You guys are getting to parody level now. The airline says its policy which caused the incident is going to change, no more cases of removing passengers who’ve already been allowed to board just to make room for other passengers or employees. So the whole genesis of the incident goes ‘poof’, because they realize they screwed up by any sensible real world standard, not some pedantic and now moot legalistic discussion. But that’s all irrelevant according to you. OK, sure. 
everyones getting their money back MSN
I saw that on a CNN interview with an airline legal analyst who quoted that. If it’s good enough for her then it’s good enough for me.
What may be happening is that the airfare would be the published airfare, which is considerably more expensive what why one can purchase on the net.
The airline is required to make the payment in the form which the customer demands. Cash is worth far more than one of these vouchers. Vouchers are much cheaper to the airline itself, of course, so the airline will try to be cheap and skirt their legal obligations.
This sounds like a fairly typical heavy handed approach often taken by airliners. The airliner has problems and rather than simply provide the proper compensation which they were legally obligated to provide, they broke their own contract and fucked some people over.
While it’s not technically illegal for them to withhold their legal obligations from their customers, but really bad ethically and bad for business when they are discovered to be acting slimy.
It is costing United plenty. First is the big hit to their stock. Second is that they announced they’re going to now refund all of the money for all of the passengers on the flight.
Third will be paying an arm and a leg to avoid having to face an elder doctor in court. There’s simply no way they can let that go to court now, and with a quick public apology by the CEO saying the doctor was not at fault, we know they’ve calculated the costs are worth it to buy him off.
All of this to save less than $400 and pay on the spot rather than with funny money.
Playing off what someone else says, right now an author for a MBA textbook is starting to write this up as a case study of one of the stupidest examples of shooting yourself in the foot.
All the people responsible for this fiasco sure are making it hard on the cheerleaders they have here, what with the constant admissions of wrongdoing, apologies, contrition, and procedural changes to ensure it never happens again.
I don’t know if they really have to move heaven and earth to make sure they never have to deplane a seated passenger in the future. How often did it ever happen in the past? If for example United realized that they wanted to deadhead those crew members after the plane had already taken off, then they would have had to deal with it in some other manner anyway. If they treat a boarded flight as basically a flight that’s taken off from a planning perspective, is that really going to hurt them that much?
The simplest way to deal with it in the future is simply to ask another passenger to disembark. If they just ask for volunteers and pay enough, someone will volunteer. And even in this case where the disembarking was involuntary, the other three passengers did not make a fuss.
Y’know, the ostensible codeshare “partner” operator, Republic Airways/Republic Airline(*), sure has been acting like they don’t exist in this whole mess. Wisely, if it’s by choice.
(*Notice the singular noun, distinguishing it from an earlier carrier that was the subject of a splendid musical complaint years ago)
In another thread, I posted, that what it looks like is that part of the problem is the staff onsite were not given the authority to be flexible beyond a specific set of offers and beyond that left but to escalate to “we are left with no choice but to kick someone out”, and *that *is a failure of the management’s policies backing themselves into a corner – but I doubt the policy is removal by whatever means necessary including busting your face against an armrest; *that *happened because of the police officers’ methods, which may or may not have been reasonable to expect (that the department is investigating and there have been suspensions would suggest is should not have been). Had he been simply escorted out on his own two feet under threat of arrest while loudly protestingt and announcing lawsuits, but with no physical injury, it would *still *have been reported and shared and mostly found unfair in the court of public opinion (*but *I don’t think it would have become so huge or led management to finally come to their senses about how being so rigid can be so costly).
Ha, ha. As mentioned a couple of posts earlier nobody thinks the scope extends there even now. Just that once the rule is narrowed, specified and made clear to avoid misapplications – in this case, to specifically refer to the safety and security of operation and the welfare of fellow passengers – then the rule to follow lawful instructions must not be open to argument while underway. (And having a vessel at sea or in the air be under the “dictatorship” of the captain and crew does NOT mean absence of Rule of Law.)
Even as a maybe former “cheerleader” it’s as obvious as a nose on one’s face that any company in the position that United is in is obligated to show deep, deep contrition. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the substance of the matter. At a certain point in some crises, facts don’t matter, only outrage does, and people are compelled to address the outrage rather than address the merits of a situation.
No, screw that and screw the whole concept of trespassing in this episode. The only reason anyone can even bring up the issue of trespassing is that the airline made it an issue.
They should not have done that. They should not have been allowed to do that. And now, either through a change in airline policy or other reason, that’s going to be the rule from now on.
They should not have tried to involuntarily remove anyone from the aircraft. Period. You never get to the issue of trespassing. Trespassing is an irrelevant concept here.
Everything relevant in this situation happened before the flight crew called for the cops.
No doubt United is trying to do damage control and following orders from their lawyers but that includes more than mere words. If they had even a glimmer of hope they weren’t completely in the wrong in both the court of public opinion and the legal courts they wouldn’t be admitting guilt so soon. They have already changed their corporate policy as an immediate result and they haven’t even been served with a lawsuit yet.
