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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

#371

Post by jordanb »

acchow wrote: post #277
SamBam wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what they should have done is exactly what other airlines do when they are overbooked: keep raising the voucher amount until someone volunteers to get off. And if you can't find someone to get off at a price that seems appropriate (which is very unlikely: you're always going to find someone willing to take $1000), work out other arrangements. The moment you've escalated to "we've selected people at random, and we…

Unless you have some bizarre demand curve due to extreme circumstances (famine, civil war, etc) there will always be a clearing price. No need for violence.

Yeah but that would affect profits. Much better to just rough the self-loading cargo up a bit and drag it off the plane. /s

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

#372

Post by blawson »

MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #342
chimeracoder wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 fr…

>The police in the US are trained to de-escalate situations too. Sure, but practically speaking if you have a realistic understanding of how most US police forces operate, you know that involving them in any kind of dispute greatly increases the chance of violence and harm for all involved. YMMV per locality and situation, but it's a pretty sensible rule of thumb that police involvement equals increased risk of viole…

That's probably because there is a not-unreasonable expectation that the situations the police are called out for will involve deadly weapons.

Obviously not the case here, but in general, when anyone could realistically be carrying a gun, I don't think the current situation is a big surprise.

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

#373

Post by drcode »

tedmiston wrote: post #297
drcode wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So sorry we had to reaccommodate your forehead by concussing it against an armrest"

If I'm understanding correctly it was not United that did this but the police officer. The airline doesn't control the officer.

You have a very naive way of looking at the world if you think United had no role in this officer's actions.

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

#374

Post by tedmiston »

AngeloAnolin wrote: post #359
tedmiston wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

The part of the CoC I read this morning (linked in another comment), after making the above comment, sounds like the rules for removing a passenger are independent of boarding.

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

#375

Post by PuffinBlue »

I feel like this is going to make it into PR textbooks as a perfect example of how not to manage a developing situation.

Right from the pre-boarding request for volunteers yielding no results, to then letting passengers board, to 'randomly' selecting 4 people to 'volunteer' after failing to increase the incentive bounty above $800, to calling in the cops, to patronising responses on Twitter, to refusing to comment when major news outlets get in touch and on to the CEO failing to apologise for the harm to the guy but instead for having to 're-accommodate these customers'.

Nothing about this was handled well but you wouldn't expect it to be because it required a series of damaging institutional/cultural practices to be in place already to let the situation develop in the first place - so the response was always going to be sub-par.

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

#376

Post by abandonliberty »

Based on my experience with United this is corporate culture, rather than 'one bad decision'. A culture that focuses on maximizing profits per transaction with little left for human dignity or compassion - let alone relationship building.

On the bright side, "United breaks guitars" is a really catchy tune. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

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

#377

Post by tedmiston »

drcode wrote: post #373
tedmiston wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm understanding correctly it was not United that did this but the police officer. The airline doesn't control the officer.

You have a very naive way of looking at the world if you think United had no role in this officer's actions.

I don't see the claim that "United had no role in this officer's actions" in anything I wrote.

To be more explicitly, my parent comment is referring to once the airline escalates the situation to police, overriding it is out of their hands as airlines cannot control the police.

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

#378

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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...

You are correct in Libya having the highest African GDP per capita before 2011 [1]. Granted, Libya's economy is more similar to its oil-producing peers in the Middle East and North Africa.

The debt motive for the invasion makes little sense. American banks made more money on Ghadaffi's Libya [2].

[1] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/business/dealbook/libyan-...

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

#379

Post by criddell »

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.

The police can also talk to the guy, determine he has a ticket and apparently has the right to be there, then leave and tell United to not call back until they've exhausted all their options.

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

#380

Post by grasshopperpurp »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #334
cmurf wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Absolutely not. The airline made a bad situation worse by refusing to offer adequate compensation, and they made it even worse by introducing violence. This man saw that he was being wronged, and he refused to allow them to wrong him without some type of protest. If he had left and said, 'Well, this isn't right,' nothing would have come of it. He would have received no justice. Now, there's a good chance that he'll be adequately compensated for his trouble, and United will be adequately shamed/penalized by would-be customers.
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