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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

#331

Post by cmurf »

justin66 wrote: post #326
cmurf wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe I'm thinking of baggage. I know there's a limit on liability applied by law somewhere.

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

#332

Post by rhino369 »

denom wrote: post #68
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…

But if he had the right to his seat, then why should he leave?

He didn't have the right to his seat. He had a carriage contract. Even if United breached the contract that doesn't allow you to trespass.

Trying to solve business disputes by force, which is what the passenger did by refusing to leaves, is bad policy.

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

#333

Post by dragonwriter »

This should never happen; regardless of how you feel about the practice of overbooking or bumping passengers for staff, if there aren't seats available, a pre-sold ticket shouldn't be convertible into a boarding pass, and the passenger should never have been able to get onto the plane or even into the secured area of the airport (and doing this is the only sane and efficient thing to do if airlines are going to allow checked baggage at all, given positive bag matching rules.)

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

#334

Post by AnimalMuppet »

cmurf wrote: post #328
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" pe…

> and then with exactly zero logic you shift the burden of consequence entirely to the victim.

When did mattsfrey say anything of the sort? Seems to me that he said that, essentially, the passenger made a bad situation worse. And I think that his claim is objectively true. The passenger would not leave the plane, even when told to do so by the police. Does that lead to physical force? In the real world, yes, it does. Does the passenger bear some (not all!) responsibility for that? Yes, he does.

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

#335

Post by muro »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #310
djsumdog wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should read "Debt the First 5,000 Years". It's an amazing book, and one of the things the author talks about is how debt requires violence. You can't put a man into debt unless you have the capacity for violence to enforce it. He doesn't pay you back, you break his legs, or take his sons and daughters as slaves. Today we have reduced the violence. Now companies ruin credit, get a Sheriff to evict someone from a h…

> debt requires violence Any kind of property requires violence to exist. If I say "this is my land" and you disagree, the only way I can enforce my claim is through violence. Debt is just a specific case of a general phenomenon. (This applies to communal property, too.) > Before the US destroyed Libya, it had the highest GDP in Africa Do you have a source for this? I see Libya's GDP circa 2005 at $41 billion (in 200…

Maybe per person

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

#336

Post by [deleted] »

Cshelton wrote: post #187
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…

Agreed. I for one will never fly United again. I hope many others do the same. The way that was handled just goes to show the culture and way things are done at that airline. Nobody had the logic to say, wait a minute, this is wrong. Calling the police to throw a passenger who did nothing wrong off? Countless ways to handle this better. In the end, this is going to cost United a TON. United could have flown a plane w…

[deleted]

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

#337

Post by sheepdestroyer »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #310
djsumdog wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should read "Debt the First 5,000 Years". It's an amazing book, and one of the things the author talks about is how debt requires violence. You can't put a man into debt unless you have the capacity for violence to enforce it. He doesn't pay you back, you break his legs, or take his sons and daughters as slaves. Today we have reduced the violence. Now companies ruin credit, get a Sheriff to evict someone from a h…

> debt requires violence Any kind of property requires violence to exist. If I say "this is my land" and you disagree, the only way I can enforce my claim is through violence. Debt is just a specific case of a general phenomenon. (This applies to communal property, too.) > Before the US destroyed Libya, it had the highest GDP in Africa Do you have a source for this? I see Libya's GDP circa 2005 at $41 billion (in 200…

Property is theft already if you believe Proudhon.

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

#338

Post by to3m »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #322
FireBeyond wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The point is that "oversold" is not the appropriate term.

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

#339

Post by mcv »

londons_explore wrote: post #294
mcv wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did he not have a legal right? I thought the only reason they removed him was because the plane was overbooked and they wanted the seat for their own employees. Sounds like he had a valid ticket and every right to be on that plane. The airline should not have overbooked, and discovering that they had, they should have put their own employee on the next plane. Treating paying customers like this is inexcusable.

A ticket is just a deal between you and the airline. At any point the airline can decide it's not going to uphold that deal. Sure, you can try to go to the courts to get monetary compensation for that, but you can't force them to provide the service.

That makes them an unreliable partner to deal with. A ticket is not just a simple product, there are other deals depending on it. You may have a vacation booked, an important meeting, a funeral, or anything else. Missing your flight could mean missing a lot more than just the flight. The airline should take their agreements a lot more seriously than this.

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

#340

Post by maxerickson »

mcv wrote: post #339
londons_explore wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A ticket is just a deal between you and the airline. At any point the airline can decide it's not going to uphold that deal. Sure, you can try to go to the courts to get monetary compensation for that, but you can't force them to provide the service.

That makes them an unreliable partner to deal with. A ticket is not just a simple product, there are other deals depending on it. You may have a vacation booked, an important meeting, a funeral, or anything else. Missing your flight could mean missing a lot more than just the flight. The airline should take their agreements a lot more seriously than this.

And yet the thing people actually shop on is price.
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