The police department also doesn’t routinely sanction officers simply because of public outrage. There is merit to the charge that they used excessive force and wrongfully injured a 70 year old unarmed man.
And it is irrelevant whether David Dao is a fuckhead or a chucklehead or a man-child or a manatee. It doesn’t matter whether he’s a fallen physician or a former felon. When they asked him to give up his seat, and he said “no,” the first time, that should have been the end of it. “No.” Period. And the flight crew fucks off and finds some other way to solve their problem, a way that leaves David Dao the fuck alone and “involuntarily disembarks” a total of zero passengers.
There’s a lot of truth in what you say. When public outcry gets so loud, smart people and companies listen and apologize sincerely (as opposed to the initial non-apology apologies offered in this case), and make changes accordingly. That said, I think it’s a mistake to conclude or suggest that United is apologizing solely to save face, while secretly agreeing with the pro-United boosters that they did nothing wrong.
BTW, I assume you no longer hold that they won’t lose a single paying customer from this incident?
Someone’s going to take the deal. Have you never studied the prisoner’s dilemma? It’s human nature for someone to take the deal and screw others over (one stat shows that your desired outcome - cooperation between players to each get more X - only happens 37% of the time in a non-repeatable or first-in-a-series situation). There have been at least 6 game shows on this concept.
The problem in this thread is that I believe everyone is right. The airline had a legal right to forcibly remove the passenger (although perhaps the force used was excessive). The airline also looks like a complete asshat for conducting a business model that can require a willing customer who has paid his money, is behaving himself, and is otherwise acting just as a customer should act to not only be denied service, but forcibly denied service and bloodied.
Just imagine such a thing if you tried to open a diner. You are wanting and begging for customers. When one comes, you refuse his money and call the cops to throw him out, even though he was not misbehaving. Running a business like that is laughably ridiculous.
The manager on duty that night shouldn’t not find employment working with the public again in any capacity. Business schools should teach this as an example where checking off items on a list is not the best way.
Yes, you most certainly did.
Nice selective quoting, United Express is the regional branch of United Continental Holdings
Smapti, you have an incorrect understanding of human nature.
I could go on but that’s it.
It appears that they didn’t have that right. It wasn’t just bad business it violated federal regulations.
The flight wasn’t ‘overbooked’ it was filled exactly to capacity with paying passengers. Regulations allow them to deny boarding to passengers if they are legitimately overbooked but not to remove passengers to transport employees.
Not sure I agree.
The link Crazyhorse offers is instructive.
14 CFR § 250.1 makes clear that:
I don’t think there is any debate that Dr. Dao had a confirmed reserved space.
Moreover, the employees that United was moving to work were not “passengers.”
What the CFR does not define is “oversold,” and it’s unclear if “fully booked, plus four employees traveling for work,” is legally identical to “oversold.”
Clearly not my area of law, but I’m leaning towards the idea that United did not comply with the CFR.
I was wondering about this myself. Because if I had been on that plane and the ruckus had started I would’ve stood up and volunteered. I don’t think I could resist the opportunity for some small scale public heroism.
But they might have said no, because by that point it had turned into a contest of wills. And that should not have happened.
But I find the internet frenzy over this is hysterically funny. Now I don’t particularly consider myself a frequent traveler, but I’m old and a two or three round-trips a year add up. But it seems that the collective internet is completely ignorant of the reality of air travel and outraged outraged outraged but when you say “What should the airline have done” a there’s just a sputtering “… they should’ve planned better”.
So say United didn’t bump their 4 passengers, and instead canceled the other flight because they couldn’t get a crew there on time (because crews can only stay on duty for so long). So then 100+ passengers are stranded and many of them will have to be rebooked on later flights. And if the cancellation wasn’t weather related, the airline has to house and feed them. But there’s more, since the flight was cancelled the plane is now in the wrong place! It’s needed for a flight in another city that might now be cancelled, too.
Now this article
https://thepilotwifelife.wordpress.com/2017/04/11/i-know-youre-mad-at-united-but-thoughts-from-a-pilot-wife-about-flight-3411
Says that crew members that need to be moved in order to keep another flight from being cancelled are called “must ride” passengers, bumping for “must rides” IS covered in the contracts of carriage and that FAA regulations compel airlines to give them priority.
The article also claims that the assault occurred because the man ran back on the plane after he was removed, which is a breach of a secured area and is a serious offense.
Now I’ve seen passengers removed before take-off after they were seated for behavioral reasons. In both cases they were asked by the flight crew to switch seats and pushed back and tried to refuse. In one case they needed the bulkhead seat for a handicapped passenger. The other time it was a family with adults, 2 infants, and two older children. Mom, both babies, and the two kids were in a 3 seat row and Dad was across the aisle. Flight attendant said Dad had to hold one of the babies because the row was only equipped with 4 oxygen masks. Dad tried to argue, family missed Christmas dinner in Florida.
Belated offers to comply didn’t help in either case.