# 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:** 6
**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 10, 2017, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/101 "2017-04-10T19:00:46Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > You have no problem with businesses relying on law enforcement as a backstop to save money for inefficiencies in their business practices? Not as much as I have a problem with those who wish to ignore the point being made because they would rather argue the point they they have an answer for. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/102 "2017-04-10T19:02:41Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Not as much as I have a problem with those who wish to ignore the point being made because they would rather argue the point they they have an answer for. ??? ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/103 "2017-04-10T19:03:47Z")
United was following their standard set of rules, in fact it may be standard for all airlines. United can’t let passengers know that some rules need to be followed and others don’t, depending upon how assholish the customer is. “These are the rules, and you will follow them” seems like a very pragmatic way of running an airline business. The passenger was an asshat, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he wasn’t even a doctor. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/104 "2017-04-10T19:04:06Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I’ve never missed a flight, no, I’m a responsible adult. If I did and the airline told me I had to pay for a seat on another plane, I’d suck it up and pay. Giving people a pass on missing a flight is stupid. Perhaps they should stop doing that sort of thing. Then I won’t have to pay more, what with me being a person who, knowing how to use a clock, has never missed a single one of the 500 flights or so I’ve been booked on. > > A system whereby you let people miss flights and take other flights paying nominal fees, and make up for that stupidity that overbooking flights and causing responsible people to have to miss flights, is really, really stupid. You buy a ticket, show up on time or you lose your place. Why is that a hard system to implement? I’ve never missed a flight either, but crazy things happen. Maybe you get horribly sick the day before, or your kid does. Or something else. A couple of years ago on a flight from Japan, I sat next to a fellow who was supposed to fly back the day before - but his train to the airport was stopped on the tracks by a suicide jumper, and he couldn’t get to the airport in time. Not the kind of thing one can reasonably foresee. He was able to fly home the next day for $100 instead of $2000. If you don’t like the overbook system, call your elected Congress critters and lobby for them to mandate a no-overbooking, “so you missed your flight, sucks to be you, buy a new ticket at full price” system. > [@jtur88](#): > > According to the AP story on this, “Last year, United forced 3,765 people off oversold flights”,( not counting twenty times that many who voluntarily gave up their seats)… That’s ten times every day, a version of this story is repeated with unwilling passengers… I wonder where all the other cellphone videos are. 3765 unwilling bump victims. out of [95,000,000.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_largest_airlines) That’s just 0.004 percent. > [@Happy Lendervedder](#): > > A man, we’ll call him Gary, buys groceries at Piggly Wiggly. As Gary is walking to his car, the store manager gets a call from his boss that the Piggly Wiggly three towns over needs some items to fill out their shelves. Manager runs out and asks customers in the parking lot to return their food so the other store can put it on their shelves. No one bites. Manager offers some Piggly Wiggly gift cards. No one bites. Manager grabs Gary’s bags, Gary fights back with kicks and swats. Manager calls the police, who proceed to beat the shit out of Gary for refusing to comply with the manager and for fighting back, and then they give his food back to the manager. A valiant attempt, but there’s a fatal flaw in your analogy. Instead of being out in the parking lot, carrying groceries that he’s paid for and are legally now his personal property, put Gary in the checkout lane, with the not-yet-his groceries on the conveyor belt. Now Gary is refusing to surrender food that in fact does not belong to him, and refusing to comply doesn’t mean Gary get the shit beat out of him, but there may be a scuffle as the authorities apply the force needed to make Gary give back the not-his groceries. (Pro tip: if you watch the video, you’ll see that once they had wrestled the guy out into the aisle, they did not in fact beat the shit out of him; they just dragged him off the plane.) I’ll admit there’s some [loss aversion psychology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion) that makes being ordered out of your seat and off of the plane feels worse than if you had never gotten on the plane in the first place - but in a civilized society, we’re expected to rise above our base impulses and recognize real possibilities and likelihoods instead of just focusing, id-like, on what we want. ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/105 "2017-04-10T19:05:52Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Several thoughts: > > 1. United will not lose a single paying passenger because of this. I think you and other posters who are downplaying the airline’s actions here are dead wrong. This story is blowing up all over the country - I’ve seen stories on NPR, NY Times, Chicago Tribune, Guardian, USA Today, and I’m sure there are many others. It’s getting huge national play and I strongly suspect they will lose MANY paying customers over this. I also suspect that the airline will issue an apology to the passenger who was removed and the other passengers on that flight, if they haven’t already, because they know it is extremely damaging. The optics of this are _terrible_. The “friendly skies,” indeed. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/106 "2017-04-10T19:07:51Z")
