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A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

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Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#281

Post by tedmiston »

AngeloAnolin wrote: post #253

It has been mentioned a lot in the comments that United was correct as per their Contract of Carriage - Involuntary Deny Boarding. But what's being missed here is that, the person who was dragged wasn't denied to board the plane in the first place. He was already seated, a seat number assigned to him, he is on the plane and by all means and precedents, he has already boarded . You cannot anymore deny boarding for som…

Their technical definition of boarding may include everything up to until taxing for takeoff. They definitely are able to remove people between boarding and takeoff, whether through IDB or another clause.

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#283

Post by mcphage »

djsumdog wrote: post #209
mcphage wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't really see an alternative other than just letting anyone willing to scream to stay and then boot off another customer with dignity. Offer people compensation. Raise the offer until either (a) someone takes it, or (b) it's cheaper to send the employees via another route.

Exactly. At this point they're trying not to cancel another plane load of people, so that's a lot of money. They should have kept going up, "We'll offer $4,000 .. anyone? .. really?" .. At some point the compensation isn't worth the profit margin of the other flight. They can just cancel it and let the flight crew go home.

Instead, they did what they did, which is going to cost them... a whole lot more.

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#284

Post by khedoros1 »

MattSteelblade wrote: post #261
mcv wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did he not have a legal right? I thought the only reason they removed him was because the plane was overbooked and they wanted the seat for their own employees. Sounds like he had a valid ticket and every right to be on that plane. The airline should not have overbooked, and discovering that they had, they should have put their own employee on the next plane. Treating paying customers like this is inexcusable.

Airlines are legally allowed to overbook. It's an established practice.

Well, yes, but established practice is to deny people the opportunity to board the plane, not to violently remove them after they've already been seated.

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#285

Post by londons_explore »

threatofrain wrote: post #265
inputcoffee wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I will point out that it is not United that "chose" violence. They asked the police to intervene. The state is supposed to have a monopoly on physical force, so they did. Now, for the police, violence has always been normal, or normalized. Consider the appropriate responses: 1. An airline should not call in the police when dealing with customers because they can reasonably expect violence. 2. The police shou…

Violence will always underlie government, law, courts, and police. Nations can do research on de-escalation or non-violent interventions, but what happens when a nice method doesn't work? Violence comes next. The objection here is that violence wasn't sufficiently gated, and nor was violence minimally applied -- the airline could've just paid people to get off with a real offer, and not a dishonest offer where people…

There seem to be no evidence in this case that non-violent methods weren't used first.

Surely the flight attendants politely asked the man to leave, and when he refused they called their manager who did the same, and only at that stage did they call the police, who also probably asked the man to leave first, before finally resorting to dragging him out.

At the end of the day, the plane is owned by United, and they have every right to uninvite him from their property, at which point he is trespassing, and it becomes a police matter. Sure, they might violate their own ToS on their tickets at that point, but that's a purely civil matter.

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#286

Post by [deleted] »

Cshelton wrote: post #187
vwcx wrote: post #101

The real thing to fear here is the normalization of violence. Good perspective in the WP comments: "The truly shocking thing here is that violence - with the real possibility of serious injury - was viewed as appropriate in a situation that was purely logistical. The airline wanted seats for its own employees. This was not an emergency - such as a terrorist attack or a drunk passenger endangering people. The lack of…

Agreed. I for one will never fly United again. I hope many others do the same. The way that was handled just goes to show the culture and way things are done at that airline. Nobody had the logic to say, wait a minute, this is wrong. Calling the police to throw a passenger who did nothing wrong off? Countless ways to handle this better. In the end, this is going to cost United a TON. United could have flown a plane w…

[deleted]

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#287

Post by tedmiston »

djsumdog wrote: post #114
tdb7893 wrote: post #39

Airlines operate in very uncertain and variable environments (weather isn't always what it is predicted, mechanical issues are pretty common, and pilots can get sick and other stuff) and having planes or pilots on call everywhere is prohibitive expensive so it's really not surprising that they have to do stuff like this sometimes. Airlines need to be more up front about their policies but there doesn't seem to be a g…

Or they can just take the hit. In this case, they decided to comp four people so they didn't have to cancel a plane load. Seems like good economics, but no one wanted to give up their seats. I mean why would you. It's bad enough you have to get molested by the TSA once. Twice? Fuck that. I want to go home. No I don't want a voucher for $200 of my next flight with the same shitty airline that will expire before I can…

You are legally entitled to cash compensation over an airline voucher -- you just have to ask for it and a lot of people either don't know that or just don't do it.

Also the rebooking is not necessarily on the same airline if they don't have a similar flight available that day but others do.

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#288

Post by problems »

djsumdog wrote: post #92
rhino369 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not like united employees going on vacation or to a meeting. But a flight crew going to where they need to be. It's part and parcel of an airline service. If they can't get to where they need to be a flight will have to be delayed or canceled.

It comes down to the balance I guess. We can kick four people off and offer them each shitty compensation (usually a first class ticket for the next flight and worthless $200 vouchers for the same shitty airline that expire in less than 6 months) or cancel the flight this crew is for and lose an entire plane load worth of income. I understand the economics, but it's still bullshit. Those customers want to get home an…

You have to understand why they overbook - jetfuel is extremely expensive and produces a massive amount of carbon pollution - most of the airlines barely operate at margin as it is. Cargo is cheaper to fly than passengers and many of them are converting more and more towards cargo for that reason. You don't want to be flying around in jets which aren't at capacity, it's an enormous waste of money and fuel - your tickets would cost significantly more and they'd have to run more flights resulting in more pollution.

Their estimates are pretty good even - your odds of being overbooked - even on United, one of the worst offenders here - are about 1/1000. From what I've heard, you can sort of bargain with them from what I've heard, free food and drink, hotel accommodations, a partial refund even are commonly obtainable if you get delayed - though that kind of thing may depend on the airline. According to https://lifehacker.com/if-your-flight-is-overbooked-dont-vol... you can actually get 2-4x the ticket price if you deny getting bumped. I'd take that kind of cash in many situations.

This was severely mishandled - the big mistake here was boarding the passengers before knowing the final count with the employees. It caused them not be able to bargain with individual customers to find someone who was willing to give up their seat for some perks or cash.

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#289

Post by grzm »

ryandrake wrote: post #274
inputcoffee wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I will point out that it is not United that "chose" violence. They asked the police to intervene. The state is supposed to have a monopoly on physical force, so they did. Now, for the police, violence has always been normal, or normalized. Consider the appropriate responses: 1. An airline should not call in the police when dealing with customers because they can reasonably expect violence. 2. The police shou…

The airline had plenty of options. When you ask the police to intervene, you are explicitly requesting a violent resolution.

When you ask the police to intervene, you are explicitly requesting a violent resolution.

You're asking the police, a third-party representing the state and its acknowledged monopoly on legitimate use of force, to become involved. That doesn't necessarily mean that the resolution will or must be violent.

Re: A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off

#290

Post by dboreham »

ErikAugust wrote: post #217
dboreham wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out that airline crew have infinite powers on their own planes (well...nearly). They can actually thrown someone off a plane on a whim. Source: I saw this happen last year.

Right, you can "throw" people off a plane. But if you do so in a manner that is totally illegal, you have still broken a law in doing so. That would be my point.

If they were not allowed to use force then they would in fact only have the right to "request" people leave the plane. Throwing off implies at least the option to use force.
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