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United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

latimes.com

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Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#111

Post by tech4all »

I don't develop games... But if I did I would create a game called "United flight agent". You would be standing in the aisle facing the rear of the plane. Each round you would have a goal number of passengers to forcibly remove.

You would walk up and down the aisle and punch out selected passengers. Once you had suitably subdued a passenger you click a security badge and the "Airport Rental Security" guys come and drag the passenger off.

The game timer would be a chart of United's share price. The round is over when the price hits zero.

The price could rise and fall with certain events:. A passenger stumbling back on the plane for instance.

The game would end immediately if you punched a baby - even United agents don't punch babies!

Feel free to run with it!!

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#112

Post by ambulancechaser »

jeswin wrote: post #18

I'm appalled by how this frontal assault on human dignity is shielded by law. What many of us learned this week is that it seems to be perfectly legal to bump off poorer or less privileged people specifically from a plane. This is boat allocation on Titanic all over again.

They bumped a rich guy in this instance. I'm not sure how this can amount to a "frontal assault on human dignity" by asking a dude to relinquish his seat when there's a conflict. They had too many people in first class and they gave priority to the seat not on who had already entered the plane but to the higher member in their club? Easy to disagree or think you would have done it the other way but this isn't really an assault on human dignity. And the great thing, they didn't consider net worth or anything like that. They treated their valued customer in their program by rewarding him with his or her seat at the expense of someone who wasn't enrolled in their program.

> This is boat allocation on Titanic all over again.

This is just funny in this instance.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#113

Post by shimon_e »

mrits wrote: post #91
shimon_e wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have multiple times deboarded a plane before take off. Due to change in business plans, flight delays, etc. In one case a passenger was sick on board and I asked to deboard as I didn't want to risk getting their cold. This was all on Asian airlines. My few experiences on United have been terrible. So in this case I'd say the regulations guiding airlines is fair. United's execution of these regulations is the proble…

"at random"... "from order of lowest priority"... pick one

Lets say there are 50 people in the lowest priority (fare class[0]). It'll pick from random out of these 50 people.

Come'on this is hacker news. I am sure most here have seen the mainframe based applications that entirely control every aspect of airline industry.

These things were coded by professionals over 30 years ago. Its not like these flights are being managed by some buggy wordpress plugin made by some offshore developer.

[0] http://www.cwsi.net/united.htm

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#114

Post by user15672 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #64
Zigurd wrote: post #39

While this might or might not be technically legal, what shocks me is the response you'll see on online fora, that passengers should just shut up and comply, and that failure to do so is childish. These posts are often at great length, and laden with appeals to authority. Some might be trolls. But others appear to be by people who genuinely value an environment where the lowliest airline employee, no matter how poor…

FWIW this attitude is the one taught by primary school teachers in the UK "do what the teacher tells you straight away without question" and it's evil. I can see how such an attitude gets then reinforced​ and survives in adults, "that's what 'good' pupils do".

This is taught so that small kids don't carry on doing things that might be dangerous (kids don't know the difference between dangerous and annoying, so a blanket rule is more sensible here). It's not evil, it's damn sensible. Please feel free to critisise the continuation of this teaching to older kids who can think critically about what they're doing, but don't ask for primary school kids to not do what the accountable adult is telling them.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#115

Post by welly »

tici_88 wrote: post #17

Travelling in the US or with US airlines is not looking very good right now. Not just the United incident(s) but also TSA, Trump travel restrictions, flights constantly overbooked, massively late etc. I wonder if it will start impacting traveller and tourism numbers at some point. I think anyone who doesn't really need to be in the US and/or is planning travelling with kids is likely to have some second thoughts at t…

> Travelling in the US or with US airlines is not looking very good right now.

As someone not living in the US, travelling to the US is not looking good either. I know of many, many people who have written off visiting the USA for the foreseeable future.

I'm one of those and I've spent many years in the US in the past (lived in NE and VA for 5 years in total and visited over 30 states). Sadly, as much as I enjoy visiting the States, it simply feels like too much of a liability to visit at the moment. I'll reconsider in 4 years if it hasn't got any worse.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#116

Post by ambulancechaser »

h1d wrote: post #11

This is just golden... "placing him in the middle seat between a married couple who were in the midst of a nasty fight and refused to be seated next to each other." Crews don't even try to move them to be seated next to each others.

You're advocating for the flight crew to instruct a passenger to relinquish their seat after they have already sat in it so that a first class customer could have it? I think it's safe to say that that should be an action of last recourse...

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#117

Post by stordoff »

fixermark wrote: post #55
macintux wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to remember the last news story about someone being dragged out of a hotel room they've already checked into.

Trying to remember the last news story about someone being asked to leave their hotel room, refusing to do so, having police called, and continuing to refuse to do so. People being kicked out of hotel rooms because of scheduling errors does happen. It's pretty rare.

Errors happen, of course, but has a hotel customer even been removed from a room post-check-in because a member of staff needs the room?

Edit: From a major chain at least. I'm sure all manner of poor decisions have been made by smaller/single location operators, though they aren't really comparable to United.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#118

Post by zzleeper »

coldpie wrote: post #109
Klathmon wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with precheck (which i got as well), it didn't really change anything. I still need to show up just as early (as my local airport often has a longer line for precheck!), i still can't pack more than some stupid amount of liquid, or have my shit thrown out because I used a X-oz plastic bag which is too big!!! I still can't check bags as they just won't ever show up, or will show up damaged, have items stolen, or…

Some TSA clown once told me I had to throw away my water and we just stared at each other for a bit. "My water, seriously?" "Yep, your water." "Water." "Water." Fuck the TSA and fuck the terrified Americans who keep voting to keep them.

I once had a tiny bit of water on my plastic thermos. The TSA guy said "throw the bottle or exit the line, walk to the bathroom and empty it there".

I just looked at him puzzled, opened the bottle, and drank the water.

Now that I think of it, I was lucky he didn't taze me for my 'insolence'.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#119

Post by jghn »

Klathmon wrote: post #71
jghn wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was me for a long time, but then I got precheck. It is such a night and day difference that I'm back to flying

Even with precheck (which i got as well), it didn't really change anything. I still need to show up just as early (as my local airport often has a longer line for precheck!), i still can't pack more than some stupid amount of liquid, or have my shit thrown out because I used a X-oz plastic bag which is too big!!! I still can't check bags as they just won't ever show up, or will show up damaged, have items stolen, or…

I didn't say it was the greatest thing ever and yes it sucks to have to pay for the privilege of what just used to be normal. At least at my airport the whole process winds up being a lot faster.

However it did change my calculus when debating train vs plane for trips. It used to be anything under about a 10 hour train ride was a no brainer, now that's more like a 3 hour train ride.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#120

Post by gm-conspiracy »

michaelt wrote: post #43
mirimir wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not legal. Edit: See lawyer quote from tiatia.

In a way, there are two questions at work here. The first question is whether you can have rent-a-cops throw a passenger off a plane after they have taken their seat. As I understand it, that is not legal. The second question is about over-booking more broadly. After all, though there's a legal distinction between a passenger a second before boarding and a second after, from a customer service standpoint they're stil…

Is it right that an airline can sell 310 tickets on a 300 seat plane, deliberately entering into 10 contracts it knows it cannot honour? As I understand it, that is legal. But should it be?

I assume there are weasel words in the contract(airline ToS) to allow this.

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