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United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

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Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#151

Post by scrumper »

Vivtek wrote: post #30
jph wrote: post #14

This is a new kind of UI/UX dark pattern. The United app lets customers pay for seats, and any reasonable person thinks that's the whole of it. But the fine print says that's not true, and says you can be forcibly removed if the flight is oversold. https://darkpatterns.org/ "When you use the web, you don’t read every word on every page - you skim read and make assumptions. If a company wants to trick you into doing s…

No. The fine print does not say that. The fine print says they can deny you boarding, not remove you once already boarded. Your point about the dark pattern is all too true, but United still behaved entirely illegally here.

It's still denied boarding, and would be so until the doors were closed, so he wasn't technically boarded at the time he was removed. (And they can remove you for all sorts of reasons even after you've boarded.)

United behaved despicably, but not illegally.

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#152

Post by tanderson92 »

t0mbstone wrote: post #148
zeteo wrote: post #19

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…

An interesting comment I ran across... not sure if it's valid or not, though: "Lawyer here. This myth that passengers don't have rights needs to go away, ASAP. Here is how United illegally kicked him off the plane: 1. First of all, it's airline spin to call this an overbooking. The statutory provision granting them the ability to deny boarding is about "OVERSALES", specifically defines as booking more reserved confir…

That comment is quoted in TFA, no?

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#153

Post by tanderson92 »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #141
untog wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently Warren Buffet has changed his mind in recent years and invested in airlines. Largely because of what you describe: consolidation means people have no choice but to use them.

That kind of proves my point.

He's smart so he bought other airlines as well. As Matt Levine pointed out today, while Buffett lost money on UAL yesterday, he more than made up for it with gains in other airlines which were up on the news. He said: "Boycotting United to fly another airline is just what United's index-fund owners want you to do"

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#154

Post by manigandham »

eridius wrote: post #106
rhizome wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a rhetorical difference where "overbooking" puts the onus on the customer, and "oversales" puts it where it should be: on the airline who sold the extra tickets. And at any rate, the flight was not oversold anyway. It was merely the 4 extra United employees who put the plane over capacity.

How can "overbooking" possibly put the onus on the customer? Overbooking is entirely within the control of the airline, and the customer doesn't have the capacity to overbook, or even the knowledge as to whether overbooking could possibly occur. > And at any rate, the flight was not oversold anyway. It was merely the 4 extra United employees who put the plane over capacity. Well yes, that's the whole point of this di…

Yes, overbooking/oversales are effectively synonyms, but that's not the issue at all here. Overbooking is purchased and reserved seating over capacity.

The plane was fully booked and boarded at capacity, and then 4 more seats were cleared by physically removing passengers. Collapsing these events by saying it's an overbooking issue overlooks the very important timeline in between the plane being booked/boarded and then initiating a removal of said passengers, instead of denying them in the first place.

The request for 4 seats should've arrived before the boarding process (or at least before it ended), that's the problem.

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#155

Post by CyberDildonics »

scrumper wrote: post #151
Vivtek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The fine print does not say that. The fine print says they can deny you boarding, not remove you once already boarded. Your point about the dark pattern is all too true, but United still behaved entirely illegally here.

It's still denied boarding, and would be so until the doors were closed, so he wasn't technically boarded at the time he was removed. (And they can remove you for all sorts of reasons even after you've boarded.) United behaved despicably, but not illegally.

So someone with their luggage checked, their carry on stowed, and already in their seat is not boarded? Do you have a source that says this?

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#156

Post by mark-r »

strictnein wrote: post #54
jazzyk wrote: post #25

No, the real failure (and the source of this and many other issues in the airline industry) is the lack of competition in the US domestic market. Pure and simple. The huge, 350-million US domestic market is served by 4-5 major airlines, while the EU with 500 million people is served by tens of airlines. I recently flew from Barcelona to Nice for 30 euros, round-trip (with seat assignment). Where are the (potentially…

> "Where are the (potentially Mexican or Canadian-based) low cost airlines? That's right, none to be seen." I'm in the upper midwest and we have two or three low cost airlines. Sun Country is the biggest (and based in MN). Spirit Airlines also has a decent presence. Sun Country flies to lots of places. First class ticket to Anchorage cost me ~$700 last time I flew with them, less than an economy seat on Delta.

