Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

resistancereport.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 274 posts

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#181

Post by dragonwriter »

true_religion wrote: post #126
BlackFly wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a fantastic link. Summary of the points: CFR 250.2a covers overbooking but only applies before boarding. Since the United employees had no confirmed reserved seats on the aircraft, they cannot be given priority over a customer with a confirmed reserved seat. The passenger was already boarded, so they cannot rely on oversales rules to refuse service. Instead they need to rely on their Contract of Carriage whic…

Yep, and in order to exercise his legal rights in this entirely civil case, he ought to have left the plane called his lawyer then gone before a judge. This whole act of struggling with the police is never going to get a good outcome. It will only escalate things from a civil matter to a criminal one.

Given that either the police were acting illegally or United must have falsely asserted facts that made the removal legal, it seems to me that it must have become criminal, either on the part of the police or, more likely, United's false police report, before any struggle.

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#182

Post by valuearb »

bertil wrote: post #171
_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, on a plane the crew is king and you have to follow their orders. If they decide that you have to leave the plane, you must leave the plane. Now, their reasons might be questionable. You have every right to fight the airline once you are off the plane. But there is no room for this while on board. Basically, as soon as he started to refuse to follow the crew's orders, it was a lost case for him.

Not exactly: the crew’s first duty is to protect passengers’ safety. In that regard, they are allowed to compel passengers and can do things like confiscate alcohol for disinfection and demand that a surgeon operates a dying patient/passenger. They are allowed to flag a passenger as rowdy or suspicious. They are not allowed to demand that a passenger disembark for other reasons than security. Harming a passenger when…

The crew didn't harm him. They asked the passenger multiple times to leave. When he refused they asked airport security to remove him. Airport security asked him multiple times to leave, and when he refused they dragged him out and he bumped his face against an arm rest.

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#183

Post by arkis22 »

openmosix wrote: post #151
arkis22 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment was not meant to suggest that what happened was right. My comment was meant to suggest that anger at the CEO for supporting his employees, who only called security, and didn't beat the guy up themselves, is misplaced. UA screwed up, but the email wasn't what went wrong. The UA employees followed protocol by calling security. Protocols are generally in place for a reason, and they can be reworked. I don't t…

We can argue what "be a cheerleader for them[employees]" means. If I were a United employee, I'd not be impressed by my employer. I'd feel ashamed of being part of an organization that has managed to escalate a logistical problem (because that's what we are talking about) into violence. I'd like to be proud of my employer and, today, I'd not feel great knowing my company is ok with beating up a harmless man. I'd seri…

Ironic. I agree with your sentiment but find the opposite conclusion.

If I were a United employee I would also not be impressed. UA is now instantly associated with violence.

You want to know that something went wrong and that UA doesn't stand for violence, as most other employees would.

But that's what the letter's saying...

He says it right here:

He was approached a few more times after that in order to gain his compliance to come off the aircraft, and each time he refused and became more and more disruptive and belligerent. Our agents were left with no choice but to call Chicago Aviation Security Officers to assist in removing the customer from the flight. He repeatedly declined to leave. Chicago Aviation Security Officers were unable to gain his co-operation and physically removed him from the flight as he continued to resist - running back onto the aircraft in defiance of both our crew and security officials.

It's very clear to me that UA did not condone or suggest the violence against the passenger. The CEO's description of the events makes it clear to employees that this situation escalated out of control after they passed it off to security.

Just because you can apply it doesn't mean you should. You really need to define what protocol they have that you hate so much. The guard that attacked the passenger was placed on leave. Suggesting the violence wasn't protocol.

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#184

Post by pdelbarba »

cortesoft wrote: post #38
dingaling wrote: post #5

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…

What is the alternative to commercial airlines for someone who isn't crazy rich?

PPL ASEL will cost you about $8k (doable if you really want it) and a 172@$105/hr wet to travel around in at 110kts. Take two fearless friends and you have yourself a private airline.

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#185

Post by bronco21016 »

tomaha wrote: post #97
valuearb wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So United should not have tried to board their flight personnel so that another plane full of passengers could sit on the tarmac for hours in Louisville with no crew?

They should make sure they have the seats for their personnel and not sell them to customers. In every other business if you sell the same thing to two people I would call it fraud.

It's really not that simple at all. A multitude of things could have happened in SDF (Louisville) causing the crew there to be unable to fly. Since it was a whole crew I would guess they hit up against FAA mandated rest requirements. In the interest of making sure that flight in SDF still went out the airline scrambled to get a reserve (flight crew members that are on-call) crew down to SDF. These things often happen at the last minute with no warning.

