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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

#431

Post by dragonwriter »

nostrademons wrote: post #421
londons_explore wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But there's a really obvious non-violent option that they apparently didn't take: pay people more . If nobody gets off the plane at $800, raise the offer to $1K. Or $5K. Or $10K. Most other overbooking situations are resolved once the offer gets above $1k + hotel, but even if it was, I really doubt that they couldn't have found 4 volunteers at $10K/each. $40K is a lot less than this incident is going to cost them in…

OTOH, demonstrating willingness to use force to boot people off the plane if there aren't volunteers should decrease their future cost of dealing with overbooking, because the perceived alternative to taking a buyout offer is no longer "sit pat and be guaranteed to keep my seat."

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

#432

Post by [deleted] »

maxerickson wrote: post #340
mcv wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#433

Post by talmand »

JohnLeTigre wrote: post #428

Some observations - Surely there is a difference between overbooking and diminishing the number of available seats after the fact. - Also, I would like to see how their "random computer pick" complies with their legal obligation of having IDB priority criterions. - That was excessive force without any doubt. I mean, they had to clean up the blood afterwards. - The doctor had to meet patients the next day, he had to u…

"Your honor, the reason I committed trespass was because I had to meet patients then next day and I should be absolved of these charges."

Yep, that should work.

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

#434

Post by criddell »

talmand wrote: post #426
criddell wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just because you have a ticket doesn't mean you can refuse to leave the plane when asked by the owner of said plane. Many people with tickets have been booted from planes for many reasons.

That's true. I don't think it would take long for the police to figure out what's going on though. Asking United to explore all of their options before applying force isn't unreasonable. United can ask the police for help and the police can say since it's not an emergency, we'll get there when we get there.

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

#435

Post by toomuchtodo »

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.

It doesn't even have to be bizarre. I've been on flights where the entire flight is going to Mardi Gras, spring break in Daytona, or a cruise; when everyone is expecting to be somewhere, the clearing price can quickly exceed what you'd expect.

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

#436

Post by nostrademons »

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.

If people decide that that's actually likely to happen, nobody will buy airline tickets. You pay the airline to get you to your destination, but if it's likely that you won't actually get to your destination, why risk paying the airline?

That's the source of the brand damage here: many people (rightly or not) will be wondering whether the same thing might happen to them if they fly United, and decide it's not worth the risk.

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

#437

Post by problems »

jessaustin wrote: post #410
problems wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that more because air traffic is up rather than their margins having gone up? Maybe oil prices of the day play a role too... but I wouldn't count on that to be true for long. Even in this report though, you'll note that the fares are down 63% since 1995 - the competition is pretty fierce here. The absolute profit is only around measured 5% even today. I wouldn't exactly call that a…

The absolute profit is only around measured 5% even today. I wouldn't exactly call that a great margin. You would if you were a grocer. Deregulated airlines have low margins; that's a fact of life. They pay fuel bills, they pay interest, the executives steal what they can, and the unions take everything else. When they miscalculate and pay the unions so much they can't cover their bonds, they reorganize through bankr…

I did not suggest this justifies anything - in fact I said this was severely mishandled. I merely tried to explain the slight against overbooking some people seem to have - which is mostly unrelated entirely, but that's why I didn't respond to the top post, but to a post complaining about the practice of overbooking.

Though I don't see anything that makes me think this was a racist act, where'd you get that idea?

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

#438

Post by xupybd »

mcv wrote: post #349
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. Are you sure? I've never heard of it. I have heard of a police officer who was fired for de-escalating a situation through his training as a marine. Maybe some police department do train their officers to de-escalate, but it's very clear that many don't. In fact, many US police officers are overly eager to de-escalate. > That doesn't stop police violen…

Here in New Zealand, the police absolutely are trained to de-escalate situations. There are times when it's not possible, but every interaction I've had with the police here they've been amazing. Polite but they're still in control and authoritative. I can't speak more highly of the New Zealand police. That said we have strict gun control and most of the time they don't have to deal with offenders with firearms. If they do, they call out the Armed offenders Squad, at that point the gloves are off.

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

#439

Post by nostrademons »

dragonwriter wrote: post #431
nostrademons wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there's a really obvious non-violent option that they apparently didn't take: pay people more . If nobody gets off the plane at $800, raise the offer to $1K. Or $5K. Or $10K. Most other overbooking situations are resolved once the offer gets above $1k + hotel, but even if it was, I really doubt that they couldn't have found 4 volunteers at $10K/each. $40K is a lot less than this incident is going to cost them in…

OTOH, demonstrating willingness to use force to boot people off the plane if there aren't volunteers should decrease their future cost of dealing with overbooking, because the perceived alternative to taking a buyout offer is no longer "sit pat and be guaranteed to keep my seat."

Sure, but a whole lot of good that does you if people choose not to book with you in the first place because "Might get beaten up instead of transported to destination."

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

#440

Post by JohnLeTigre »

talmand wrote: post #433
JohnLeTigre wrote: post #428

Some observations - Surely there is a difference between overbooking and diminishing the number of available seats after the fact. - Also, I would like to see how their "random computer pick" complies with their legal obligation of having IDB priority criterions. - That was excessive force without any doubt. I mean, they had to clean up the blood afterwards. - The doctor had to meet patients the next day, he had to u…

"Your honor, the reason I committed trespass was because I had to meet patients then next day and I should be absolved of these charges." Yep, that should work.

lol, good point

I suspect it wasn't tresspass though, more like a bought-pass

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