitepoplar wrote: post #10
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.…

The problem is that what's legal and what's ethical have diverged into two wholly different things. "The law" is now often used to aid in unethical activity, not to prevent it.

The other problem is what society views as ethical or moral is now subjective to each on a variety of different factors in this post post-modern society. There was once puritanical values, however despised they are by certain factions, which unified the "ethos" of the nation on what is and is not ethical. The civil rights movement came along and augmented that ethos for the better.

Now we have groups who place abandoning a cat on the same level as abandoning a child, as an example. It's going to be very difficult on agreeing what is "ethical" when in the "me" society it translates to "what is ethical for me, right now, based on my current views of some form of science/philosophy/religion/spirituality/etc and what happened to me personally when I was growing up"

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

#47

Post by objclxt »

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. It's a federal crime to disobey instructions of the flight or the captain. If they ask you to leave the aircraft you're required to leave. If you refuse and need to be physically removed, tough.

Not that I'm saying this makes United's behavior acceptable - I have no idea how they managed to load the plane before realizing they needed extra seats - just that the law is, in this case, on their side.

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

#48

Post by AnimalMuppet »

whitepoplar wrote: post #20
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 think you're wrong. They should have upped their monetary incentive until someone left voluntarily. It was their business fuckup, not the passenger's, and they should pay for it.

Yeah, the mistake was United's. But the passenger also acted unreasonably. If you act like a two-year-old - even in a situation that, initially, totally isn't your fault - then you may get treated like a two-year-old. And if you act like a two-year-old after the cops start telling you to leave, they're typically going to make you leave - using whatever level of force is required to do so.

So, yes, the initial fault is United's. But there's blame enough to go around.

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

#49

Post by MattSteelblade »

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…

From what I've been reading (sources are all over the place, so take with a grain of salt) the man was a doctor and was supposed to see patients the next day and wanted to talk to his lawyer (presumably about the legality).

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

#50

Post by tomp »

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…

They offered $800 to leave, and nobody volunteered. I'm certain that if they offered $10k, 4 people would. It's just a question of offering enough money. I guess they went for the "millions and millions" option instead...
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