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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.
Edit: See lawyer quote from tiatia.
Time for regulating the oligopoly of the airline industry. Obviously the safety of passengers can not be ensured anymore. https://medium.com/@thisTenqyuLife/united-airlines-should-go...
If they're regulated, next time they drag someone off a plane, they'll say "We were just following the handbook and were in accordance with federal regulations. Take it up with the FAA"
So no, no need to regulate the industry.
Also, the body you want to regulate them (the government) routinely does much, much worse to people.[0]
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Ameri...
Can someone read this: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag... and explain where it allows them to refuse transport to a well-behaved passenger after boarding ? Rule 21 seems to apply, but nothing there looks like "United can refuse to transport you 'just cause'". I've seen lots of people claim this behavior is legal, all without a shred of evidence to back them up.
So he paid the cost of first class but flied economy and when they get called out on it they think all they need to do is compensate for the difference? With the way he was treated?! How can you call yourself "Customer care specialist" and think that is a way to treat customers?
Time for regulating the oligopoly of the airline industry. Obviously the safety of passengers can not be ensured anymore. https://medium.com/@thisTenqyuLife/united-airlines-should-go...
Airlines seem pretty regulated already. Maybe there's another word for what you want to happen?
> Instead, the service rep offered to refund Fearns the difference between his first-class ticket and an economy ticket So he paid the cost of first class but flied economy and when they get called out on it they think all they need to do is compensate for the difference? With the way he was treated?! How can you call yourself "Customer care specialist" and think that is a way to treat customers?
Time for regulating the oligopoly of the airline industry. Obviously the safety of passengers can not be ensured anymore. https://medium.com/@thisTenqyuLife/united-airlines-should-go...
>Obviously the safety of passengers can not be ensured anymore. Let's not be dramatic. Actual airline safety issues that lead to horrific deaths are not being discussed here. This is just piss poor customer service that could be encountered on any property (e.g. hotels that have overbooked, etc).
He and the doctor may have a solid legal case: http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/united-cites-wrong-rule-for-... I hope for United's sake these are anomalies and not a pattern of behavior.
It's actually far worse than just a "pattern of behavior", it is how United and other airlines (mostly US, but rest of the world is catching on) have deliberately structured their enterprise and the entire customer experience.
Everything revolves around "privilege". Even 20 years ago, this used to be bad. On most European airlines' flights, you just waited at the gate until your flight was called, then got in line (with some minor prioritization) then flew.
Whenever I had the misfortune of flying United (an ever rarer occasion as I wizened up to the situation and later to "codeshare" flights), half the gate was at the counter, jockeying for perks and arguing status and privilege.
This has apparently now been codified with (last I checked) 6 separate cattle lanes for boarding. Also, when I was booked on United business (a mistake), the flight attendants apparently had to try to find certain "special" elite passengers and suck up to them, in order to get little "stars" on their cards. How utterly demeaning!
Again, the US has been on the frontier of this deplorable trend, but the rest of the world is catching up, with Heathrow being the first airport I've seen with separate security lines for first class passengers. Munich caught up a little later.
To me, it looks like the airlines in general (and it looks like United in particular) are so embedded in this completely artificial conception of segregating their passengers by privilege, that results like the ones we are seeing are not anomalies and not even outliers, but the logical and maybe even unescapable consequences.
Dear Airlines: I just want to get from A to B. I don't care the slightest bit about your weird privilege system, and your efforts of forcing me to care by making "non-privileged" travel hellish just make me consider alternatives including not flying, but certainly not flying with your airline.
Oh, and it doesn't have to be that way. Quite a few years ago I was on a multi-legged Star Alliance trip, with several legs across the US getting me from Maui to a Lufthansa flight out of JFK. The penultimate stopover was Chicago, but the United flight coming in to Chicago was late and the United flight leaving didn't wait for me. I tried the United counter, but for the longest time there was simply no-one there, and when someone showed up they told me it wasn't their problem. ??
Desperate, I searched a bit and found a Lufthansa hotline. After I told my sob-story, the operator said "Oh, you're in Chicago, why do you need to go to JFK? We have a flight leaving Chicago in 3 hours, let me just rebook you on that" Said, done. It was a normal economy ticket.
Service.
Update: Check out https://thepointsguy.com/2016/04/top-perks-united-global-ser... This is a thing?!?