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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

#351

Post by whitepoplar »

rhino369 wrote: post #316
whitepoplar wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He did ask for it when he refused to get off the plane. His motivation was richetous but his tactics weren't. And by I mean getting dragged off the plane. Some are spectulating he was beat off camera. Nothing would justify that. But if you force someone to drag you off a plan, you are asking for the natural consequences.

You're free to hold your own views. I think yours are unethical.

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

#352

Post by mcv »

MattSteelblade wrote: post #261
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.

Airlines are legally allowed to overbook. It's an established practice.

It's a terrible practice and it should be punished more so it will stop.

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

#353

Post by mattsfrey »

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…

Yes, choosing an action you know will directly result in a certain outcome makes you responsible for experiencing that outcome. Logic seems pretty simple to me

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

#354

Post by randallsquared »

ars wrote: post #275
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…

> The real thing to fear here is the normalization of violence. Then there's not much to fear, because I don't see anyone at all finding this normal. It's on every news site and social network, everyone is deeply disturbed about these events. If anything this clearly shows that violence is FAR from normal in peoples' mind.

The folks carrying out the orders found it normal. At least, we have no suggestion of any kind of extraordinary situation that justified them using violence.

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

#355

Post by ino »

pbiggar wrote: post #12

Buried at the bottom: > "The airline eventually cleared everyone from the plane, Bridges said, and did not let them back on until the man was removed a second time — in a stretcher." My reading is they beat him so badly they had to put him in a stretcher. Is that right?

He was visibly traumatised (videos show a man bleeding and under mental stress, not safe for work)

https://twitter.com/Tyler_Bridges/status/851228695360663552

https://twitter.com/kaylyn_davis/status/851480498186485760

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

#356

Post by njitram »

djsumdog wrote: post #347
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Sorry. I should have said "per capita." http://www.globalresearch.ca/libya-from-africas-richest-stat...

As context, that website is said to be a proponent of conspiracy theories (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Chossudovsky#Centre_for...)

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

#357

Post by grzm »

Mithaldu wrote: post #313
grzm wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you ask the police to intervene, you are explicitly requesting a violent resolution. You're asking the police, a third-party representing the state and its acknowledged monopoly on legitimate use of force, to become involved. That doesn't necessarily mean that the resolution will or must be violent.

Application of force is violence, by default. Even if it's just a tiny bit of force. Much more useful would be deescalation and mediation, but that is not the training given to US police.

Yes, application of force is a type of violence. As you point out (as did I), that's not the only option available to police, and is not necessarily the expected result of asking for police assistance. And deescalation and mediation are part of the training given to US police. That said, law enforcement training is not consistent across jurisdictions in the US. Some likely have more training in mediation and deescalation than others.

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

#358

Post by phil21 »

xapata wrote: post #131
mabbo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that costs money immediately. Forcing someone off the plane and causing a huge HR mess only costs money long-term, and it doesn't come out of my budget, so why should I care?

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

The cap really isn't being explained properly, it's actually almost assuredly not relevant to this guy's situation.

The actual penalty is 4x the cost of the segment. Note this is not what you paid for the ticket on your credit card divided by two (in the event of a direct round trip ticket). This guy was likely owed somewhere in the range of a few hundred bucks as a ORD-SDF segment is likely worth about $50-100 after fees are excluded.

The $1350 is simply the max, your ticket has to be worth at least $337.50 for that to matter - at which time it's against you of course.

Think you'd probably have to fire congress to make that limit and multiplier higher :)

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

#359

Post by AngeloAnolin »

tedmiston wrote: post #281
AngeloAnolin wrote: post #253

It has been mentioned a lot in the comments that United was correct as per their Contract of Carriage - Involuntary Deny Boarding. But what's being missed here is that, the person who was dragged wasn't denied to board the plane in the first place. He was already seated, a seat number assigned to him, he is on the plane and by all means and precedents, he has already boarded . You cannot anymore deny boarding for som…

Their technical definition of boarding may include everything up to until taxing for takeoff. They definitely are able to remove people between boarding and takeoff, whether through IDB or another clause.

That technical definition should be explicitly stated on their contract, otherwise, it does not and would not hold up in any court of law. Ambiguity on contract clauses becomes the burden on those who wrote and enforces it, and that by itself is a concern because United cannot simply state that their supposed clause also magically enforces such other circumstances.

They can definitely remove any person from a flight, but the context here is that they made an error from the get go all the way to how they handled the situation.

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

#360

Post by mthoms »

ksrm wrote: post #271
crooked-v wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hey, so, these four are being jerks, so we're starting over again, but they're not allowed to participate."

So they're guaranteed a seat on the flight? Sounds like a winning strategy for them.

In this hypothetical scenario, they were already guaranteed a seat on the plane.
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