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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

#151

Post by phil21 »

kordless wrote: post #105
objclxt wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not trying to rationalize anyone's actions here, but if the captain told you to kill another passenger, that is not within his right of removal of choice for individual. i.e. The captain is only allowed to remove choice for an individual when the group is threatened, given they are in charge, by law, of making choices for group (perhaps for the reason of or related to in-flight matters). Edit: changed he to they.

That's actually not true (afaik). Certainly the command to kill another passenger is unlawful, and you won't carry it out.

But also just as certainly he can tell you to leave the aircraft for refusing.

There literally is absolutely no legal right for you to stay on that vessel after the captain requests you leave.

Plenty of incidents support this on a practical level - captains remove people rarely but not unheard of for silly and discriminatory reasons. They likely get disciplined after the fact by the company, but in the moment you have zero recourse as a passenger who was asked to leave. Your options are to grab your bag and walk off, or be removed and possibly go to jail. Either way you are pleading your case on the ground.

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

#152

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

67726e wrote: post #130
vwcx wrote: post #101

The real thing to fear here is the normalization of violence. Good perspective in the WP comments: "The truly shocking thing here is that violence - with the real possibility of serious injury - was viewed as appropriate in a situation that was purely logistical. The airline wanted seats for its own employees. This was not an emergency - such as a terrorist attack or a drunk passenger endangering people. The lack of…

So what do you do when someone refuses to leave? I'm on the doctor's side, United should not overbook a plane and bump a customer to get their own people on board, but when someone refuses to leave what other options do you have? Taze him and drag him off? You'll have to use force to remove someone.

Raise the offer from $800, which is a low amount for an airline overbooking.

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

#153

Post by blizkreeg »

The depraved part here is that none of United's employees (flight attendants and/or pilots) on board the aircraft stopped law enforcement or whoever it was from forcibly ejecting this guy.

The law may be on United's side but United's employees on board could have been more human about it and not let this happen once the passenger refused to be booted off the plane. Since when is use of force the norm?

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

#154

Post by walterbell »

eximius wrote: post #66
helipad wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine it was a form of restraining him.

Have you seen the video? It isn't clear to me if he's unconscious or just limp.

One article claimed that a stun gun was used, hence the need to drag him out.

Edit: it was a tweet quoted by Vanity Fair, http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/united-airlines-passe...

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

#155

Post by mnglkhn2 »

67726e wrote: post #130
vwcx wrote: post #101

The real thing to fear here is the normalization of violence. Good perspective in the WP comments: "The truly shocking thing here is that violence - with the real possibility of serious injury - was viewed as appropriate in a situation that was purely logistical. The airline wanted seats for its own employees. This was not an emergency - such as a terrorist attack or a drunk passenger endangering people. The lack of…

So what do you do when someone refuses to leave? I'm on the doctor's side, United should not overbook a plane and bump a customer to get their own people on board, but when someone refuses to leave what other options do you have? Taze him and drag him off? You'll have to use force to remove someone.

You beat them senseless! No need to increase the incentives. Same should apply in employment contracts: Hey, Joe, listen here! I need to randomly cut your pay and if you don't take it I have security nearby to convince you!

What else can you do?! Am I right?!

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

#156

Post by goodcanadian »

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.

A certain percentage of passengers just don't show up for whatever reason. This percentage is fairly predictable, so if the airline sells more seats than there are on the airplane, the extra tickets are pure profit. Because they are good at their statistics, usually, it isn't a problem, but every once in a while more people show up with tickets than there are seats.

There are other reasons that this can happen. An aircraft change (due to maintenance issues, for example) might result in fewer seats being available. In this case, the airline needed to relocate some employees and seats weren't available. For the record, I believe they handled it very badly.

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

#157

Post by AnimalMuppet »

inputcoffee wrote: post #75
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 physical violence is qualitatively different. Consider: suppose a kid lays across your driveway and refuses to budge. Are you allowed to drive over the kid? After all, if everyone starts doing this, you will lose your job and can't feed your own family, right? Well, no. You have to figure out a way. Take a deep breath and call their parents, get an Uber or whatever it takes. The situation would be different i…

Well, in your example, I can't run over the kid, but I can call the cops, and have them come and physically remove him. So that's almost exactly what happened, except that the burly guy wasn't a cop (or at least wasn't in uniform).

The cops were there, though, and were (at least tacitly) authorizing the guy to try to physically remove the passenger. Is that legal and/or moral? Or does it have to be a uniformed officer before it becomes legal and moral?

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

#158

Post by strictnein »

jessaustin wrote: post #144
strictnein wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sky marshal? Doubt some random just decided to drag someone off a plane.

Watch the video. The guy is big, but he's not acting like police, and he doesn't have any sort of uniform. The two useless cops are just looking on like useless cops do.

I watched the video. Sky marshals purposefully wear normal clothes, so they blend in with the rest of the passengers on the flight. Having them wear uniforms would kind of defeat the purpose.

The cops are likely waiting until the passenger is off the plane to take him into custody.

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

#159

Post by ajhurliman »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #48
whitepoplar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

I'm glad he did act out, though. Ultimately, he's doing so on our behalf as passengers. When United freaks out about negative PR they're conditioned to be more wary about pushing customers around.

If I were in his position I'd quietly fume about it and United would get more comfortable about booting people who have boarded without repercussions. It's pretty rare that passengers' cases get brought to light so it's kind of refreshing.

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

#160

Post by ryandrake »

My predictions:

1. There will be no personal consequences for any of the belligerents involved in this, including the airline employees and police officers. Nobody is going to get fired.

2. The victim will receive no compensation for his injuries, instead will be further victimized in the courts.

3. There will be no business cost to United. They are already known as one of the most awful airlines in the world, and people still voluntarily choose to do business with them. People will continue to fly with them despite them now having earned the "Beats Its Customers" badge.

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