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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

#471

Post by chrisbennet »

mattsfrey wrote: post #396
ino wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you can't expect the outcome is to be violently assaulted while doing no harm. Only in a fascist state.

In every single functioning state, you do what the police tell you or they use violence to coerce you. This is basically what defines the existence of a 'state', the alternative is anarchy.

Tell that to Rosa Parks.

The alternative is not anarchy. Peaceful resistance is a valid way to protest something that is wrong.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

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

#472

Post by flukus »

doktrin wrote: post #295
67726e wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what do you do when someone refuses to leave? I'm on the doctor's side, United should not overbook a plane and bump a customer to get their own people on board, but when someone refuses to leave what other options do you have? Taze him and drag him off? You'll have to use force to remove someone.

Like the GP said : this was a logistical problem. They needed to get 4 employees from point A to point B 300 miles away. There are several ways of tackling this challenge : 1. continue escalating their shitty voucher bribes : sooner or later someone's gonna bite 2. arrange alternate air transport for the crew : they're already in an airport, and 2 of their competitors (American, Southwest) have multiple direct flight…

> 4. suck it up and delay whatever flight that crew was scheduled for. It sucks, but it was their mistake to overbook and this isn't a safety-critical situation.

Isn't there a good chance this happened anyway? I heard the plane was grounded for 2 hours.

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

#473

Post by flukus »

antoniuschan99 wrote: post #194
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raise the offer from $800, which is a low amount for an airline overbooking.

From what I've read. Passengers offered $1500 to leave but the employees scoffed at that. Not sure how true though.

I've also read that it typically comes in the form of dozens of $100 flight vouchers that can't be used in combination. The compensation is essentially the airline printing their own money.

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

#474

Post by nojvek »

darth_mastah wrote: post #456

Horrifying. Watching videos like that makes you think: "is it safe to go to the U.S. for holidays"?

TSA took 30 mins when I opted out to do a pat. Be prepared for a lot of time wasted on absolutely stupid things. Its like Americans pay so much tax that Govt has no idea what to do with it.

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

#475

Post by nojvek »

Myrmornis wrote: post #148

So many American police officers are violent thugs under a very thin veneer.

Well no one polices the police and there is no repercussion. Its not like the public has any choice. Its a monopoly and will get paid with tax money anyway.

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

#476

Post by nojvek »

someone1222 wrote: post #7

Everyone should have left the plane and stopped flying United in the future. These things could be so simple and self-correcting if everyone acted instead of screaming oh my god .

I think its a classic case of herd behaviour. If no one is standing up and stopping it why should I? Just needed one person to stand up and fight the stupidy. Then the entire flight would have gone into a resistance.

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

#477

Post by tim333 »

djsumdog wrote: post #291
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…

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…

I can think of quite a lot of forms of debt that don't require violence unless you define violence very differently from the dictionary "behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something."

You borrow £20 from your friends, if you don't pay there is moaning but not usually more. You borrow £100k for a mortgage and don't pay and they may change the locks and put someone else in your house but don't usually hit you.

The United violence has nothing to do with debt.

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

#478

Post by Turing_Machine »

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."

Well, my perceived alternative is now "never fly on United again". Not that it'll make much difference, since I was already avoiding them.

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

#479

Post by tim333 »

papabrown wrote: post #446
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.

I don't believe that to be true. I believe that often ends up happening but I don't believe it to be a sure enough outcome that one can link the two with such certainty. I hate to sound like an old guy but I do remember when police used to try to resolve issues. Much like many police interactions I've witnessed in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Police used to try to get everyone to calm down and figure out a solu…

In the UK the police are still very reluctant to use unnecessary violence. It often surprises me that the US system is so otherwise. I mean who benefits?

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

#480

Post by tim333 »

ErikAugust wrote: post #109
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.…

Pretty sure assault and battery is not legal.

Technically perhaps but they never do anything if it's done by the police.
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