I'm taking a flight this weekend with Sun Country, MN to DC round trip for $180. Booked two weeks ago.

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#157

Post by cmurf »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #138
mturmon wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Moreover, refusing to leave the premises when requested or to comply with the police when they arrived, is unquestionably against the law." One might think that, but TFA points out that there are regulations covering when a passenger can be bumped. The demand that the passenger leave may have violated these rules. The police order in that case was mistaken, a point also raised in TFA.

> One might think that, but TFA points out that there are regulations covering when a passenger can be bumped. The demand that the passenger leave may have violated these rules. The police order in that case was mistaken, a point also raised in TFA. Those regulations do not trump the pilot's authority to directly order a passenger removed for disrupting a flight, even for trivial reasons. See this article that discus…

FAR 91.3 and 91.11 exist for operational safety of the flight. The purpose of the FAR is the PIC can ignore company, customer, and even Air Traffic Control orders that compromise the safety of the flight. Company says you must land at this airport tonight, and the pilot says well it's socked in, it's not safe to land, so no. That's the purpose. It's to make him accountable to flight safety, not the company or anybody else.

By making him an agent of his company's customer service to remove a passenger who is in compliance with the law, regulations, and the company's own contract of carriage, and then use FAR 91.3(a) as an excuse to say the pilot must be obeyed is poor logic. And I am a pilot (and a former CFII). I think it makes flights less safe to inject the company's demands into the cockpit. They do not matter, what matters is safety. That's what his FAR is about, not to enable the pilot to be an ass to passengers on behalf of his moronic company.

And claiming otherwise damages the necessary trust that we're supposed to have, and should have, with pilots and crew. Their primary purpose is to save your life. It is not to pour sodas, or appease the company CEOs profit needs by being jerks to passengers, and throwing them off for business reasons.

As for the police, I think that was an illegal assault on the part of the officer, and given the available information the passenger wasn't breaking any laws, so the police being there was inappropriate in the first place, they shouldn't have intervened and should know that.

Edited a few times to remove foul language :-D

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#158

Post by speby »

Has everyone watched the video? There is a point in the video where "things went wrong" and it happens right before the officer makes the decision to physically touch the passenger and begin to assault him in order to remove him.

Immediately before that point, there are a multitude of things that could have been done or done differently. The choice was made by that one individual to physically take hold of the passenger who was ultimately, peacefully, declining to deplane.

For example ... the officers could have:

1. Explained to the passenger and everyone around him about how he is single-handedly delaying everyone else's arrival home right now.

2. Gave several warnings, spaced out appropriately over time, that increased levels of escalation will be involved, up to and including the point of physical removal. In other words, telling him he will be forcefully removed against his will for not obeying the law.

... and so on with certainly more creative approaches that I wouldn't necessarily expect a typical police officer to think of and/or employ.

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#159

Post by Mithaldu »

speby wrote: post #158

Has everyone watched the video? There is a point in the video where "things went wrong" and it happens right before the officer makes the decision to physically touch the passenger and begin to assault him in order to remove him. Immediately before that point, there are a multitude of things that could have been done or done differently. The choice was made by that one individual to physically take hold of the passen…

The officers should've told the flight staff they're outside their legal rights.

Re: United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Failure

#160

Post by gspetr »

I believe this is exactly the kind of thing that will be resolved by the tools the market provides.

If they wanted volunteers to fly the next flight instead of this, they should have offered more than $400. Kind of like an auction: $500, $600, etc. and eventually enough people would have been incentivized to take the deal.

The company failed at that and now their competitors will get their business and increase their market shares at United's expense.

IANAL, but they might even be facing a very expensive lawsuit and will have to settle.

The market will ultimately work things out, I don't think the FAA should intervene much.

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