# United airlines brutally removes passenger after overbooking flight **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 10, 2017, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171 "2017-04-10T14:04:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/441 "2017-04-11T16:02:12Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > ## Let’s say you operate a barbershop that usually closes at 8 PM. It’s Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend and you’ve already made plans to close at 7 PM today so you can meet your wife’s family for dinner. You’re preparing to turn the lights off, when suddenly at 7 PM a man shows up and says he’s here for his appointment. > > Who was in the wrong in this hypothetical scenario? You, for getting the appointment wrong in the first place? Or the crazed man who refused to leave your store once you asked him to? > > It’s not illegal to do things that your customers don’t like. I think overbooking is a pretty shitty business practice, but being personally upset at a shitty business practice doesn’t mean that you have some kind of right to force the business to change it, or that the business can’t call the cops on you if you are interfering with them, or that the cops can’t touch you if you don’t follow their instructions. A much better analogy for the situation, if you are wishing to use a barber shop as your setting, would be that you took the appointment, told them no problem. They paid up front, as your policy requires them to do. They showed up on time for their appointment. You greeted them and sat them down in the chair. But, before you can put the blanket over them and get started, your phone rings, and your wife is calling to tell you that you have forgotten dinner reservations with her, for the umpteenth time. This is where the rest of your scenario plays out what with the calling of the police to handle your lack of planning. > [@Quint](#): > > Jesus. When the guy said he was a doctor with patients to see the next day they should have moved on to another randomly selected passenger. United could follow up and if he is not actually a doctor could put sanctions against him for future travel. To forcibly remove a doctor with patients to see from a flight so that air hosts make their next flight is ridiculous. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > Once it becomes known that there is no upper limit, why would they? “Hey-I heard about this guy that got $10,000 once. Why should I fold at $2000?” Every push will be the new norm. A better way of handling it would be with fines. Once it has come down to no one accepting offers, and passengers are randomly selected, if you then refuse, you can keep your seat, but you are fined an amount commensurate with what you are costing the airline. Put that fine print into the contract, and you will be invoiced for the cost of staying in your seat (up to some reasonable amount), to be paid before the next time you fly with that airline. Then they select a new victim for deplaning, and assuming that they are cooperative, they can get their vouchers, plus the refusing passenger’s fine, or use the money from the fine to pay for alternative ways of transporting their people. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/442 "2017-04-11T16:03:00Z")
So? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/443 "2017-04-11T16:03:29Z")
> [@Krav\_Manga](#): > > **Czarcasm** just out of interest, do you think your support of the force used by the police/airline is consistent with your [“passivism”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=704624)? I am not supporting the amount of force used if it was over the top…and if it was, that is on that individual police officer because there is _nothing_ implicating the airline in what that officer did because they did not train him or even choose that he was the one assigned to that duty. I am supporting the right of the airlines to remove an unruly passenger who has disobeyed a captain’s direct command to vacate the airline. If the captain does not have the right to do this then airline security is a joke. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/444 "2017-04-11T16:03:33Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > So you’ve deemed the legally-mandated requirement of 400% of the fare to be too low. > > At what point _should_ the airline be obliged to stop before they start involuntarily deplaning people. 800%? $2000? $10,000? $500,000? Ten million dollars and a 25% stake in the company? They stop when someone accepts their offer. It’s a pretty simple concept, really. I’m trying to imagine myself in that exact situation. If they had offered say, $2000, and i didn’t need to be in Louisville straight away, i’d think about taking the money and spending $100 or so on a one-way rental. It’s about a five or six hour drive. I’d arrive in Louisville about 4 hours later than scheduled, with over $1500 in my pocket. > [@jtur88](#): > > There is a point many may be missing. The mountain of fine print, which you never even see, describes the contract between you and the airline as an absolutely unilateral non-negotiated agreement that you give the airline the money, shut up, and they can do whatever they want. Yep. That’s one of the central points made by the [Atlantic article](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/united-video-scandal-law/522552/?utm_source=atlfb) i linked yesterday: > [@](#): > > Four carriers—United, Delta, American, and Southwest—earn more than $20 billion in profits annually and own 80 percent of seats on domestic flights. Along with cable companies, airlines are the top-of-mind paragon for industries that seem to get worse for consumers as they become more heavily concentrated… > > Meanwhile, if customers are shocked by the fine print of United’s contract of carriage, what recourse do they have against the company? Very little. In the last decade, class-action lawsuits have become endangered thanks to a series of Supreme Court rulings that have undercut consumer rights. Disputes over fine-print regulation are increasingly likely to be settled in arbitration, without a judge or jury, where the deck is stacked against the individual plaintiff and the decisions are practically impossible to appeal. The existence of corporate oligopolies like this, combined with a legal system that’s far more friendly to companies than to consumers, means that there is very little incentives for companies to actually compete in the area of customer service. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > Once it becomes known that there is no upper limit, why would they? “Hey-I heard about this guy that got $10,000 once. Why should I fold at $2000?” Every push will be the new norm. As others have said, this incredibly simplistic observation assumes a conspiracy between about 200 strangers to jack up the price. By your logic, no auctions would ever work, because the people involved could all simply collude to keep the price down, and would then agree on which buyer gets to reap the rewards of the group conspiracy. > [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Because it costs the airline too much. Your happiness as a customer has a value to them, but it’s a limited value. The airline, just like _any_ other publicly traded business, has a legal obligation to maximize profit for its shareholders; customer satisfaction is, at best, a second priority. > > Call or write your elected representatives - and for the privilege of never being involuntarily bumped, be prepared to pay more for standard airfare in the future. What is “too much”? And why, in your mind, should calculations of “too much” be determined ONLY based on what is convenient or acceptable for the airlines. If i’m a customer, needing to get to a destination, the airline’s happiness has a limited value to me too. Why not let us enter a negotiation, whereby we can arrive at a price that i’m willing to pay, and the airline is willing to accept. Why is it that a company with $40 billion in revenues, $22 billion in market capitalization, and a CEO earning over $5 million in salary alone, should get more consideration in a case like this than the everyday people who constitute its customer base? You are right that the airline has an obligation to maximize revenue, but they should be able to do it without artificial help from the government that actually allows it to screw over its customers, and that makes it hard for customers to seek their legal remedies in court rather than company-chosen arbitration. If they don’t like having to pay passengers who get bumped a fair price, and believe that this is cutting into their profit, they can choose more carefully exactly how many tickets they decide to sell for each flight. > [@Calatin](#): > > Yeah, all the “OMG UNITED IZ DA EVILZZZ!” have been strictly on an emotional basis. That’s what’s so frustrating to read. > > This grown man threw a temper tantrum and refused to get off of the plane, when offered (more than) reasonable compensation, and it was adhering strictly to the terms of the contract when he purchased the ticket, and he was selected without prejudice / bias. (Meaning randomly, not bringing race into it) Again, why do YOU (or, really, the company) get to decide what constitutes “(more than) reasonable compensation”? There IS no objective measure of what’s reasonable. What’s reasonable differs for each person, depending on their own financial situation and their own particular urgency regarding their travel. On any given flight, for those people, that number might range from a few hundred bucks to thousands. > [@stpauler](#): > > [And now this:](http://www.tmz.com/?adid=TMZ_Web_Nav_News) This is interesting, i guess, but for me it’s irrelevant. My assessment of this situation has never been conditional on the particulars of the passenger affected. My concerns are about the legal and regulatory environment that allows this to happen, to anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Call_Me.Tim)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/445 "2017-04-11T16:06:43Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > What is the source of your expertise of the airline industry such that you expect that the main reason that airlines do not have emergency standby crews waiting around at all airports just in case something happens, to be a sign of incompetent management? > > Do you assume that this is common practice by most or all airlines except for United? That is, to maintain standby crews at most or all the airports served by the airline to obviate the need to move a crew to different airports to address unexpected contingencies? What is the source of your expertise of the moon such that you expect that it is made of green cheese? Asking someone to source a claim they did not make is not useful, nor is it an effective debating tool. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/446 "2017-04-11T16:06:53Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > A better way of handling it would be with fines. And a better way to change the rules to reflect that is before the fact, not during/because of a fit thrown by a passenger. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/447 "2017-04-11T16:16:39Z")
> [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](#): > > What is the source of your expertise of the moon such that you expect that it is made of green cheese? > > Asking someone to source a claim they did not make is not useful, nor is it an effective debating tool. You made a sarcastic post that accused United of having a substantial degree of incompetence because a flight crew needed to get from Chicago to Louisville. Your criticism on this point should allow people to ask if you think such crew movements are unusual, or perhaps something that only United does. If you acknowledge that moving crew from one airport to another, sometimes on an urgent basis, is a very routine thing that airlines do would settle that issue; but raise another as to why you decided that United should be criticized for not having backup crews anywhere they might possibly be needed. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/448 "2017-04-11T16:19:24Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > And a better way to change the rules to reflect that is before the fact, not during/because of a fit thrown by a passenger. Short of a time machine, I don’t know that we could change the rules before the fact at this point. I was talking about going forward, as this sort of situation may happen again in the future. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/449 "2017-04-11T16:19:56Z")
