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

#241

Post by martinald » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 5:25 PM UTC

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.

TBH this seems to be a more legacy airlines thing.

I've never seen EasyJet or Ryanair overbook flights (and they operate at WAY higher load factors that legacy airlines - Ryanair is up to 97% load factor on average).

Edit: looks like Ryanair actually doesn't overbook. "Ryanair is the only airline in Europe that does not overbook its flights; therefore Ryanair has eliminated the possibility of passengers being denied boarding due to overbooking."

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

#242

Post by em3rgent0rdr » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 5:26 PM UTC

ErikAugust wrote: post #109

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.…

Pretty sure assault and battery is not legal.

Well if the contract and the law says they can involuntarily remove passengers from the plane, then it is necessarily legally permissable for United to assault/battery their passengers. Whether or not that is morally the right thing to do, or whether that is a wise business move in this case is a separate question (probably answer is no). Hypothetically they could legally shoot their customers if battery was not enough force if the contract stipulates so.

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

#243

Post by SamBam » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 5:26 PM UTC

ajhurliman wrote: post #159

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 kin…

Exactly. 100% this.

If he had just left when the police arrived, as commenters above you are suggesting, then that would mean that the threat of violence was a successful solution to United's mistake, and we'd never have heard about it.

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

#244

Post by jasonlfunk » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 5:26 PM UTC

douche wrote: post #176

raverbashing wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't even need to offer more money. Offer $1000 and two free return tickets to anywhere in the US, or miles. I find it hard to believe no one volunteered, even for a small amount, unless they were already delayed

When they do this, it's usually a shittier offer than it sounds. They're not offering cash, but value in tickets, which has an expiration a short time in the future, and can only be applied to certain flights. It'd be interesting to see statistics on how often these offers are even redeemed.

The few times I've taken the offer, the tickets were good for a year. But for someone who doesn't fly a lot, that is a relatively short amount of time.

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

#245

Post by mcv » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 5:26 PM UTC

inputcoffee wrote: post #169

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…

I agree. I will point out that it is not United that "chose" violence. They asked the police to intervene. The state is supposed to have a monopoly on physical force, so they did. Now, for the police, violence has always been normal, or normalized. Consider the appropriate responses: 1. An airline should not call in the police when dealing with customers because they can reasonably expect violence. 2. The police shou…

> The police should be retrained not to use violence. (Is this reasonable? You can imagine other instances where this where this would endanger them.)

That is absolutely reasonable. In many countries, police are trained to de-escalate potentially hostile situations. Only in the US and probably a couple of police states are police officers required to escalate to violence.

And it's that tendency to escalate to violence that makes police a threat to society.

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

#246

Post by whitepoplar » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 5:26 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #218

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.

The passenger fucked up by refusing to leave. That is forcing a physical confrontation when it isn't needed.

I can't believe you're defending United's actions. In short, you're saying that the passenger asked for it. He maintained his dignity as a human being by not acquiescing to unethical actions taken against him. United may have the legal right to do this, but they are certainly unethical in doing so. I fully support this man's behavior.

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

#247

Post by ryandrake » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 5:27 PM UTC

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

They apologized for having to "re-accomodate" the customer's face into the armrest. Some wordsmith is earning his paycheck today, that's for sure!

(EDIT: Looks like drcode beat me to that one)

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

#248

Post by HenryBemis » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 5:27 PM UTC

United sucks! I've been lucky/unlucky in my life to fly with them ONCE and they are THE-WORSE!! I prefer flying some shady cheap company, at least then they "meet my expectations" while I've never heard anyone ever saying a good thing about United.

I know my input offers nothing to anyone here, apart the "poor" United employee that will have to go through all our "hate" and think "oops this is a forum for people with brains and skills and they are trashing us big time.. now HERE is a pack of skilled people that would never fly with us OR work for us!!"

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

#249

Post by colmvp » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 5:27 PM UTC

milesf wrote: post #168

This was such a simple problem to fix for United. They offered vouchers for people to volunteer. No one accepted. So keep raising the offer until 4 people accepted. Problem solved. Instead they chose violence. I will never fly United Airlines again.

I'm honestly flabbergasted by how idiotic United was in this situation. Was a few hundred/thousand dollars in savings worth the negative PR they got out of this whole ordeal? Every consumer knows how shitty economy flying is, especially on United, and would easily sympathize with the consumer who bought their ticket fair and square.

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

#250

Post by ksrm » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 5:28 PM UTC

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #172

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Reverse auction. Ok, we're offering $10,000 to anyone who gets off. I see twenty hands and we only need four. How about $8,000, ok, down to 19 hands. 10 minutes later, and they probably would have ended up paying LESS than $800/seat.

What is to stop the four "winners" of this auction demanding more money? (Apart from the threat of assault of course!)