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Remove United from your flight results

dropunited.com

71–80 of 293 posts

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#71

United screwed up by not having a decent incentive system in place to avoid deplaning people. People have presented many options, including taking a ballpark figure on checkin, or whilst on the airplance a speaker announcement anyone to travel later for $800, wait a minute, $1000, $1200, okay great thanks folks.. That was extremely badly handled and shocking that no process was in place for this - as last minute crew…

Hi, as someone who worked on this, let me say, that's not the point.

Consumers are in fact treated like shit, either knowingly/actively or not, and that is an abuse of power and trust. Power and trust that should be dissolved and then earned back.

This chrome extension, created in a couple of hours, illustrates a simple fact: be evil, be ignored. That's it. The power is in the hands of the consumer. We all have the right to voice our opinion with how we spend our dollars.

Too bad if your company gets caught up in someone's else's bullshit. Be evil. Be associated with evil. Ignore evil. Be ignored yourself. The internet is not a free advertising platform. The rules of infinite reach apply to big money and just someone willing to slap a few lines of code together.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general policy makes sense for United , they just got unlucky this time. A law requiring all bumping to be voluntary would fix this, and require United to come up with a system that wasn't just "meh, call security".

A law would not "fix" this. It's a workaround. Which law was this guy breaking to begin with? The problem is lack of scrutiny by the officers handling this. The process should have gone something like this: United: "Hey, we have this guy refusing the leave the airplane. Can you help us remove him?" Chicago PD: "Why won't he leave the airplane?" United: "He says he needs to catch this flight for something work-related…

It wasn't the Chicago PD in this case.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#74
If I removed every airline that sucked from my flight results, I'd be driving to Paris.

I hope this reaction keeps going because I'm gonna load up on United stock. In 6 months, all these noise makers will be gone and we'll all realize United is equivalent in shittiness to AA, Delta, etc etc.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#75
I hate to be the one to point this out, but this is a case where people vote with their wallets for the absolute cheapest product, and then are angry to get what they paid for. They buy discounted non-refundable inflexible strings-attached fares, and then are shocked to discover than when push comes to shove, strings are attached (such as lowest priority on rebooking).

If you absolutely need to get there on time, or need flexibility, buy a non-discounted fare. Yes, it costs more, but you will be at the head of the line if there is a mechanical problem, weather cancelation, equipment replacement, etc, all of which the airline has limited control over.

Also, a bit of perspective, the last US commercial airline accident with fatalities was in 2009, and tens of millions of people have traveled safely to their destination since then, not so with any other mode of transportation.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#76
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but pretty sure there are some specific exceptions for employees en route to another location to staff a flight (deadheading). If airlines could not do this they would have to possibly cancel flights that they could not otherwise staff, inconveniencing dozens or hundreds of passengers instead of just a few. That said, United utterly botched this in the way they handled it. And I don't let the PD off the hook ei…

There is nothing in the contract of carriage that says it is ok to remove a passenger from the plane for dead heads. About the only reason they are allowed to remove a passenger from the plane is safety reasons. Three fact that united might have to cancel a flight and inconvenience other people is totally irrelevant.

Read rule 25, and once you realize that employees are booked as passengers when moved like this, you realize there's a whole procedure in place for bumping people involuntarily from flights.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are legally entitled to cash if you ask for it.

Well, that's "involuntary compensation" regulated by DOT. And those are usually handled before you board on the plane. So technically if you walk down the plane yourself, they can call it "voluntarily".

What? What do you mean by "walk down the plane"?

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general policy makes sense for United , they just got unlucky this time. A law requiring all bumping to be voluntary would fix this, and require United to come up with a system that wasn't just "meh, call security".

A law would not "fix" this. It's a workaround. Which law was this guy breaking to begin with? The problem is lack of scrutiny by the officers handling this. The process should have gone something like this: United: "Hey, we have this guy refusing the leave the airplane. Can you help us remove him?" Chicago PD: "Why won't he leave the airplane?" United: "He says he needs to catch this flight for something work-related…

What actually happened:

United: "This man is trespassing on private property."

Chicago PD: "We'll be right over."

United breaking their agreement isn't illegal, but remaining on private property after you've been asked to leave by the people in charge is illegal.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#79
I was once in a small crash flying United. There was no major injury, but a lot of scare and a day of travel lost. United took good care of us, then I receive a 'sorry, here's $50 in credit' mail. I was stunned by how small the amount was.

A few weeks later a passenger created a Facebook group, and we all started to share our experience. United caught wind of it, and sent us $500 credit almost right away, with bigger apologies for the incident.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#80

United screwed up by not having a decent incentive system in place to avoid deplaning people. People have presented many options, including taking a ballpark figure on checkin, or whilst on the airplance a speaker announcement anyone to travel later for $800, wait a minute, $1000, $1200, okay great thanks folks.. That was extremely badly handled and shocking that no process was in place for this - as last minute crew…

The general policy makes sense for United , they just got unlucky this time. A law requiring all bumping to be voluntary would fix this, and require United to come up with a system that wasn't just "meh, call security".

We don't need another regulation to solve this. Seems like the free market is going to handle it just fine.
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