I’m really surprised by all the defenders of the violence in this thread. Yeah, the passenger was uncooperative, but I’m of the opinion that violence really should be the _last resort_, not just an option used when convenient, or a backstop for business inefficiencies. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/107 "2017-04-10T19:08:40Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > If the shoppers agreed beforehand that they might have to give up their groceries in case of emergency to be determined by the store, then you might have a case here. Of course, in your phrase “in case of emergency to be determined by the store,” the “to be determined by the store” part is doing the heavy lifting, since the ‘emergency’ here was the airline’s poor planning. And even so, they could have dealt with the ‘emergency’ (since it wasn’t an ‘emergency’ by any normal definition) in several ways that didn’t involve forcing anyone off a plane: (1) flying their crew down to Louisville by general aviation, (2) driving the crew there by limo, or (3) offering money to passengers to (a) catch a flight the next morning, or (b) get flown down by general aviation that night, or (c) being driven down by limo that night. That’s five solutions, of which they only tried (3a), and they didn’t even pursue that one as far as they might have. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/108 "2017-04-10T19:09:31Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > I’m not presenting a “case.” I’m pointing out what lazy assholes do when they can’t figure out how to run their business. They freak out and call the cops when their incompetence causes some internal “emergency” that negatively impacts their customers who refuse to give in to that bullshit. This wasn’t an issue of fucking national security that these United employees needed to get on that plane. It was that that United fucked up… That’s not an “emergency” in my book. You’re at a business. The business is about to close for a private party. The employees ask you to leave. You refuse to leave. After attempting to resolve the situation with just employees and determining that both sides are at an impasse and the private party is going to still start, what should be done? Would you decide to just ignore the person interrupting the private party because they were there first? The business has customers on both sides of this fence. However, the needs of the many are outweighed by the needs of the one. That one is refusing to leave the business. Even when asked. Then it takes three police to have the person removed. Do you think that this person said “no” to the airline and then immediately was pulled out of his seat and dragged down the aisle or do you think that the Occam’s Razor was that he had stonewalled himself in despite more than a couple attempts to have him removed from the private property? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/109 "2017-04-10T19:11:57Z")
> [@shadowfacts](#): > > i think you and other posters who are downplaying the airline’s actions here are dead wrong. This story is blowing up all over the country - i’ve seen stories on npr, ny times, chicago tribune, guardian, usa today, and i’m sure there are many others. It’s getting huge national play and i strongly suspect they will lose many paying customers over this… nyse arca airline index +0.76% ual +1.42% ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/110 "2017-04-10T19:15:43Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > According to the AP story on this, “Last year, United forced 3,765 people off oversold flights”,( not counting twenty times that many who voluntarily gave up their seats)… That’s ten times every day, a version of this story is repeated with unwilling passengers… I wonder where all the other cellphone videos are. > > United can afford it. They have just about the highest penalty in the world if you need to cancel or rebook your flight. US-based airlines are notorious for that. Deliberately overbooking is morally, and ought to be legally, treated as fraud. If they have 100 seats and have sold 100 tickets, they’re sold out, they know they’re sold out, and should not be allowed to sell any more. Now, if they want to sell stand-by tickets that can be used in the event of a cancellation, that should be OK, provided that seats are released on a first-come first-served basis (where first-come is defined by when the ticket was purchased.) ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/111 "2017-04-10T19:16:08Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > . . .No explanation and she refused to answer any questions. . . . i fly alot and i find that this is the most standard response of airline employees to any situation that is out of the ordinary. no explanation, period. now i get that these people deal with customers numbering in the tens of thousands daily, and there’s not always a convenient explanation available. and i dont doubt that these employees are doing the best that they can under the circumstances. but an explanation of what is happening and that they are trying to remedy the situation would go along way toward alleviating many of the situations like **Ann’s** and the op’s. i also get that sometimes safety concerns are a priority, but “becuse i said so” is **NEVER** the right response. mc ---
