Remove United from your flight results • Hacker News Board

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#261

Post by Mithaldu » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 2:37 PM UTC

lightbyte wrote: post #250

zzalpha wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of culture, United needs to learn from Southwest. Southwest has great culture internally as well as externally. LOL, you mean this Southwest? https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/feb/15/overweight-film... Wait, maybe you meant this Southwest: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/04/1...

I dont see anything wrong with your first link. If someone can't fit in their seat they should buy two seats or not fly.

As a fat person myself, yeah, if you get that far it's on you to make that clear in advance, not in the airline to measure your waist at the gate. That dude is just being an entitled dick.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#262

Post by mcv » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 2:48 PM UTC

johnfn wrote: post #103

rm999 wrote: post #69

The comments in here are oddly fatalist about the whole thing. We put a lot of trust in airlines; and not just in safety or to get us somewhere, but we also give them an unusual number of legal protections once we're in their care. When the drama first started I kind of wrote it off: "this must have been a misunderstanding compounded by a single employee's stupidity". But when I found that it was not only condoned, b…

> Then, the inevitable outrage led to past stories resurfacing, with a pattern of absurd insensitivity (abused dogs, broken guitars, sexist clothing policies, etc). You don't think you'd be able to dredge up similarly bad stories for any other airline? Look, what United did on that flight was pretty awful. But the rest of this to me smacks of the typical rumor mill that spins up when a company has bad PR, which surfa…

Sure, it may be an extreme case, but the CEO's reaction is telling. If everybody now accepts this as normal, we're sending United a signal that this is okay and they can continue like this. If we send a signal that this is not okay, they have a reason to try to do better, and so do the other airlines.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#263

Post by ajeet_dhaliwal » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:08 PM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #72

tootie wrote: post #11

Why is United taking more blame than the Chicago PD?

The Chicago PD wasn't involved with this at all. It was "aviation police". No connection.

Whoever they are it is a sad state of affairs. Obviously United is primarily to blame for all of this - the CEO is so disingenuous - but who are these goon like people who just follow orders without asking a single question. They could have asked, what has he done? Is he a murder suspect, has he done something awful? If the answer back was just, 'we've overbooked' then the trivial nature of it all should have made them think.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#264

Post by mcv » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:20 PM UTC

bingomad123 wrote: post #146

rm999 wrote: post #69

The comments in here are oddly fatalist about the whole thing. We put a lot of trust in airlines; and not just in safety or to get us somewhere, but we also give them an unusual number of legal protections once we're in their care. When the drama first started I kind of wrote it off: "this must have been a misunderstanding compounded by a single employee's stupidity". But when I found that it was not only condoned, b…

The worst part of the story was United's campain to smear the victim and to paint him as a sex offender.

I missed that smear campaign. It seems quite a number of media outlets are willing to divert attention from a beleaguered corporation and implicitly defend their right to beat up passengers.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#265

Post by smokeyj » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:26 PM UTC

lolc wrote: post #238

smokeyj wrote: post #217

Maybe someone should SWAT Uniteds CEO and his family so he knows what it's like. Violence is good and appropriate right?? /s

Nobody should SWAT anybody. Don't joke about this.

Some stranger on the internet can have you killed by the people entrusted to protect you.. and the solution here is to not joke about it? Screw that. This is hilarious.

Why do I get the feeling that SWAT protocols would change overnight if a high profile CEO was the victim.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#266

Post by rayvd » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:30 PM UTC

donald123 wrote: post #257

what_ever wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. I have volunteered for flights on United in the past and I have a got a single voucher of the total amount ($800 and $500). Also I can use it online. I received them less than a year ago.

It's not false, it's from someone else's experience. Maybe it's up to different gate agent or airport to decide what they'll issue.

Yeah, turns out it's false.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#267

Post by strictnein » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:47 PM UTC

MR4D wrote: post #258

hamami wrote: post #182

While I didn't have terrible experience comparable to some recent events, I also want to share mine. Last year when I was flying United I printed my boarding pass from one of the kiosks at the airport, and it assigned me to a seat where there's slightly more legroom, normally I believe these are upgrade seats, but I assumed there's no other seats so it gave me that one. After I and several others boarded the plane, o…

The only way I've found to protect against this is by being paranoid. Whenever someone asks for my boarding pass, I show them my phone, while the paper copy is safely in my pocket.

I've always printed two boarding passes and kept them in my carry on. I've had gate agents walk away with my boarding pass in the past and simply never return.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#268

Post by arcticbull » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:59 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #188

pookeh wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad example because in this case United and passenger entered an agreement for the passenger to be on United's property. That's like saying you leased your house to a tenant for a year but then six months in you find another tenant that you want so you call the cops on the first tenant. Doesn't work like that (well at least where I live). A contract is a contract and nobody is tresassing here.

That's a civil matter, they're absolutely allowed to kick you off their plane if they want, regardless of what they told you before. Sure, they're breaching contract, but that's a civil matter. It's completely unlike residency, as well, because that's got special protections, and as many times as people say this has special protections too, it doesn't.

Right, except, like, it does, because airlines are regulated too, by the DoT. Actions here likely constituted a breach of 14 CFR 250.2a

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#269

Post by soreasan » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 4:06 PM UTC

chrisbennet wrote: post #248

zzrg wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the level of moral outrage you're expressing is commensurate with the position "the only thing United did wrong was setting their cap for overbooked flight compensation too low." And in any case, that cap is set by the department of transportation.

The "cap" is a limit on how much the airline must pay, not on how much they can pay in order to involuntarily dis-board a passenger. There was nothing stopping them from paying the passenger who "bid" $1600 to solve the problem they created in the first place.

Are you sure? Most of the articles I've read indicated that the cap was UP TO 400% of the ticket price with a maximum of $1,350 which seems to indicate that the cap is a maximum. Although I will say if the airline offered cash instead of vouchers I'm sure more people would have volunteered.

Re: Remove United from your flight results

#270

Post by lolc » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 4:38 PM UTC

smokeyj wrote: post #265

lolc wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody should SWAT anybody. Don't joke about this.

Some stranger on the internet can have you killed by the people entrusted to protect you.. and the solution here is to not joke about it? Screw that. This is hilarious. Why do I get the feeling that SWAT protocols would change overnight if a high profile CEO was the victim.

I see your point.