21–30 of 274 posts
I think the video of this incident is frankly disgusting, but it's not clear without more context why the situation escalated to the degree it did. For example, UA fly another plane 3 hours 20 minutes later to the same destination (which is to say, a very reasonable and perfectly expectable delay in any situation involving air travel), why did the doc need to be on exactly that plane, and why did the UA staff also ha…
The fact that the airline technically didn't do anything illegal here really speaks to the lack of consumer protection laws in this country.
What did they do that should be illegal?
Overselling each flight makes the tickets cheaper. People want cheaper tickets. So it isn't obvious to me that over selling is wrong. Is the problem that they failed to stop the people boarding before deciding they didn't want to carry them on that flight?
I feel the current system of overbooking and how it is "regulated" is backwards, and airlines should rethink. Perhaps they could do some sort of an auction without a maximum. It is their problem after all, and a market mechanism seems a reasonable way to deal with this. Sometimes this would mean someone who does not care as much will gladly take $150 as compensation. Other cases might lead to much higher numbers. The…
I completely disagree with your advice. If you truly care about something you should protest against it immediately.
The fact that the airline technically didn't do anything illegal here really speaks to the lack of consumer protection laws in this country.
Overbooking means airlines can offer passengers refundable tickets.
Occasionally they get it wrong and have too many people show up. So they offer compensation to get people to voluntarily give up seats. If they can't get people to voluntarily give up seats they have the right to pick who to deny service to (but by law have to pay specific compensation to).
It's a system that works well. It keeps planes as full as possible. It keeps fares as low as possible.
I'm not sure it should change based on one guy who decided he was too important to accept being bumped.
Ignoring the physical assault, this sounds about par for United customer support... I've been avoiding United for years, but a few years ago, a few friends wanted to be picked up at the airport after United flights. Over 50% of them bought tickets for flights that didn't exist, and were instead consolidated onto other, later, flights. Airlines should have to pay large multiples of ticket prices (in cash) to passenger…
“The next time we book a flight, it doesn’t matter if it’s United or Delta or American, if one of those flights is a dollar less than the other one, that’s the one we’ll pick. They know this. That’s why we’re stuck with them.”
I don't understand the dynamics of how it ended up this way. Air travel used to be a luxury, and had fairly high margins. The race to the bottom has inspired a lot of terrible practice...unbundling things like "baggage fees", pushing load factors beyond what's reasonable, increasingly smaller seats, etc.
I feel the current system of overbooking and how it is "regulated" is backwards, and airlines should rethink. Perhaps they could do some sort of an auction without a maximum. It is their problem after all, and a market mechanism seems a reasonable way to deal with this. Sometimes this would mean someone who does not care as much will gladly take $150 as compensation. Other cases might lead to much higher numbers. The…
The problem with your logic is giving private companies complete rights over your physical person once you enter their plane will (and does as shown by the incident) lead to abuse for profit. There was no security issue, there was no emergency, there was no legitimate reason to remove this person from the plane. The abuse and physical harm of a passenger was done entirely in the name of saving a few dollars by not se…
Is it any wonder that "failure to comply" has become legalese for, "You've given us the right to do anything to you, up to killing you on camera."
This isn't the airlines, although obviously their customer service is appalling; this is an issue with our police.
I feel the current system of overbooking and how it is "regulated" is backwards, and airlines should rethink. Perhaps they could do some sort of an auction without a maximum. It is their problem after all, and a market mechanism seems a reasonable way to deal with this. Sometimes this would mean someone who does not care as much will gladly take $150 as compensation. Other cases might lead to much higher numbers. The…
The problem with your logic is giving private companies complete rights over your physical person once you enter their plane will (and does as shown by the incident) lead to abuse for profit. There was no security issue, there was no emergency, there was no legitimate reason to remove this person from the plane. The abuse and physical harm of a passenger was done entirely in the name of saving a few dollars by not se…
This e-mail illustrates the complete imbalance of the "contract" of carriage between passenger and airline, which is compounded by the Federal Aviation Regulations that give the crew ultimate power even when there's no safety risk[0]. The CEO states that the flight was 'fully boarded' and then later that it was decided to 'deny boarding' to four passengers. So was it fully boarded or not? It doesn't really matter, th…
If anything we shall get to witness if the power of social media can overcome such abuse, It has helped turn the tables a bit with policing but usually only when it occurs in a public setting. People do need to take note that this actually is another case of police abuse just at the behest of a private company.
I feel the current system of overbooking and how it is "regulated" is backwards, and airlines should rethink. Perhaps they could do some sort of an auction without a maximum. It is their problem after all, and a market mechanism seems a reasonable way to deal with this. Sometimes this would mean someone who does not care as much will gladly take $150 as compensation. Other cases might lead to much higher numbers. The…
I completely disagree with your advice. If you truly care about something you should protest against it immediately.
The real advice here is to vote with your dollar.
I think the video of this incident is frankly disgusting, but it's not clear without more context why the situation escalated to the degree it did. For example, UA fly another plane 3 hours 20 minutes later to the same destination (which is to say, a very reasonable and perfectly expectable delay in any situation involving air travel), why did the doc need to be on exactly that plane, and why did the UA staff also ha…
He was a Dr. going to work