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Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

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Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#281

Post by alkonaut »

masondixon wrote: post #163
edsheeran wrote: post #49

They could have used common sense. Be polite. Raise the ante. Negotiate. There was a manager/person in charge who didn't use common sense and then it escalated to more parties without common sense. Low EQ who only know threat of force and escalation of force. Our loss of wisdom https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisd...

They offered $800 to get off the flight. This is what they have to pay by law. Bumping is legal, and must pay if the bump involuntarily. I don't know how a grown adult can get into the kind of situation where they need to be carried off a plane. Absolutely ridiculous that anyone thinks the behaviour of the passenger is acceptable in society. And he is a doctor. This is so unprofessional and I would fire the man if he…

If I understod correctly they offered $0 plus $800 worth of airline credits.

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#282

Post by ubernostrum »

cookiecaper wrote: post #260
edsheeran wrote: post #49

They could have used common sense. Be polite. Raise the ante. Negotiate. There was a manager/person in charge who didn't use common sense and then it escalated to more parties without common sense. Low EQ who only know threat of force and escalation of force. Our loss of wisdom https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisd...

There are some counter-intuitive effects of the "common sense" approach. If people know that resisting longer will get them more, they will work to delay the process in an effort to maximize the airline's bid. This will impact schedules and ultimately lead to more hostile deplaning situations as people attempt to hold out for more. Managers/overseers could intentionally place belligerent people on the plane who refus…

All of your arguments are based on the assumption that an over-capacity situation which is only discovered after boarding is common and easy to manufacture.

Also, remember that the compensation for voluntarily yielding one's seat can be "paid" in non-transferable flight vouchers. Airlines don't issue cash for that, and airline employees already have free-travel privileges. To get the right to cash compensation you need to be involuntarily denied boarding, and IDB "pecking order" is not under the control of the agent at the gate.

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#283

Post by djsumdog »

jfroma wrote: post #141
djsumdog wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also read this author's post about bankrupt airlines. I've always been aware of the subcontracted airlines (often I'd see two flight numbers rotating on the same screen or somewhere it would say X operated by Y) but I never stopped to think if I should check if one of those is actually bankrupt. I don't fly within the US just because fuck the TSA (I'll take a train to Canada if I need to fly internationally), but I…

I don't think "X operated by Y" means subcontracted or that it implies that X is in bankruptcy. Companies do this all the time, one example is when you buy a multi-leg flight. They partner other airlines because they dont have a license to do one of the legs. I might be completely wrong but thats what I always though, please correct me.

oh it doesn't, but in this particular case, Republic was contracted by United and they are bankrupt.

I was implying that if you see tickets and they're subcontracted to another airline, look up that airline and don't book if they're bankrupt.

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#284

Post by ubernostrum »

true_religion wrote: post #111
fatbird wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you are expected to resolve the on-scene dispute without violence" Only to a limited degree, and this forbearance is itself subject to abuse. When everyone politely agrees to "grieve later", it creates an organization-level moral hazard where large companies can pay less in lawsuits than they can save in expenses by abusing the individual's restraint. Walmart during the 1980s practiced a scorched-earth legal defence…

I'm not sure that's a great example. If Walmart employees had started to 'grieve' in store, they'd have been arrested for trespassing unless they moved away to a public street and picketed the location. Picketing the location is a-okay, and counts as aiming to resolve the dispute without violence. Resolving it "with violence" would mean attacking some floor manager who gets paid $13/hr, and immediately being imprison…

Careful. Even in the most "business friendly" parts of the US, workers still have some federal-level protection for organized action, meaning there are things workers can do which the business cannot just decree to be off-limits and force them out.

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#285

Post by diminoten »

chinathrow wrote: post #102
diminoten wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not worried, because the incidents aren't there to support any concern. Flying is safe if a poorly paid pilot is flying the plane, too. It seems like flying commercial flights has a "good enough" bar that the US government does a good job of making sure everyone who operates flights is over.

One such incident was Buffallo. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/nyregion/14pilot.html?_r=0 "Members of the board said that the crew of the twin-engine turboprop that crashed, killing all 49 people on board and one on the ground, was set up for fatigue and inattention before they even took off, partly because of the structure of the commuter airline business. "

While I understand the power of anecdotes, and I'm sure you could continue to push our availability heuristic into overdrive, the fact is that air travel in the US is incredibly safe, even with current practices related to pilot pay and treatment.

