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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

#321

Post by ksrm »

mattsfrey wrote: post #259

Sure it was a dumb/unethical thing to do on behalf of the airline and should have been handled differently etc. I'm wondering why nobody is commenting on the absurd behavior of the passenger however - insisting on forcing police to physically drag him from the plane. Once it was decided and the guys in uniforms with guns show up, what sane person is honestly going to do that? The decision to remove the passenger we c…

The airline should never have let it get to that point. That is precisely what is unethical about it.

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

#322

Post by toomuchtodo »

FireBeyond wrote: post #257
toomuchtodo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's equipment waiting in Louisville, and another entire plane isn't going anywhere without them, that's how its justifiable. IDB means you can (legally) be physically removed from a flight. With that said, don't drag people off your flights. No matter what it costs you to get staff where they need to be when you make this mistake, it'll be cheaper than the negative publicity of a physical altercation removing…

Still doesn't make the original flight "oversold". That's a very specific term in airline travel relating to ticketed seats sold for a flight, not a United staffing fuckup. Edited: for clarity.

> Not a United staffing fuckup

If a doctor gets physically assaulted by Chicago's Aviation Authority staff because you didn't leave four seats free on your flight, you most assuredly fucked up.

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

#323

Post by tunap »

lightbyte wrote: post #174
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.

That's a horrible reason in my opinion. What other industry could get away with doing this? If someone sold 105% capacity for a concert or sports game and just told the last 5% who arrived "sorry, no more room" people would be extremely upset.

The Telecoms have been selling > capacity for... ever(?). When a major event occurs & everyone picks up a phone to call in/out you get "all circuits are busy". Ever notice the hit to your inet speeds on holidays when all your neighborhood is home & idle?

On one hand, infrastructure costs for idle capacity would/could become cost prohibitive. On the other hand, the provider should be held aaccountable for their failing to provide reasonable uptime/service.

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

#324

Post by chimeracoder »

mcv wrote: post #245
inputcoffee wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 violenc…

> 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.

It's not that simple. The police in the US are trained to de-escalate situations too. That doesn't stop police violence from occurring either in the US or elsewhere (there is no shortage of horrific stories of police abuse from western/central Europe as well, for example).

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

#325

Post by AnimalMuppet »

FireBeyond wrote: post #292
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once the cops show up and tell him to? Because the cops told him to , that's why. Note well: I am not saying that the cops are always right. I am not saying that we should all be good little citizens and obey whatever the authority figures tell us to do. I am saying that, in the actual world we live in, disobeying police orders will often involve painful physical consequences, almost immediately. You can argue about…

> I am not saying that we should all be good little citizens and obey whatever the authority figures tell us to do. I am saying that, in the actual world we live in, disobeying police orders will often involve painful physical consequences, almost immediately. > Because the cops told him to, that's why. "I am not saying obey authority figures whenever they tell us to do something. Even though I said in the previous s…

OK, let's try this again. I'm not saying that you should obey the police because they're authority figures, even if they're wrong. I'm saying that you should obey the police because they're going to physically hurt you (at least) if you don't.

That is, when the authority figures are morally in the wrong, you can make a case that the moral thing to do is to disobey them. But just in terms of the actual way things work in this less than perfect world, you'd better think seriously about the price you're going to pay for doing so. You can say "they shouldn't use force". Fine. But in the real world, they're going to use force.

So, no, I'm not contradicting myself. I'm speaking in two different senses. There's the ideal world, and there's the practical way things actually work. In the real world, if you disobey an order from the cops, it's going to hurt you, no matter how morally right you are.

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

#326

Post by justin66 »

cmurf wrote: post #201
xapata wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Whoever set the incentives badly and set some arbitrary cap at $1350 should be fired.

That would be a regulator or Congress. The airline would set no cap, if they could get away with macing you to get you off the airplane, they would. "Next time, just get off the plane when we ask the first time." When a family member, or associate of Congress gets hit with this experience, then maybe the fines get adjusted accordingly. Anyway, hopefully the guy gets a good lawyer.

> That would be a regulator or Congress.

No, it's a United policy:

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...

The airline hasn't commented yet on why they didn't go above 800, when they could go to 1350.

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

#327

Post by rhino369 »

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…

You can pick the kid up and move him. Choosing a kid in this senario is cheating because kids are dumb and don't understand consequences.

If my doctor was laying on my driveway I'd drag him off and then leave. And it's morally and legally right to do so.

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

#328

Post by cmurf »

mattsfrey wrote: post #259

Sure it was a dumb/unethical thing to do on behalf of the airline and should have been handled differently etc. I'm wondering why nobody is commenting on the absurd behavior of the passenger however - insisting on forcing police to physically drag him from the plane. Once it was decided and the guys in uniforms with guns show up, what sane person is honestly going to do that? The decision to remove the passenger we c…

I think this is milquetoast logic. You acknowledge the airlines' mistakes, and then with exactly zero logic you shift the burden of consequence entirely to the victim.

Shit airline policy, shit airline decision making prior to boarding to avoid an altercation, shit airline decision making after the boarding process by being too cheap to bribe literally anyone off the plane, shit airline decision to have a "random" person forcibly removed. Yeah that's all bad but in the end it was the passengers fault for what happened? Ummm, yeah, that's shit logic. How did you just get from Exhibits A, B, C, D, and E to conclusion Z with no dots connected?

I also call bullshit on "the computer" picking someone randomly to be removed. I will eat my hat if the computer really has a random function for this purpose, rather than one based on seniority (miles status) or yet another shit decision on part of the airline shifting a personal choice to that of the computer, i.e. lying.

I'm glad this guy stuck to his decision. Even better there's video for his future lawsuit. The only thing they understand is money. And he should take as much of their money as his lawyer can possibly extract out of the airline. It's the only way airline employes who made bad decisions at literally every step along this sequence will make adjustments. Had he merely complied, it would have secured the policies as just and reasonable in the eyes of the airline, even though they aren't just or reasonable.

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

#329

Post by ksrm »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #19
Twirrim wrote: post #5

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

Tough day for them, but now tomorrow I'm sure customers will be a lot more compliant and willing to take arbitrary orders to save the airline money, and that will make everyone's job easier. #WorthIt

The system works!

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

#330

Post by rtkwe »

ed_balls wrote: post #166
rtkwe wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the flight attendants wouldn't have had seats in the case of an emergency which I'm willing to bet isn't allowed.

A friend that works for Emirates managed to get this way to home on Christmas. There are usually 2 spare jump seats. You put 2 pilots there and 2 where the couple was. The flight is quite short.

Hmm, maybe the plane they were flying has fewer spares or they'd already filled any spares with other crew they were shuffling around?
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