Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–89 of 89 posts

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#81

Post by AnimalMuppet »

jasode wrote: post #78
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The very second that United knew they had 4 employees they had to acccomodate, their computer system should have immediately confirmed those 4 employees on flight #3411 first such that the plane only shows 66 available seats instead of 70. (Computers doing math for the win!) That way, either 4 of the customers get denied a boarding pass at the check-in kiosk, or they get denied at the gate that scans the barcode be…

>, but the 4 crewmembers are in the employee lounge and just a 3 minute walk from the gate. They can still make the flight before all the passengers are out of the jetway... In that case, I'm saying there would only be up to 66 (not 70) paying customers in the jetway. This still leaves 4 available seats for the deadheading United employees. In other words, don't render those 4 extra United employees "invisible" to th…

OK, let me try saying it a bit differently. (You may be answering what I said, but not what I meant.)

All 70 passengers are in the jetway or on the plane. Say, 40 are on the plane, but 30 are still in the jetway. At that moment, United discovers that it needs 4 crewmembers on that plane. They have 4 crewmembers sitting around in a crew lounge in that terminal of the airport. They can walk to the gate in 3 minutes. 3 minutes from now, some of the passengers will still be in the jetway, waiting to board the plane. Now what?

It's not enough to just improve the computer system. The timing window still exists, even if it's smaller. What you need to fix this is some kind of business rule, like "You can't deny boarding to a passenger who's already in the jetway, no matter how badly you need their place for a crewmember".

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#82

Post by michaelmrose »

woodpanel wrote: post #64
michaelmrose wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could also have just paid for those employees to take a competitors airline if it was vital for them to be there immediately despite their poor planning.

Does that mean, the employees took the liberty to kick the customer out? If so, I would think that they either didn't thought anyone to disobey and especially not to end up this violently. Still, this would speak volumes upon United's management.

Yes they didn't even oversell they wanted 4 employees to fly at the last minute and wanted to remove paying customers to make room for them.

Can you imagine going to home depot and someone pulling drills out of your hands and giving them to employees?

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#83

Post by jaredklewis »

weixiyen wrote: post #75
tdb7893 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that the guy refused to leave a private space, getting security or police to remove him seems like the solution to that problem in most other contexts. It's a different situation but if someone refused to leave my office they would definitely call the police

Technically the passenger is in a private space when the plane is in flight as well. Can I remove him without reasonable cause? Probably not. I wonder at what point it's okay to remove a passenger when they paid for boarding, sat in their seat, and there is no reasonable cause.

I was as horrified by the video as the next person, but I don't think your little thought experiment isn't relevant as the consequences of throwing someone off a grounded and in flight plane are totally different.

But back to reality, I can't speak for other countries, but in America the right to exclude people from your property is quite strong. But much more importantly, while there are many factors, the police are generally not in a position to evaluate them, and as a result they do not.

For example, if I go to a restaurant, pay for my meal, but before receiving it get kicked out by the owner (without refund) due to my race/religion/whatever, I am clearly in the right and I can definitely sue. But that's in the future. If I call the cops, they can't do anything. They can't conduct a mini, instant trial to determine if I was discriminated against and determine appropriate damages. On the other hand, if the restaurant owner calls the cops, and tells them that a customer is refusing to leave, the cops will almost certainly come and take me out of the restaurant. I can sue later, but that's it.

Edit: just adding that a United passenger has even less rights than the aforementioned restaurant patron, because as part of buying a ticket they agreed to a shitty adhesive contract, the United Contract of Carriage (https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...).

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#84

Post by jaredklewis »

hackbinary wrote: post #35

In this situation, shouldn't there have been some form of mandatory auction, where the Airline would have to bid to buy the seat back. Or do what Delta does, and form a contract with the passenger to buy back the ticket for a pre-agreed price? I do find it shocking that the airport police got involved with what really seems to be a civil, rather than criminal matter, but then again, such are the times. Airlines shoul…

Obviously United screwed up and seems like a horrible company, and I think that forcing airlines to more explicitly disclose how flights are overbooked to their customers, including the resolution process seems reasonable.

