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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

#361

Post by Symmetry »

John23832 wrote: post #238
Symmetry wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a problem with the processes in place in the airline. They have to do their own due diligence. Who's to say that this man's price was the lowest price? Turn it into a bidding process, the lowest 5 bids on the plane get paid, and the airline gets their seats. The potential for misuse is not a good excuse for accepting negative actions.

Oh, yes, I totally agree. When you have a "CAN'T HAPPEN" in a code comment that's a sign of laziness or bad design and the same applies to company procedures. Hopefully United will go back and seriously rethink how they go about this now. It's just sad it had to come to this to make it happen.

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

#362

Post by tdb7893 »

btbuildem wrote: post #138
tdb7893 wrote: post #39

Airlines operate in very uncertain and variable environments (weather isn't always what it is predicted, mechanical issues are pretty common, and pilots can get sick and other stuff) and having planes or pilots on call everywhere is prohibitive expensive so it's really not surprising that they have to do stuff like this sometimes. Airlines need to be more up front about their policies but there doesn't seem to be a g…

And how does any of that justify assault and bodily harm?

How else should they have gotten him off the plane? Legally he needed to leave and they had asked him to leave peaceably

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

#363

Post by phil21 »

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.

That's just IDB coverage, mandated by the FAA. They don't get a choice here. You will find the exact same penalties and limits for all airlines.

Voluntary compensation is entirely different - they are free to offer whatever they like to get someone off the flight. Involuntary unfortunately incentives keeping those limits low as a matter of airline policy though, of course. They can force someone off a plane for usually far less than $800 if they feel like taking a customer good will hit. This ORD-SDF flight certainly was nowhere near $1350 in IDB comp - likely less than $300 in mandatory IDB comp based on average ticket prices.

I've seen these offers go as high as $2,000 during significant service disruptions on major airlines. This is a corporate policy failure, as I'm sure the gate agent was only allowed to authorize up to $800 for that flight or something dumb.

They rolled the dice on saving a few hundred bucks against their reputation this time. I think it's safe to say they lost badly on that calculation.

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

#364

Post by kyleblarson »

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…

I'd also add that the police should have denied the request to get involved because this situation was a contractual issue between the airline and the passenger. No laws were being broken.

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

#365

Post by falcolas »

londons_explore wrote: post #285
threatofrain wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Violence will always underlie government, law, courts, and police. Nations can do research on de-escalation or non-violent interventions, but what happens when a nice method doesn't work? Violence comes next. The objection here is that violence wasn't sufficiently gated, and nor was violence minimally applied -- the airline could've just paid people to get off with a real offer, and not a dishonest offer where people…

There seem to be no evidence in this case that non-violent methods weren't used first. Surely the flight attendants politely asked the man to leave, and when he refused they called their manager who did the same, and only at that stage did they call the police, who also probably asked the man to leave first, before finally resorting to dragging him out. At the end of the day, the plane is owned by United, and they ha…

> that's a purely civil matter.

Maybe, maybe not. Airlines are heavily subsidized by the US government in exchange for regulation so they will offer service to rural areas which might not otherwise be viable to run an airline into our out of. There are also laws and regulations which turn disobedience of airline personnel into a federal offense in particular situations.

Whether these, combined with this passenger's situation, turns this from a civil to a federal matter is something I'd leave for the lawyers.

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

#366

Post by dragonwriter »

grzm wrote: post #289
ryandrake wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The airline had plenty of options. When you ask the police to intervene, you are explicitly requesting a violent resolution.

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.

> 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.

The only thing the police have that United lacks in this circumstance is the monopoly on violence; by asking the police to become involved, United is asking for violence, by force or it's explicit or implied threat, to be deployed to resolve this situation.

It's true that police can use mechanisms other than force or explicit threat, but so can United without involving the police. The only reason to involve the police is because they are violence, at least in the form of implied threat of force.

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

#367

Post by jordanb »

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.…

Think the solution is to outlaw IDB for overbooking. This is similar to letting airlines sit a plane on the tarmac for hours with all the passengers stewing inside. Once they had to start paying penalties they quit doing that.

In this case, denying IDB would force the airlines to pay the passengers whatever it cost to get them to voluntary leave the plane. This constitutes a penalty for overbooking to the point where they have to refuse carriage, and also just compensation for those inconvenienced.

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

#368

Post by tdb7893 »

djsumdog wrote: post #114
tdb7893 wrote: post #39

Airlines operate in very uncertain and variable environments (weather isn't always what it is predicted, mechanical issues are pretty common, and pilots can get sick and other stuff) and having planes or pilots on call everywhere is prohibitive expensive so it's really not surprising that they have to do stuff like this sometimes. Airlines need to be more up front about their policies but there doesn't seem to be a g…

Or they can just take the hit. In this case, they decided to comp four people so they didn't have to cancel a plane load. Seems like good economics, but no one wanted to give up their seats. I mean why would you. It's bad enough you have to get molested by the TSA once. Twice? Fuck that. I want to go home. No I don't want a voucher for $200 of my next flight with the same shitty airline that will expire before I can…

By cancelling they could be cancelling all subsequent flights from that plane for that day. If I had the choice between kicking 4 people off a plane and cancelling potentially multiple flights I don't get how cancelling the flights would be better? Getting pilots and planes where they need to go after the planning gets messed up is incredibly expensive and also screws a bunch of passengers

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

#369

Post by strictnein »

metasean wrote: post #233
strictnein wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And probably eliminates everyone flying with multiple people on the same reservation.

The article mentions the first two people asked to leave were a couple flying together.

Oh, interesting. I just kept picturing them requesting a child to leave on their own, or some other insanity.

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

#370

Post by John23832 »

Symmetry wrote: post #361
John23832 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a problem with the processes in place in the airline. They have to do their own due diligence. Who's to say that this man's price was the lowest price? Turn it into a bidding process, the lowest 5 bids on the plane get paid, and the airline gets their seats. The potential for misuse is not a good excuse for accepting negative actions.

Oh, yes, I totally agree. When you have a "CAN'T HAPPEN" in a code comment that's a sign of laziness or bad design and the same applies to company procedures. Hopefully United will go back and seriously rethink how they go about this now. It's just sad it had to come to this to make it happen.

totally agree
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