111–120 of 178 posts
So how many people will get fired over this?
My guess is it will be like the Wells Fargo fiasco. Some low-level employees - probably the staff that worked that flight - will lose their jobs while those that actually created the policies that led to this will be just fine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/business/dealbook/wells-f...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only because the passenger peacefully resisted, and did not comply with the airline's request he depart the plane on his own volition. He didn't give into threats, and risked and received an assault, in order to arrive at the point where this is going to cost the airline.
He should totally bring a multi-million dollar lawsuit, it's a total cake walk as it'd be hard to find a jury that wouldn't sympathize and he and his grandkids would be millions of dollars richer. Not to mention all the dirt you can drag United through during the lawsuit in the media. Love to see some testimony from the dick CEO as well who tried even character assignation of the poor doctor they needlessly assaulted…
Seems to me that what is most unfortunate is that surrounding passengers didn't support the passenger dragged off the plane. 4 or 5 people standing up and threatening something along the lines of "Why don't you take my seat too jackass; I don't want it anymore" would have been far more effective at righting this situation than proper media reporting or crying about passenger contracts.
On overbooking, this is a solved problem: hold an auction where the max payoff is the risk in dollars X, distributed amongst Y passengers (the number of seats you need to free up). Start at some low anchor point ("$300 to get off the plane") and increment up until you have takers. If the total value exceeds X, write it off - you messed up. I believe other airlines implement this in some capacity.
United does too. They just stopped at $800 and then went the random route. They could have gone higher.
The subtext here is that customers don't have any actual rights when dealing with a large corporation. The terms of service have become so lengthy and obscure that it's virtually certain for a corporate lawyer to find some justification somewhere for almost anything. The corporate employees and the police both operate on this assumption. As a customer, your only recourse is to meekly accept whatever treatment is comi…
Even if it wasn't a passenger overbooking, it was overbooking in that they failed to properly account for the likelihood of having to ship crews around their network. If their occupancy ratio was lower, then there wouldn't have been a problem, they could have fit the crew in. If they reserved 4 seats for crew on every flight, again there wouldn't have been a problem. If they had even reserved 2 seats and run sufficie…
Even if that is the case, there are much better methods of dealing with a situation like this than calling a police officer. It seems, like usual for American police, officers are insensitive to anything but violence; no logic, just apply force. The man is lucky they didn't taze him. The crew should have known that. It's good that this policy is about to change, but it is too little too late.
This is correct and I believe it's by design.
Law enforcement officers are selected for high aggression and high intelligence is often/usually penalized in the screening process. In a lawsuit against New London CT, the courts found it legal to disqualify a candidate for being too smart.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cap is the maximum of what passengers are legally entitled to. The airlines can offer more if they want.
I've been wondering: does this mean that a valid response to this situation would be "I will leave the plane if given my legally entitled $1350"? As in, among other reasons, is United in the wrong here because the maximum they offered for volunteers was $800, not the regulated $1350?
So bumping the person that paid the least for their ticket would mean they have to pay them the least.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if that is the case, there are much better methods of dealing with a situation like this than calling a police officer. It seems, like usual for American police, officers are insensitive to anything but violence; no logic, just apply force. The man is lucky they didn't taze him. The crew should have known that. It's good that this policy is about to change, but it is too little too late.
It seems, like usual for American police, officers are insensitive to anything but violence; no logic, just apply force My understanding is that there was a lengthy conversation that took place before the outrage-inducing video starts. They did attempt to resolve the situation peacefully. At some point there is an impasse. Police are making a request and he's ignoring it. There are two ways that can go: 1) Police shr…
Seems to me that what is most unfortunate is that surrounding passengers didn't support the passenger dragged off the plane. 4 or 5 people standing up and threatening something along the lines of "Why don't you take my seat too jackass; I don't want it anymore" would have been far more effective at righting this situation than proper media reporting or crying about passenger contracts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article suggests that the airline was the one breaking the law and not the passenger. So in this case the police helped the airline commit a crime. Is this nowadays what means to have a police force?
The central thesis of my argument is that the ins and outs of each side's claims can be litigated later on. At that moment, the cops probably don't (and likely in principle can't ) know exactly who is right and who is wrong and in fact this isn't at all the role we expect the police to fill .