The cabin door was still open, the plane was parked at the gate, probably still connected to the auxiliary power unit and without engines turning and the gate had not been removed, so technically it was still in the “boarding” phase.
IHMO as always. YMMV
My God you’re brilliant. I don’t know why the airline’s never thought of this before.
You possibly just single-handedly saved the airline industry with this critical piece of insight that no one has ever considered before.
Pultzer prize.
Sent from my adequate mobile device using Tapatalk.
Yes this could be solved by just selling them as standby tickets, and fill them from the boarding area immediately before closing the door. That would result in similar profit levels while resulting in far less customer satisfaction. Lets be clear the industry decided to involuntarily remove more than 67,000 people from flights last year in order to maximize profits.
It looks like there were flights with several other airlines flying the same trip, and they could easily add a couple of standby crews to the rotation to avoid kicking passengers off the plane.
The industry is using police powers that were granted to ensure passenger safety to optimize their profits. If this was any other industry the company would fail with this type of poor customer service. Especially if they chose use thuggery as their go to method to deal with difficult customers.
The ‘kink’ is in your logic. No one, not Czarcasm, Beren, Yours Truly or any others you want to put in that category have defended the level of force used on the passenger. What we have consistently said is that United had a legal right to have him removed; that should be unassailable (despite DrDeths’ lawyer quote (somebody go find Bricker)).
If you want to say United handled it badly, that unacceptable force was used, go for it. But at least acknowledge that United had every legal right to take the steps that they did, even if they did it about as badly as possible.
Fuck, United (actually it was Republic Airways, not United) is not responsible for what the police do after they turn things over to them.
In 1987 they involuntarily denied boarding to 169,000 people (cite), so at least it’s getting better.
…so, 0.008%. Not bad.
Which may not have had space available, or might not have worked scheduling wise, etc.
Airlines do have reserve crews, but there are rules on how they can be used and it’s conceivable that simply getting the original crew in is the most efficient option in some cases.
No, they’re owners evicting a trespasser.
In an era where the POTUS is invalidating consent decrees United still has some blame…it isn’t like the a known pattern of civil rights violations by the city of Chicago is a fringe idea.
United Airlines chose to call in thugs because if it’s mismanagement and greed.
But feel free to watch the video and see if the other passengers think that it was right, and note that with a very well publicized war on legal immigrants by the Trump administration the poor man seems legitimately fearful of his life.
The officers used way way too much force here, and no one is afraid of the doctor, they are afraid of the thugs.Question on that. A flight crew can remove a passenger sitting on the plane for any reason whatsoever, even if they haven’t violated any rules?
This is one where the board surprised the hell out of me defending United and believing this is a nothing event that will have no consequences. I for one see a hell of a screw-up that will soon be receiving a huge Mea Culpa and a settlement for the dude a couple magnitudes above 800 bucks.
Yes. It’s the airline’s plane, after all.
What makes sense from a PR perspective and who was legally in the right are not necessarily the same thing.
“Any reason whatsoever” might also include protected classes. You’re not saying that a pilot could, say, summarily deplane all African-American passengers? Or maybe you’re saying that the airline, very narrowly, has the right to do that (their airplane) but don’t have any special protection against later lawsuits?
I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but you were pretty absolute in what I quoted. I mean, you could take “any reason whatsoever” pretty far. Gotta keep even 1 degree of slope from popping up.
Sometimes you just don’t get to do what you might have a legal right to do. And I say that as a lawyer. Even if the contract allowed it, United should not be allowed to use this kind of force to remove people on a plane just because they want his seat. And whether or not that is a strictly legal standard doesn’t matter.
And I would have to see some very specific legal guidelines and rulings that explicitly say an airline can use this level of force in this kind of situation. In a huge proportion of situations like this, the strict legal guidelines are not clear. And if there is any doubt, the benefit of the doubt should go to not using physical force to remove a passenger who has otherwise legitimately taken his seat and just does not want to give it up.
They didn’t; the police did.
Why is this so hard to understand?
The airline has every right to ask the police to intervene to remove a trespasser–and once the police intervene, the airline is not responsible for what they do.
Yes. I was overly vague.
Back in 1988 I arrived at the airline counter, along with my grandmother who would be flying with me. We were told that the flight had been overbooked and we wouldn’t be allowed to board. I started to get upset because my grandmother was 84 at the time, and already tired. After some discussion I got them to admit there really were a very few seats left, but they were in first class. So in my “politest” cold voice I said we’d take those first class seats, and the clerk caved. Only time I ever flew first class. The flight wasn’t long enough for a good meal, but we got free drinks, and nice, wide seats, which sure helped my grandmother’s back and legs.
AFAIU United didn’t use that kind of force. The law enforcement professionals (from whatever branch) that were brought in did.
Taken to the logical limit, I suppose this means that if the ejectee had started winning the tug of war, the airline (or its hired thugs), would have been perfectly justified in shooting the miscreant.
What is hard to understand is that he was on the plane and he was being removed for who exactly. I predict United settles because everyone knows that this should have been handled at the gate. You don’t drag people off a plane to make room for late arrivals. Do YOU want to be the United attorney to try to convince a jury you need to make room on the plane for someone who showed up after you did?