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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

#111

Post by pillowkusis »

vogt wrote: post #57
josefresco wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The responsible action, is for the business to accept the overbooking as their fault, and arrange alternative traveling plans for their employees. Forcibly removing a customer due to overbooking should never happen, and a customer should be able to refuse. His actions while extreme to some, were reasonable IMHO.

On this note, can someone ELI5 overbooking? Why is it so hard for these companies to just not overbook? Genuinely asking.

most flights don't have every single person show up. there might be, say, 2 or 3 seats unfilled even if you sell every seat on the plane.

so instead, sell a couple of seats twice, and bet that not everyone will show up. if you're wrong and everyone shows up, you have to pay people extra to take another flight, but that apparently happens infrequently enough that overbooking makes money over the long term.

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

#112

Post by inimino »

treehau5 wrote: post #46
whitepoplar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abando…

The golden age of unified national consensus on what is ethical is a myth.

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

#113

Post by strictnein »

WillyOnWheels wrote: post #78
ArtDev wrote: post #65

I hope he sues the pants off them. There is a racist angle here too. Why target the Chinese guy?

A Computer randomly selected 4 passengers for removal.

And probably eliminates everyone flying with multiple people on the same reservation.

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

#114

Post by djsumdog »

tdb7893 wrote: post #39

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 g…

Or they can just take the hit. In this case, they decided to comp four people so they didn't have to cancel a plane load. Seems like good economics, but no one wanted to give up their seats. I mean why would you. It's bad enough you have to get molested by the TSA once. Twice? Fuck that. I want to go home. No I don't want a voucher for $200 of my next flight with the same shitty airline that will expire before I can use it.

They should have just realized they can get a crew to that plane and canceled that flight; take the hit. Those passengers haven't boarded yet and would be easier to deal with.

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

#115

Post by mabbo »

xapata wrote: post #62
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.…

Whoever decided to force the guy off the plane is an idiot. They could have simply raised the comp for volunteering slowly until someone took the money.

But that costs money immediately. Forcing someone off the plane and causing a huge HR mess only costs money long-term, and it doesn't come out of my budget, so why should I care?

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

#116

Post by ghaff »

vogt wrote: post #57
josefresco wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The responsible action, is for the business to accept the overbooking as their fault, and arrange alternative traveling plans for their employees. Forcibly removing a customer due to overbooking should never happen, and a customer should be able to refuse. His actions while extreme to some, were reasonable IMHO.

On this note, can someone ELI5 overbooking? Why is it so hard for these companies to just not overbook? Genuinely asking.

On any given flight, there will almost always be some people who cancel at the last minute, get delayed on their way to the airport, miss a connection, etc. From the airline's perspective, there's now an empty seat going to waste (unless there are passengers at the airport waiting for a standby seat). Therefore, airlines will often sell a few more tickets than they actually have seats for because, statistically, they expect some no-shows. But sometimes what's statistically probable doesn't actually happen.

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

#117

Post by phil21 »

WillyOnWheels wrote: post #78
ArtDev wrote: post #65

I hope he sues the pants off them. There is a racist angle here too. Why target the Chinese guy?

A Computer randomly selected 4 passengers for removal.

Is it random? I imagine they are not kicking a Global Services passenger off because they got RNG'ed.

Most likely the lowest fare ticket on the plane, since compensation is capped at 4x the cost of the segment.

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

#118

Post by jessaustin »

lotyrin wrote: post #83
vogt wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On this note, can someone ELI5 overbooking? Why is it so hard for these companies to just not overbook? Genuinely asking.

No-shows. If you book at 100% you fly < 100% and that costs money.

Don't no-shows get charged anyway? With this policy they're making money coming and going.

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

#119

Post by manacit »

MattSteelblade wrote: post #64
tomp wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

From my understanding, you're correct. Deny Boarding can be avoided by checking in early. These people had boarded and the plane was full before the mistake was realized. EDIT: Still unsure as to the legality of this. IDB is well established, but the fact that everyone has boarded is a different matter. Reading the contract of carriage did not bring any more light to this point. And let's be clear, denying someone an…

I believe your understanding is incorrect - someone can be denied boarding regardless of when they have checked into the flight. If there are 100 seats, they may sell 105 tickets and permit 105 people to check in - if they cannot find 5 volunteers they will have to IDB 5 passengers.

While the rules aren't printed very well (I just scanned United's Contract of Carriage, and the Federal Code), I believe it counts as an IDB even if you are physically on the airplane.

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

#120

Post by panzagl »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #106
panzagl wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What are they legally required to offer before they can just pick people?

If they pick someone they are entitled to 4 x ticket capped at $1350.
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