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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

#221

Post by devereaux »

tomp wrote: post #197
rdtsc wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think United were wrong here (maybe not legally) but morally and, even from their self-interest they took a major PR hit. People involved in this should be getting termination letters immediately. However, I am curious. Once they made the decision to remove him. How could they have done so if he didn't want to move? A taser?

Maybe they could arrest him first? (Handcuffs and everything.) At least he would then realize that the situation is serious. Maybe also flash a gun or something...

yeah let's start toting gun at people who refuse to give up their paid seats.

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

#222

Post by XJOKOLAT »

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…

Yes, he should sue the bejeezus out of them.

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

#223

Post by Symmetry »

John23832 wrote: post #88
Flammy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They messed up and overbooked the flight, sure. To be clear, every flight is overbooked. The airlines have run the numbers, and it is clearly more profitable to sell (for example) 105% of the plane, and then if more than 100% show up, pay people off to take a different flight.

> The airlines have run the numbers, and it is clearly more profitable to sell (for example) 105% of the plane, and then if more than 100% show up, pay people off to take a different flight. I guess the op's question is, why was it not done here? (Sadly) Everyone has a price for everything. Obviously that guy's price was not met. As you say, the airline has done the math... does their math include the cost of draggin…

I imagine that the there was effectively a "CAN'T HAPPEN" comment on what to do when nobody bit at $800. I can imagine the people writing the policy imagining that their employees might collude with friends on board to pocket the money if they let the offer get too high.

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

#224

Post by djsumdog »

MattSteelblade wrote: post #49
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).

I couldn't tell with this article if that was guy who was screaming or if they asked the doctor first and then went to this guy. It's not clear at all.

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

#225

Post by ryandrake »

jessaustin wrote: post #73
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.

This is the problem here. If they would have offered $5000 they would have had four seats immediately. They're going to pay a lot more than $20,000 for this disaster.

Why offer $5000 when you can just beat people's faces in and drag them away?

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

#226

Post by drcode »

exhilaration wrote: post #137
Twirrim wrote: post #5

Today must be a fun day to be on United's PR team.

They just released this non-statement: https://twitter.com/united/status/851471781827420160

"So sorry we had to reaccommodate your forehead by concussing it against an armrest"

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

#228

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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.

> So what do you do when someone refuses to leave?

Pay another airline to ship your employees. This is nothing but horrible planning on United's part. Worst case: Google Maps says a 5-hour drive separates Chicago from Louisville.

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

#229

Post by khedoros1 »

ww520 wrote: post #14
problems wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like it wasn't the normal overbooking procedure - it was overfull because of united employees.

United employees taking passenger's seats? That's not overbooked. That's robbery.

No, that's standard. Normal procedure is that they'd have a count of present passengers based on how many people have checked in. Before boarding the plane, they'd say "we need 4 seats, and we'll pay X amount (and possibly hotel) to have volunteers take the flight take the flight tomorrow". If they don't get the volunteers, then 4 people just won't be allowed to board, and the airline pays them, and puts them up until the next available flight.

The airline isn't going to delay another flight because they couldn't get a flight crew there in time; they find a way to get the flight crew there.

In this case, they screwed up procedure and boarded everyone first. Then they screwed up again and had someone assaulted by armed goons in front of a few hundred people.

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

#230

Post by tedmiston »

jfk13 wrote: post #42
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.

At the end of the day, the contract of carriage clauses are extremely broad and disadvantageous to the consumer. If the airline decides they want someone, or you, off the flight, there's actually very little recourse. Even the amount of time they can delay you without compensation during the day and with minimal compensation overnight is pretty absurd. That said, I'm not sure why they wouldn't just offer increasing compensation for those willing to bump to the next flight like usual. Four people will accept a few hundred to a thousand dollars to be bumped one flight.
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