But police getting involved in non-criminal matters? Not strange in the slightest. It wouldn't be strange at all for someone to call the police about a trespasser or removing a customer that refused to leave (from a bar, restaurant, retail store, and so on).

It's even less shocking since as part of buying a ticket you agree to a contract of carriage (which is a shitty adhesive contract, but that is a separate issue) in which you agree that United has the right to remove you from a flight.

And again, just reiterate, I found the content of the video abhorrent, but making a 1 off rule against airlines seems totally arbitrary. If all other types of businesses are allowed to call the police, why not airlines?

Do police coerce people with violence? Sometimes, yes. But what does that have to do with United. That's an issue with political authority.

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#85

Post by oconnore »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #71
droopyEyelids wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly the right point. Businesses either need competition or regulation. If they have neither, you end up in the situation we have now. Airlines are killing all but a few chosen cities in our country by cutting flights and jacking up the prices. On top of that, they're completely indifferent to customer service. It'd be bad for their business to care about the customers when they already have regional monopolies.

I'm not sure what your basis is for saying that the airline industry doesn't have competition.

You are the only one here talking in absolutes.

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#86

Post by AnimalMuppet »

oconnore wrote: post #85
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what your basis is for saying that the airline industry doesn't have competition.

You are the only one here talking in absolutes.

droopyEyelids said, "Businesses either need competition or regulation. If they have neither, you end up in the situation we have now." That sounds to me like saying that the current situation does not have competition.

I'm trying to talk with exactly the same degree of absoluteness that droopyEyelids is. Frankly, I'm not sure why you read my statement in any way different from that.

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#87

Post by xbmcuser »

tdb7893 wrote: post #74
EliRivers wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that's not true. I understand it is an FAA violation (i.e. breaking the law) to drop someone with a confirmed reservation in favour of an employee. Additionally, what happened was also a violation of the conditions of carriage that the airline had set up. They were breaking their own rules. What makes you say it's not illegal? Perhaps I'm reading the rules incorrectly.

I'm aware of the fact that they can't outright refuse service to most people but I was under the impression that they had some latitude in rescheduling people. EDIT: that article makes sense. I'm obviously not sure on the legalities so I will defer to your understanding of it. I guess this case goes close to home for me because if I had to make the decision between canceling a few whole flights and kicking 4 people o…

Some people did ask for more money to leave which united didn't agree to btw their was no overbooking which airlines can usually stop by not issuing the boarding pass. This was done so that united could send some of its employees to another place. For this they should have done an open auction instead of forcing someone out after issuing them a boarding pass and seating them.

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#88

Post by yock »

oconnore wrote: post #18
yock wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't talk about busting up near-monopolies without first considering the market environment which created those near-monopolies. I don't see too many people asking how we got here in the first place. Without those questions (for which I have no answers) we're doomed to end right back up here.

The whole point of capitalism is that you solve those problems from the bottom up, not from the top down. Pick one.

I completely agree, though I thought it more polite to not completely dismiss out-of-hand the person to whom I was responding.

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#89

Post by droopyEyelids »

mindcrime wrote: post #58
droopyEyelids wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What question is there? We created monopolies with the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. It stopped forcing airlines to provide service to regional airports, and paved the way for the consolidation of the industry into the monopolists as Eastern, Midway, Braniff, Pan Am, Continental, Northwest Airlines, and TWA were liquidated.

I'm a little iffy on this idea that there is any monopoly on air travel in the US in any general sense. Maybe for specific routes, but if you look at the big picture, you have: 4 "major" carriers - American, Delta, United, Southwest 1 "mid major" / borderline major in Alaska Airlines 1 "not a major, but not exactly a regional carrier" in Jet Blue and a bunch of regional outfits like Frontier, Porter, Spirit, etc. Tha…

With air travel the routes are the product. If there is a monopoly on the route, there is a monopoly. And a cartel situation with the carriers agreeing not to compete with each other on that route.
Post reply on HN