Serious question I’ve been unable to find the answer to online: does he still get the $800, or whatever the compensation offered was? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/450 "2017-04-11T16:24:05Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Serious question I’ve been unable to find the answer to online: does he still get the $800, or whatever the compensation offered was? Didn’t he end up back on the plane? ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Call_Me.Tim)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/451 "2017-04-11T16:25:54Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > You made a sarcastic post that accused United of having a substantial degree of incompetence because a flight crew needed to get from Chicago to Louisville. I did no such thing. Kindly cite a post where I made the specific claim that needing to transport a flight crew was an indication of United’s incompetence or retract your claim. They do appear to have acted incompetently, but that’s not the reason. ---
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/452 "2017-04-11T16:25:58Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Didn’t he end up back on the plane? He ran back to the plane and was removed yet again. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/453 "2017-04-11T16:29:12Z")
> [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](#): > > I did no such thing. Kindly cite a post where I made the specific claim that needing to transport a flight crew was an indication of United’s incompetence or retract your claim. > > They do appear to have acted incompetently, but that’s not the reason. > [@](#): > > **If a corporation utterly fails at this aspect of their functionality** and does not hire the staff necessary at the proper locations to operate their core business, that corporation will likely fail. I welcome your explaination of “utterly failing” at a core aspect of a business’s functionality and using the word “incompetence” to describe this failure. I will pull up a barber’s chair to watch this hair be split ever so finely. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/454 "2017-04-11T16:34:42Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > This a million times over. > > It may well be in their right and in the contract of carriage to bump someone to a later flight when a flight is overbooked. With proper compensation. > > But once the passengers have been allowed to board? To me this looks like a logistical eff up by United. If you need to deadhead employees plan better. > > It may not say so in the CoC but it would seem to me if they have even the slightest commitment to customer service, or what I would call basic human decency, they would have found a better way to resolve this situation. It also only says they have the right to deny boarding if the plane was overbooked. But actually, the plane was not overbooked. UA just decided to kick off 4 passengers to make room for some of their own employees. > **[The 69-year-old passenger who was dragged from United flight has been identified](https://www.businessinsider.com/united-airlines-passenger-dragged-from-flight-name-2017-4)** > > Dr. David Dao has been identified as the 69-year-old passenger who was violently dragged off an overbooked United Airlines flight. _The Courier report says Dao attended medical school in Vietnam before moving to the US and is permitted to practice medicine in Kentucky._ ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/455 "2017-04-11T16:35:01Z")
[Delta has also paid as much as $11,000 to overbooked passengers.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2017/04/09/why-delta-air-lines-paid-me-11000-not-to-fly-to-florida-this-weekend/#79f5f5064de1) It’s worth noting that current headlines project $1 billion in lost stock value for United – that’s not counting lost _business_, just stock fall. But more to the point – last week bad weather at Delta’s hub canceled as many as 3,200 flights – an epic disaster. Yet Delta is smelling like a rose at the moment as news of its $11,000 offer contrasts with United’s “We’ll have you beaten by police” counteroffer. You may continue (unconvincingly, in my opinion) to argue that United was within their rights, but you can’t deny that what they did – and have continued to do since – is tone-deaf and mind-bogglingly stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/456 "2017-04-11T16:37:45Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > If **Dinsdale** ’s paper is correct, then the employees didn’t even need to be in KY until the next day, thus underscoring the incredible stupidity (and very, very bad business practices) of the airline. They could have put them on a bus, rented a van… so many options they failed to utilize. So…you don’t know how aircrew duty time and rest regulations work? Stop spouting nonsense when you don’t know what you’re talking about, 'k? ---
**Author:** ![Beren\_Erchamion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/90ced4/32.png) [@Beren\_Erchamion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beren_Erchamion)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/457 "2017-04-11T16:40:49Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > I think it should be infinite, that is there should be no upper limit beyond which the airline can call in the police to beat someone. They didn’t “call in the police to beat someone” to dave money. They called the police to remove a trespasser who refused to leave. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/458 "2017-04-11T16:42:30Z")
> [@Beren\_Erchamion](#): > > So…you don’t know how aircrew duty time and rest regulations work? > > Stop spouting nonsense when you don’t know what you’re talking about, 'k? Really, as an expert why couldn’t they have re-routed another crew? The “experts” seem to think it was to avoid paying overtime etc…but as you are claiming that UA was forced to move this specific crew at the cost of their customers justify your claims. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/459 "2017-04-11T16:42:37Z")
It seems to me that an awful lot of people who are commenting on the internet about this story have never, or very rarely, been on an airplane before.:rolleyes: The following announcement has been made on every flight I’ve ever been on: “Federal law requires passengers to follow all lighted signs, placards, and **crewmember instructions.** ” (Paraphrased) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2017, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/460 "2017-04-11T16:45:34Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Didn’t he end up back on the plane? Makes it sound like they decided to place him back on the plane, unfortunately. What actually happened was that he broke free, ran back into the plane and tried to hide in the back. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171.md?page=24)