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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

#491

Post by ajmurmann »

chimeracoder wrote: post #324
mcv wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The police should be retrained not to use violence. (Is this reasonable? You can imagine other instances where this where this would endanger them.) That is absolutely reasonable. 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. And it's that tendency to escalate to violenc…

> 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…

Police in the US on general received much less training than in Europe.

“In the US, police training lasts on average 19 weeks,” she writes, while “in much of Europe that would be unthinkable. In Germany, for example, police train for at least 130 weeks - http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7709638

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

#492

Post by ajmurmann »

tracker1 wrote: post #483
grzm wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 deescala…

What other options do the police have beyond violence that the airline does not?

They could explain legal consequences of non compliance. Maybe they could even fine you. Knowing that not acting as you are supposed to might result in legal hassle, fines, potential detention and if necessary physical violence to make it happen should usually be enough. Applying physical violence should be the very last resort.

It seems like large portions of the police force in the US and the perception of it has degenerated to be some brutish muscle. It's concerning how much that is accepted.

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

#493

Post by ajmurmann »

nostrademons wrote: post #439
dragonwriter wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Yeah that would be nice. Unfortunately the air travel market is a fairly inefficient market. The cost of entry is super high, there are fairly few players and the big ones are good at doing nice nice with the government. In addition we allow them to undermine what little competition there is by creating their anti market alliances. I booked Air Canada to fly to Europe. I traveled via Canada to get away from US carriers. However, a few weeks before the trip they put us on a United flight because they are in some alliance together. Of course you frequently have very few reasonable options to begin with. It's a awfully broken market and I have no idea how we could possibly fix it. I constantly fly with airlines I hate (pretty much all American carriers but Virgin) because it's so cumbersome to avoid.

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

#494

Post by ajmurmann »

Cshelton wrote: post #187
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…

Agreed. I for one will never fly United again. I hope many others do the same. The way that was handled just goes to show the culture and way things are done at that airline. Nobody had the logic to say, wait a minute, this is wrong. Calling the police to throw a passenger who did nothing wrong off? Countless ways to handle this better. In the end, this is going to cost United a TON. United could have flown a plane w…

Good luck avoiding them. So frequently there are few options or you end up booking a flight with some alliance that then gets changed to be operated by someone else.

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

#495

Post by ajmurmann »

nunez wrote: post #485
enraged_camel wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple: they announce that the plane is not taking off until enough seats open up. Then just wait. Sure, the flight would be delayed, perhaps significantly, but the impact of that would pale in comparison to this horrendous PR controversy.

It costs a lot of money to idle a plane at the gate and even more if the crew times out and the flight gets cancelled. No-one is going to do that because of one difficult person

Or rather because of one difficult corporate miscalculation and unwillingness to pay more for people to get off. I got one would get off pretty much any flight for $10k. That seems cheaper to me than the cost of removing your paying customers by force.

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

#496

Post by ajmurmann »

mnglkhn2 wrote: post #155
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.

You beat them senseless! No need to increase the incentives. Same should apply in employment contracts: Hey, Joe, listen here! I need to randomly cut your pay and if you don't take it I have security nearby to convince you! What else can you do?! Am I right?!

Isn't that what we used to do with striking employees?

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

#497

Post by ajmurmann »

nunez wrote: post #486
antoniuschan99 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think the max that an airline can compensate people for an oversold flight is $1000 plus lodging.

Where does that constraint come from? Is that self imposed?

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

#498

Post by ajmurmann »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #448
zeveb wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I think that randomly selecting passengers is the 'other arrangements' their policy works out. I agree that they should have increased vouchers past $800, but I disagree that it's guaranteed that there would be enough takers at e…

Honestly, I'm amazed that in a whole plane, no one jumped at $800. I was very, very, happy to take a $1,000 voucher for a flight to China that required me to take an extra flight (Dallas to Chicago then to Beijing as opposed to Dallas to Beijing) -- Then again, perhaps my day is less valuable than others'.

Maybe they should give people actual money instead of vouchers. With the few vacation days you get in the US they become really valuable.

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

#499

Post by ajmurmann »

jessaustin wrote: post #403
mastax wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Reddit hearsay they offered increasing amounts up to $800 but no one budged. One passenger offered to leave for $1500 and the crew laughed. I'm assuming there's corporate policy that puts a maximum cap on compensation.

...the crew laughed. I guess we should film everything while traveling. Editing the laughter together with the dragging and screaming would be golden...

The laughter might be the most ridiculous part of this. If offered them to get off for 10k in actual money and would have found that perfectly reasonable given the situation they were in. The laughter shows that they somehow set themselves as above the market and the passengers at their mercy. They technically are, but see where it got United.

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

#500

Post by heynowletsgo »

panarky wrote: post #395
inputcoffee wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The bigger issue is that police forces now think it's their job to protect corporations from people, instead of protecting the people. This passenger violated no laws but the CPD willingly intervened as an agent of the corporation. Guys with guns weren't required. United could have offered more compensation to volunteers or accommodated their crew on competing airlines. In related news, we learn that Barclay's "recei…

The police, and common culture, protect capital above all else. This is a capitalist society first and foremost. The status quo, the police state, and the corporation are all protected before the innocent individual. It's policy.
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