As a legal matter the airline might have the advantage because of the contract, and because it’s their plane. The former is not clear though, and it seems those here originally jumping the gun saying UAL’s legal position is unassailable have walked that back or faded out of the discussion, because it’s actually not clear. The latter, their plane, though would still probably weigh in their favor all else equal.
But as a practical matter sure, simply backing down when a squeaky wheel squeaks enough is a potentially viable commercial option. It’s ‘unmanly’ to some, and some seem to feel this is how corporate entities must work. It’s a very non-commercial view of the world, but as thread shows a lot of people are completely non-commercial in outlook, albeit willing to apply that view to vociferous argument about fundamentally commercial matters, strangely. It also seems now more agreed that ‘lives are at stake’ is a smokescreen in a case like this, a pretext which practically will be used, as opposed to an actually valid justification.
So yeah, depending the details of the dead heading screw up, or assuming otherwise that wasn’t the case, the airline could just back down and say fine, be that way, to somebody who refused to leave and the world wouldn’t stop turning. Probably few people would even know. 'But it’s the principal! no, not in running a commercial entity if you’re not breaking the law yourself.
This happened “earlier this month”, so within the last two weeks.
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For better or worse, for right or wrong … similar stories will keep coming out and United is going to be known as “the airline deplanes people a lot, and sics security on you, to boot!” Stats and facts won’t matter. Humans think in shorthand.
And that guy was eventually put in an economy-class seat on the same flight. Perhaps a higher-status first class passenger got his seat and someone in economy was denied a seat?
The plane was changed due to a mechanical issue and the replacement plane had less first class seats.
I think a lot of the tension around this is also created by the marketing team at UA. Some other airlines will bump for a late passenger with higher “points” once people have boarded. The fact that UA will is insane, if they just dealt with this at the gate in this case it wouldn’t be nearly as big of an issue.
Thought this was an interesting read about two companies under fire for, fundamentally, rendering their customer-facing employees especially powerless to promote good customer service:
I am all for the airlines being responsible about overbooking, and about compensating passengers fairly if they are bumped from an overbooked flight, but prohibiting the practice would, as many have pointed out, increase airfare, and/or make it so that if you miss your flight, you have to pay full price for a new ticket.
Then there is the fact that this plane wasn’t actually “overbooked” with passengers, it was just a matter of needing to transfer employees at the last minute, so even if overbooking were suspended, it would not have prevented this incident.
I don’t know if you noticed that immigration agents asked detainees to sign away their residency status and dozens of legal immigrants were detained for no reason recently.
It is quite likely that the doctor was very concerned, you know being an immigrant and all.
He was reacting like someone in fear particularly when he re-boarded.
I think he’s kind of a jerk, but is doing so in an adult manner. He also says that it may or may not work all the time. In situations where it doesn’t work I bet he gets off the plane and deals with it then.
The mandatory $1,350 is for involuntary bumping, and only if the airfare is above a certain amount–and literally no one is claiming that those who were removed involuntarily did not receive that.
The $800 voucher offer was made to find volunteers–and there are essentially no regulations on what can be offered as compensation for voluntary denied boarding, because it’s voluntary and the DOT figures you’re an adult who can negotiate for yourself what’s acceptable in that case.
You really shouldn’t act so cocksure of yourself when you don’t know what you’re talking about. Try paying better attention next time.
They didn’t. They just failed to understand the regulations, and failed to distinguish between what was offered to volunteers vs. what was given to those who were denied involuntarily.
In short: they don’t know what they’re talking about, at all.
So … I’ve seen posted a few times over the last two pages that in the end, Dr. Dao did in fact take that very same flight to Louisville. If I understand right, after the now-famous drag-off, he snuck back on the plane, was removed a second time … and THEN after all that, was allowed on the flight after all.
Is that accurate? If so, where did we learn this? Maybe on a telecast?
And if true, are any details known? Did someone else voluntarily leave the flight? Was there a miscount and they actually did have enough seats? Something else?
Except any crew worth their salt would say “Fuck no” and between union contracts and the fact that there’s not a whole lot they can do to a crew that refuses to violate the law (especially a safety-related one) and get away with it, it wouldn’t happen.
After all, modern air travel’s incredible safety record just appeared out of thin air–a strictly-enforced regulatory environment and safety culture have nothing at all to do with it, right?
Didn’t the flight crew arrive two minutes late in Louisville to make their union-mandated pre-flight rest time? AIUI, they needed to be in Louisville for 10:00 p.m., and the flight arrived at 10:02 p.m.
Then again, delaying the crew’s Monday morning flight a few minutes neatly solves that problem.