**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 10, 2017, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/112 "2017-04-10T19:18:22Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’m really surprised by all the defenders of the violence in this thread. Yeah, the passenger was uncooperative, but I’m of the opinion that violence really should be the _last resort_, not just an option used when convenient, or a backstop for business inefficiencies. They tried to bribe him with much more then they were required, they tried to reason with him, they selected his name randomly so he couldn’t say he was being picked on, _then_ after all that, after it was explained to him that he had no legal right to stay on the plane they were forced to resort to the amount of force necessary to remove him. How much more should have gone on, how much longer should they have stayed there inconveniencing the other passengers, before it becomes a “last resort”? How high should this have escalated before the authorities were brought in? ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/113 "2017-04-10T19:19:28Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > nyse arca airline index +0.76% > ual +1.42% Ooh, you got me there. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/114 "2017-04-10T19:22:12Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > If you don’t like the overbook system, call your elected Congress critters and lobby for them to mandate a no-overbooking, “so you missed your flight, sucks to be you, buy a new ticket at full price” system. I never had a problem with it - before now, that is. Because in a lifetime of flying, I’d always assumed that I could stay on the flight if I wanted to, that they’d offer whatever it took to get volunteers to catch the next flight. There’ve been times when I really needed to be there the next day, and passed up some nice bribes on that account. There’ve been other times when I’d have been happy to get a free room and a couple hundred dollars in return for being bumped - but other people volunteered more quickly (and closer to the front of the plane) than me. But they’ve always been able to get volunteers. I’ve never seen an instance where the airline simply said, “you, you and you - we need your seats, we’re sorry, but you must leave.” Until today, I didn’t know it was a thing that was done. ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/115 "2017-04-10T19:22:29Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > . . .they were forced to resort to the amount of force necessary to remove him. . . in my experience, “the amount of force necessary” and the amount of force used are not the same thing. mc ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/116 "2017-04-10T19:23:01Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > Deliberately overbooking is morally, and ought to be legally, treated as fraud. The gravamen of fraud is that someone is misleading you. Overbooking is discussed in the Contract of Carriage. They tell you exactly how it works. It’s the complete opposite of fraud. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/117 "2017-04-10T19:23:39Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > Deliberately overbooking is morally, and ought to be legally, treated as fraud. If they have 100 seats and have sold 100 tickets, they’re sold out, they know they’re sold out, and should not be allowed to sell any more. Why? Because you say so? Airlines overbooking policy is well known and explicitly detailed when you buy your ticket. The policy works out for everyone involved. Airlines make more money, people willing to pay extra for seats will get them, and volunteers get free shit. The only time that it doesn’t is when someone is forcibly bumped. That very rare occurrence isn’t sufficient justification to ban the policy. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/118 "2017-04-10T19:24:13Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > They tried to bribe him with much more then they were required, they tried to reason with him, they selected his name randomly so he couldn’t say he was being picked on, _then_ after all that, after it was explained to him that he had no legal right to stay on the plane they were forced to resort to the amount of force necessary to remove him. > How much more should have gone on, how much longer should they have stayed there inconveniencing the other passengers, before it becomes a “last resort”? How high should this have escalated before the authorities were brought in? They could have continued to up the ante (the offer for compensation was to everyone on the plane, not just him – the likelihood of volunteers would have increased with more money being offered) – $800 is pretty damn low. They could have resolved this before having everyone board the plane. They shouldn’t have the option of using law enforcement as a backstop for their own business inefficiencies. They could have offered alternate transportation (train, bus, limousine, rental car, etc., since it wasn’t that far). This was the airline’s fault, not any passenger’s – it should be up to the airline to fix it, without relying on law enforcement to solve it for them with force. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/119 "2017-04-10T19:24:18Z")
> [@ShadowFacts](#): > > Ooh, you got me there. :rolleyes: I wasn’t trying to “get” you. Just noting that the market consensus at the moment is that this will have no effect on UAL’s bottom line. The market could be wrong, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171/120 "2017-04-10T19:28:14Z")
I’m not following the idea that overbooking saves money because of empty seats. Once a seat is purchased, if the person doesn’t show up, the airline still gets the fare, right? If that’s the case, that’s a much better solution than overbooking. Overbooking seems to allow the airline to double dip. If that’s the case, then eliminating overbooking could increase fare prices - I’d be okay with that. There is very little chance I’d accept $800 in vouchers. When I fly I have plans and other arrangements that would be impacted. A few hours of time and hassle is not worth $800. Make it $5,000 and I’ll start thinking about it. Separately, these were comedy gold: > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > See, this is why I want my own airplane. Because flying United can be a real drag. > [@K364](#): > > Ravenman did United help you number those points? 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-airlines-brutally-removes-passenger-after-overbooking-flight/784171.md?page=7)