Sorry for the shitty analogy. But as a matter of fact the police did NOT remove the person from the store; in fact they did not even come, and when they were called (as I stated before) they laughed.
And am I crazy or were the people who beat up on this guy not even police?
Something to consider: United wasn’t merely asking for volunteers to be put out for a few hours. They were asking for volunteers to spend an entire extra day in Chicago, and to use their voucher for a flight out the next afternoon.
An entire day’s worth of someone’s time … that’s worth enough so that it should have been known instinctively not to start the bidding at $400 and summarily end it at $800.
The article below discusses a fine point about the latitude airlines have in soliciting for volunteers versus compensating involuntary deboards (my highlights):
I welcome the results of DOT’s investigation. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe not. But I think the FAA would be colossally stupid to say “We are NOT investigating this,” so I wouldn’t read too much into the fact that they are.
I missed the cite that you mentioned regarding the lawyer, and couldn’t find it in the last couple pages of this thread. Can you provide again? I would like to read that.
ETA: looks like you posted it while I was searching and typing. Thanks, I’ll read now.
“Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard. No one should ever be mistreated this way.” – United CEO (bolding mine)
Obviously, this response is quite late to the party, but he got there eventually. Others, I am sure, will keep fucking that chicken.
The problem is the market isn’t 100% a factor here. The government gives the airline the legal right to force people off the plane so the airline need only go so far before they can start forcibly ejecting people.
Simple. He doesn’t get to say that, ever, in this situation. United has to come up with another way to transport its employees. That should be the answer mandated by law and business practice.
As many times this kind of statement is repeated as some cosmic absolute, it’s still not.
You and others have maintained this is true in any case, so cannot complain if it’s qualified by any plausible example.
So the cops are called to a business where a patron claims he paid for a good or service but it wasn’t provided nor a refund, the cops would or should always simply give that person the bum’s rush? They shouldn’t, and reasonably smart and competent cops working for a non-dysfunctional dept (there are some, though many don’t qualify on one or more counts) wouldn’t. Not as first action without asking the business owner, ‘do you owe this person a good/service or refund?’ or some form of ‘is there any other way you, the business owner, can see your way to trying to settle this so it doesn’t escalate further?’
The general ‘person who won’t leave the premises’ suggests ‘for no good reason’ and clouds the example, you even give that as example ‘just because I don’t feel like it’, which is not the case here. And in this case UAL had a clear ‘other way’, offering somebody else more money to leave voluntarily.
Several keep insisting the cops absolutely never would or should try to resolve the conflict by appealing to the business owner to step up and help solve it, but repeated insistence doesn’t make it so.
Not being judges doesn’t mean absolutely automatically siding with one type of complainant. Though if you’re saying the path of political least resistance for a lot of local PD’s is to side with merchants over patrons, as an observation of what often happens, sure that often happens. But that’s not being disputed.
I realize Munoz’s arm is twisted by circumstances … but what does he mean “fix what’s broken”? Many in this thread have assured us all that proper protocol was followed, the system is fine and helps keep airfare down, and so forth.
A leading attorney in the field has said proper protocol wasnt followed. The DOT is investigating it. Munoz has all but admitted what they did wasnt proper.
So a bunch of people who *dont *know the law or the procedures are saying what United did was proper. Experts disagree. Even United seems to disagree.
Since you were concerned that people are armchair quarterbacking and not understanding the situation – Will you concede that they did not overbook the flight?