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#286

Post by tarlinian »

FireBeyond wrote: post #199
benmmurphy wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is the big mistake that united/republic made. if you deny boarding before the gate the passenger has very little recourse. if they try and run the gate they are going to get very little sympathy. however, once the passenger is seated they suddenly have the option of not moving which is going to cause lots of problems. i don't travel much and i've been on a flight where they have deboarded people after people had…

Yes, because European airlines are a lot nicer in that regard. "200 EUR" (or whatever amount). In the US you hear "offered $800 compensation". It's not cash. It's a voucher for use only on that airline, only within 12 months, and only on select full-fare ticket classes. So an $800 ticket may only get you another round flight from Chicago to Louisville (around 500km/300mi).

I don't really get the complaints about the vouchers. Every airline offers are good for any ticket directly sold by them...(there are specific ticket classes that cannot be booked directly with the airline that will not be allowed, but a normal person cannot get those except through vacation packages). This only comes up as a problem if you buy a vacation package through the airline and want to use the voucher to pay for the tickets. Usually you'll end up having to pay more in order to bump the ticket class up in that case, but not $800 for a short haul flight.

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#287

Post by SilasX »

acqq wrote: post #126
SilasX wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still not seeing how any of that substantiates your earlier claim that "no one is ever forcibly removed by police and if they needed to be, it wouldn't require training". You're just changing the topic to something more defensible.

I don't see the claim you have put inside the quotes as being made by IIIIIIIIIIII, therefore your argument seems fake.

Well, I'm trying to parse it, but as best I can tell, III...'s claim is just "Americans suck at this" combined with implausible claims and explicit rejections of any plausible ones.

Somehow, the mere act of evicting someone is evidence of needing to de-escalate more, as if that could somehow avoid needing to ever remove someone. Or even if you did, you could somehow do it both without training and without attacking, since everyone learns how to remove someone without hurting them sometime shortly after the crying and nursing instincts kick in?

Or, if the eviction wasn't justified, all police are somehow experts on contract law to the point that they could know this?

And then when called on these questionable claims, III... just retreats to, "well look at the stats" (and various other poisoning-the-well unrelated to this specific circumstance).

If there's a coherent claim here, I'd appreciate the correction on what that claim is.

It's easy to say "someone screwed up here", but III...'s attempt to explain what that was ends up making its own dubious claims.

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#288

Post by tarlinian »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #251
mikeash wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A completely free market approach" would not allow airlines to involuntarily remove passengers who have already paid for and used a ticket. A free market approach would involve offering greater and greater compensation for voluntary removal until enough people took it.

No, it would involve whatever the contract between the passenger and the airline says. Which is very likely to favor the airline as they wrote it.

Exactly...I don't get the complaints about the existence of IDB legislation. If the airlines got to write the contracts themselves, they'd say you'd get no compensation at all outside of a refund of your ticket price if you can't be rebooked.

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#289

Post by ubernostrum »

fatbird wrote: post #184
smm2000 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see in advance what company operates each leg. It's not a secret.

As the linked article demonstrates, you actually can't reliably or easily. For practical purposes it is often a secret.

No, it is not a secret. Anybody who claims you can't reliably see if something is a codeshare or regional well in advance is lying, flat-out.

I just went to Air Canada's site, punched in a one-way YVR-SFO and picked a date. And do you know what? I see three types of listings:

* Air Canada flights, which show an Air Canada logo.

* Codeshare flights, which show a Star Alliance logo and say "Operated by United Airlines".

* Regional-affiliate flights, which show a variant Air Canada logo and say "Operated by Air Canada Express -- jazz".

In what way is the airline hiding that information from me if it's shown up-front in the listing when I'm selecting flights? Where is the deep dark secret way they're hiding this, if it's literally right there on the page?

Plus, when you book a codeshare flight your confirmation email will have the same information in it, and will tell you "At the airport, check in at the (operating airline) ticket counter". The idea that this is some sort of secret thing that's hidden to deceive people is simply ludicrous.

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#290

Post by tarlinian »

ceejayoz wrote: post #187
masondixon wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in fact, obligated to incur thousands of dollars in losses by being "randomly" selected to miss a work day on which an entire medical office depends, in exchange for 800 units of United scrip. But its the law and he knew full well that there was always a risk that he would be bumped from a flight, as any passenger does. If he did not want to be bumped he should buy a business class seat. Now the fact that it can be…

> But its the law and he knew full well that there was always a risk that he would be bumped from a flight, as any passenger does. The contract with United says you can be denied boarding, but not much about boarding and then being kicked off after. > If he did not want to be bumped he should buy a business class seat. That's no guarantee. http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/aviation/328495-uni... > Geoff Fearns…

This guy didn't get kicked off the plane...he was put in an lower class (and some guy in Economy maybe got bumped).
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