Not at all am I defending what happened on this flight. Just want to point out that last second adds of flight crew members is a VERY common occurrence and without it the number of cancels would skyrocket astronomically.

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#186

Post by mikhailt »

ambulancechaser wrote: post #154
mikhailt wrote: post #92

This is what happens when you normalize violence, you focus on the blaming and legal stuff instead and you get people like this CEO but no one is reacting to the fact that a human being has been knocked out, dragged out like an animal for something he didn't have to give up. He had a legitimate reason not to give up his seat, he had patients he needed to see the next day. The airline CANNOT act like the computer is r…

> He had a legitimate reason not to give up his seat This is true until an officer of the law asked him to get off the plane. Argument time happens before that, and after that in court. But at that point, you're being ordered off a plane by a law enforcement officer. When you don't comply there's only one way for it to proceed at that point. > The airline CANNOT act like the computer is right all the time It was the…

The airline called the cops to enforce its rights; the cops could've ordered everyone off the plane to de-escalate the situation peacefully, which should've be done in the first place due to the space constraint in there causing safety concerns. What if the guy wanted to fight? Other customers could've gotten hurt. I've been in that situation before the cops ordered everyone to disperse first.

They could've listen and ask if anyone else would be willing to give up their seat for the doctor.

There are many options and based on the videos and what the other passengers said, the airline nor the cops gone through all of them before escalating the situation like this.

Sorry, the cops were in the wrong as well. They may have all the laws on their side I'm sure but if we treat cops as right all the time, we normalize their behaviors as acceptable as well.

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#187

Post by jehoshaphat »

smitherfield wrote: post #79
MandieD wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One word: deregulation. It's been a very sharp double-edged sword: on the one hand, it gave us effective competitors like Southwest and jetBlue forcing the "legacy" carriers to compete on price and routes, enabling far more people to be able to fly. On the other, it caused the legacy carriers compete on price, not service (the only thing they could really compete on before deregulation). Personally, I fly Southwest a…

Deregulation is the reason the middle class can afford to fly at all. Pre-deregulation, a Boston-LA flight would be $500 in 1978 dollars.

Yeah, but pre-deregulation there were plenty of seats for employees and dependents to fly and airlines were making money. Airlines didn't have to have police with rubber hoses beat randomly selected passengers until they could be dragged off the plane. Source: dad was a middle-class airline employee during this period. I flew on his pass. Could not wear tights, though. I am currently a middle-class schmuck. Don't fly because I'd rather stab myself in the eye..and, oh, can't afford to.

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#188

Post by valuearb »

phonon wrote: post #165
valuearb wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure some lawyer will try to go down this path for the alleged physician. But the reality is the flight crew has the right to kick anyone off the plane, and they need to have that right.

Not true. UA has a Contract of Carriage that specifically enumerates the possible reasons they can use to deny boarding or remove someone from a flight. There is no "catch-all" in it. https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...

"Force Majeure and Other Unforeseeable Conditions"

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#189

Post by m_t »

govg wrote: post #166
cm2187 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about the comfort of seating in a train. It's about not having to queue for 1h at security, being abused by TLA officers, queue again, getting checked, queue again, getting checked, etc. Flying today feels like going to jail.

If you have as much commercial pressure in trains as you do in flights, then I'm sure you will be asked to do the same sort of checks, and standing in queues. This happens because flights are an easy target (due to high costs, visibility and more favored view in the public eye). If we had someone attacking train lines because they carried a lot of people, you would have correspondingly sever safety regulations too.

I think you already forgot one of the most deadly terrorist attack on the European continent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Madrid_train_bombings

Nevertheless, we don't have the same security circus when boarding train.

Re: Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

#190

Post by cmurf »

valuearb wrote: post #75
Shivetya wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take issue with the idea it was over booked when it was the airline wanting to transport its own people in place of booked customers. 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…

So United should not have tried to board their flight personnel so that another plane full of passengers could sit on the tarmac for hours in Louisville with no crew?

This is not the fault of any passenger.

The airline ceased to be civil when they shifted from an auction, to inviting police power on board. It was morally wrong for them to do this, and it was even worse for the police to agree to it.

There's no ethical, legal, or contractual argument for what the airline did; or the power they claim to have in this letter. They do not have the power to deplane people for the reason stated, their contract lists out numerous reasons for passenger removal but this is not one of them.

Post reply on HN