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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

#301

Post by khedoros1 »

crooked-v wrote: post #208
zeveb wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With that said, don't drag people off your flights. No matter what it costs you to get staff where they need to be when you make this mistake, it'll be cheaper than the negative publicity of a physical altercation removing a passenger (even if you need to retask a commuter aircraft just to relocate the crew, or ask another carrier to get them there). Of course, that just gives a hecker's veto to anyone insubordinat…

> and have police waiting for the recalcitrant passenger at the destination airport To do what, exactly?

Arrest him for trespassing and fine him for interfering with a member of the flight crew, apparently.

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

#302

Post by [deleted] »

enraged_camel wrote: post #213
rdtsc wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think United were wrong here (maybe not legally) but morally and, even from their self-interest they took a major PR hit. People involved in this should be getting termination letters immediately. However, I am curious. Once they made the decision to remove him. How could they have done so if he didn't want to move? A taser?

Simple: they announce that the plane is not taking off until enough seats open up. Then just wait. Sure, the flight would be delayed, perhaps significantly, but the impact of that would pale in comparison to this horrendous PR controversy.

[deleted]

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

#304

Post by colmvp »

mattsfrey wrote: post #259

Sure it was a dumb/unethical thing to do on behalf of the airline and should have been handled differently etc. I'm wondering why nobody is commenting on the absurd behavior of the passenger however - insisting on forcing police to physically drag him from the plane. Once it was decided and the guys in uniforms with guns show up, what sane person is honestly going to do that? The decision to remove the passenger we c…

Personally, I don't consider his behavior to be absurd. His form of non-violent protest to this situation helped bring to light some rather absurd policies. And as a customer who has been on some awful United flights, alongside the experience of waiting in airports and commuting for hours, I absolutely sympathize with his position.

Why should this man be forced off the plane when he bought a ticket, passed all the security check points, segmented a portion of his day for this trip, and was mostly a compliant customer? The fault of this is squarely on United who had many options available to them and opted to escalate it into the situation that it became.

This isn't a situation where only one seat was available on a plane and the only solution was to bump this one person off so that someone more important could take it. This is a situation where United could've easily upped the compensation to look for someone among dozens of passengers to give up their seat.

Honestly, most consumers are not going to look at this story and sympathize with United.

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

#305

Post by truth_sentinell »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #220
denom wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if he had the right to his seat, then why should he leave?

Once the cops show up and tell him to? Because the cops told him to , that's why. Note well: I am not saying that the cops are always right. I am not saying that we should all be good little citizens and obey whatever the authority figures tell us to do. I am saying that, in the actual world we live in, disobeying police orders will often involve painful physical consequences, almost immediately. You can argue about…

You have what's called a cognitive dissonance.

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

#306

Post by ptero »

67726e wrote: post #130
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…

So what do you do when someone refuses to leave? I'm on the doctor's side, United should not overbook a plane and bump a customer to get their own people on board, but when someone refuses to leave what other options do you have? Taze him and drag him off? You'll have to use force to remove someone.

> So what do you do when someone refuses to leave?

They should not get into this situation. At ALL. They should, like they normally do, handle overbooking at the boarding stage -- by either offering compensation or by issuing IDB checks to people they choose to prevent from boarding.

What happened is major mistake and is morally despicable. I hope the passenger gets punitive damages.

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

#307

Post by tedmiston »

panzagl wrote: post #198

So the questions I still have- What's the legal difference between 'Denying Boarding' and kicking someone off? Can you legally kick someone off an airplane 'just because' (i.e. not oversold/security/safety)? Who did the removing- law enforcement or United employees? What's the legality of private employees assaulting someone? This is all about level of outrage though- whether the guy should sue for civil damages or s…

> Can you legally kick someone off an airplane 'just because' (i.e. not oversold/security/safety)?

Yes, see Rule 21 in https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag.... One of the subpoints is that they can remove you for noncompliance with crew requests, and also, "disorderly conduct".

They can even remove you just for smelling bad (H-16).

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

#308

Post by ryandrake »

grzm wrote: post #289
ryandrake wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What thing can the police do that United employees cannot? By requesting them, you are expecting them to do that thing.

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

#309

Post by londons_explore »

MattSteelblade wrote: post #200
manacit wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe your understanding is incorrect - someone can be denied boarding regardless of when they have checked into the flight. If there are 100 seats, they may sell 105 tickets and permit 105 people to check in - if they cannot find 5 volunteers they will have to IDB 5 passengers. While the rules aren't printed very well (I just scanned United's Contract of Carriage, and the Federal Code), I believe it counts as an…

Reading through the rules, it would appear that you are correct, though it looks like checking in earlier should make it more unlikely "The priority of all other confirmed passengers may be determined based on a passenger’s fare class, itinerary, status of frequent flyer program membership, and the time in which the passenger presents him/herself for check-in without advanced seat assignment."

I'm not sure the United Conditions of Carriage are really relevant here anyway - if United were to decide to violate their own conditions of carriage, the worst penalty a court would likley invoke would be to consider the whole contract null and void, awarding that passenger a full refund, and maybe paying for a hotel (damages).

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

#310

Post by JumpCrisscross »

djsumdog wrote: post #291
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…

You should read "Debt the First 5,000 Years". It's an amazing book, and one of the things the author talks about is how debt requires violence. You can't put a man into debt unless you have the capacity for violence to enforce it. He doesn't pay you back, you break his legs, or take his sons and daughters as slaves. Today we have reduced the violence. Now companies ruin credit, get a Sheriff to evict someone from a h…

> debt requires violence

Any kind of property requires violence to exist. If I say "this is my land" and you disagree, the only way I can enforce my claim is through violence. Debt is just a specific case of a general phenomenon. (This applies to communal property, too.)

> Before the US destroyed Libya, it had the highest GDP in Africa

Do you have a source for this? I see Libya's GDP circa 2005 at $41 billion (in 2005 U.S. dollars) [1]. South Africa's 2005 GDP was $260 billion in current U.S. dollars [2] (bit over $200 billion in 2005 U.S. dollars [3]).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Libya

[2] http://data.worldbank.org/country/south-africa

[3] http://www.usinflationcalculator.com

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