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.
Remove United from your flight results
171–180 of 293 posts
Re: Remove United from your flight results
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been wondering this myself. Yes, it sucked that 4 people were required by United to deplane. This was awful planning on United's part. But 3 passengers deplaned without the situation escalating to this catastrophe. Then we have the 4th passenger who decides he wants to potentially add resisting arrest to his trespassing and interfering with a crewmember, and a set of sworn police officers who couldn't properly d…
> "Resisting arrest" What? They were not arresting him as far as it has been shown. Resisting arrest is a grave crime AFAIK, so don't mix terms (or don't complain of other people mixing things!). > "trespassing" Again, read more about it, he was not trespassing at all. He was legally allowed to stay in the flight (even though the crew members said otherwise).
Also under IL law, trespassing: "A person commits criminal trespass to real property when he or she: (3) remains upon the land of another, after receiving notice from the owner or occupant to depart" In the reading I've done on this, I've not found anything to support your claim that he was permitted to remain on board. Do you have a source?
Re: Remove United from your flight results
#173I do 100K miles a year on JAL. Rockstar airline. In the US go out of my way to fly Virgin even when I have top status on One World and could fly American. I took the American Tokyo-SF flight one as JAL was so booked. Never again. I will stay in another day. A co-work of mine just went to Japan for the first time and he has status on One World. I talked him into the JAL flight. He was amazed at the difference. America…
Re: Remove United from your flight results
#174I 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…
There was zero reason to remove him from the flight other than United deciding they had a better use for the seat (which if we accept, should we start expecting United to remove people from flights if someone shows up offering to pay more? I'm not convinced there's a material difference between the two cases).
Re: Remove United from your flight results
#175And what about Delta, the kids they kicked off their flight for not adhering to dress code? Drop those flight results too? Maybe Rainman had it right, Quantas and only Quantas?
What's next, the #PassengerConvenienceMatters movement? And then the conservative response #ALLConvenienceMatters?
Perspective on these stupid incidents, that the passengers signed on to when they bought the tickets is entirely overblown. And pisses me off.
Re: Remove United from your flight results
#176When you are bumped on an overbooked airline, here's what you should know: Airlines start offering compensation and travel that is less than what is required under the FAA rule hoping that people who haven't been properly informed about their rights will take the cheap offer. When this doesn't work they slowly raise the offers. The FAA rules provide that a passenger who has a reservation and who is asked to give up t…
That's way too cynical of an interpretation. If I'm a poor, flexible traveler (and I have been) I'd rather get $200 for myself by volunteering than have a chance at $1350 by waiting to get kicked off.
It's win-win for me and the airline. That's 20h at minimum wage!
Re: Remove United from your flight results
#177The 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…
Re: Remove United from your flight results
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
The well-informed discussion on Naked Capital ( http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/04/united-passenger-remo... ) strongly supports the claim that the removal was illegal. It also provides interesting evidence that the decisions were traceable to United's attempt to reduce costs by using third party contractors and affiliates (the flight was operated by Republic, an affiliate). This quote is telling: "When I was a ou…
I'm not arguing the fact that United did a really bad thing. I definitely agree with that. I'm only arguing the supposition that United is a uniquely bad company.
This is the kind of problem a company can get into when the people making the key decisions operate in terms of "metrics" that don't track reality well enough. Plus when a lot of the work is done by outsourced vendors, they probably don't pass on unquantifiable bad news.
Re: Remove United from your flight results
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That's actually not true. From 14 CFR 250.1, definitions: "Confirmed reserved space means space on a specific date and on a specific flight and class of service of a carrier which has been requested by a passenger, including a passenger with a “zero fare ticket,”" "Zero fare ticket means a ticket acquired without a substantial monetary payment such as by using frequent flyer miles or vouchers" ... "A zero fare ticket…
Re: Remove United from your flight results
#180The 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…
In terms of culture, United needs to learn from Southwest. Southwest has great culture internally as well as externally. United has bunch of slogans as culture. Their CEO has no clue about creating a culture that delights customers. He blamed the customer in the letter and then blamed it on system failure but never on him. He failed to create a customer centric culture and instead fostered a culture that perceives cu…
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...