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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

#161

Post by consciouskernel »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #130
devoply wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 assault…

You are wrong. Pilot in command[1] only qualifies when the plane is in flight, which is even mentioned in the quora question you linked. In flight definition requires plane to be moving under its own power. Additionally, the pilot did not tell the passenger anything. An on the ground manager did.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Please throw away your throwaway account.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_in_command

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

#162

Post by xenadu02 »

jpollock wrote: post #2

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…

Federal law governs contract of carriage. United was legally prohibited from removing anyone from that flight to make room for crew. Period.

They broke federal law by breaking their contract of carriage. I don't know what is so difficult to understand about that.

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

#163

Post by eridius »

manigandham wrote: post #154
eridius wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

I don't know why you're trying to make this argument with me, since it's unrelated to the actual discussion taking place in this subthread.

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

#164

Post by notacoward »

The_Magistrate wrote: post #83
maxerickson wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any of those explain why force majeure would not apply? (I'm not implying it would, I'm curious to read an analysis that covers it)

Force majeure doesn't apply in this circumstance because it requires an external force or event that is unforeseeable. In this case, United didn't plan correctly for the transport of its 4 employees, something well within its capability to predict.

It's possible that United did plan correctly for the transport of those employees, but the employees themselves failed to follow the plan. How was it that the 3411 crew didn't even know the other crew was coming, until the very last minute? That's extremely unlikely if the other crew had been scheduled for 3411. It's more likely that they had originally been scheduled for another flight, missed it, and got to 3411 before word did (possibly because of poor communication between United and Republic). At the very best, they were later than they should have been. Why? And did they (or someone else) pressure the 3411 crew into doing what they did?

United still screwed up in a lot of ways. So did Republic. So most of all did the aviation "police" - an organization that seems to consist largely of people thrown out of CPD for exactly the kind of misconduct visible on the video. But somewhere in there I think there's a fourth group that screwed up - the people whose sudden appearance triggered the whole mess.

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

#165

Post by notacoward »

logicallee wrote: post #82
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…

>The terms of service have become so lengthy and obscure I don't think it's fair of you to criticize either the length or the obscurity of terms of service. After all, you could replace nearly all of them with: " 1. We have every right of every kind and can do anything, without being liable for anything. 2. you have no rights of any kind and may do nothing, except those afforded by law, which you hereby waive as far…

Two important points raised by a lawyer about how to interpret the Contract of Carriage (or any other).

(1) When the meaning of a term (e.g. "boarding") is ambiguous or undefined, courts are required to interpret it in the way less favorable to the drafter of the contract.

(2) If the conditions under which one party may do something are enumerated, they may not do it for reasons other than those on the list.

Both principles of legal interpretation go against United in this case. Remember, this is civil law - not criminal. The burden of proof is very different. While many such contracts are too one-sided, rules such as these exist to ensure that they can't be entirely so. A completely one-sided contract might even violate the requirement that it involve mutual consideration, making it a legal non-entity.

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

#166

Post by ubernostrum »

cmurf wrote: post #157
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I appreciate you making this comment.

Too many places I frequent have had crews, and especially airline pilots, basically pulling the "my word is law, there is no appeal and no review and nobody above me but God and even He only has an advisory role" crap.

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

#167

Post by dang »

consciouskernel wrote: post #161
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 assault…

You are wrong. Pilot in command[1] only qualifies when the plane is in flight, which is even mentioned in the quora question you linked. In flight definition requires plane to be moving under its own power. Additionally, the pilot did not tell the passenger anything. An on the ground manager did. You have no idea what you're talking about. Please throw away your throwaway account. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_…

You've been posting uncivilly to HN. We ban accounts that do that, so would you please (re-)read the site rules and comment civilly and substantively from now on?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

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

#168

Post by ubernostrum »

ItsDeathball wrote: post #128
ubernostrum wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look in the /r/aviation threads you'll see various people who are airline crew claiming they can fly jumpseat but it's beneath them and they want their regular-seat privileges enforced at basically any cost.

This sounds plausible, and fits with the incident if basically no one trusts the airline to negotiate in good faith. Employees assume that if they don't make a fuss about getting a seat, then they'll have to fly jump-seat or standing-room-only from then on out. Likewise, passengers don't trust the airline offer of $800 and the next flight out for giving up their seat. I would have taken that offer if I could be assur…

It's worse than that, really. I've got people on reddit telling me that policy -- which they say I can only read if I FOIA it, maybe -- is that all disputes with passengers are supposed to immediately escalate to police as a first and only resort. Because "9/11", apparently.

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

#169

Post by consciouskernel »

dang wrote: post #167
consciouskernel wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong. Pilot in command[1] only qualifies when the plane is in flight, which is even mentioned in the quora question you linked. In flight definition requires plane to be moving under its own power. Additionally, the pilot did not tell the passenger anything. An on the ground manager did. You have no idea what you're talking about. Please throw away your throwaway account. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_…

You've been posting uncivilly to HN. We ban accounts that do that, so would you please (re-)read the site rules and comment civilly and substantively from now on? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

> read the site rules and comment civilly and substantively

Civilly I can give you, but substantively?

> The test for substance is a lot like it is for links. Does your comment teach us anything?

I don't understand how you can claim I'm not commenting "substantively" when I'm correcting blatantly wrong info with citations.

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

#170

Post by dang »

consciouskernel wrote: post #169
dang wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've been posting uncivilly to HN. We ban accounts that do that, so would you please (re-)read the site rules and comment civilly and substantively from now on? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

> read the site rules and comment civilly and substantively Civilly I can give you, but substantively? > The test for substance is a lot like it is for links. Does your comment teach us anything? I don't understand how you can claim I'm not commenting "substantively" when I'm correcting blatantly wrong info with citations.

If you edit the uncivil parts out of your comments and leave only the substantive parts, that would be just fine.
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