passengers could be bumped due excessive weight due to fuel or freight requirements.
The code for oversold flights isn’t at all irrelevant in this case. It wasn’t an oversold flight, but in exchange for allowing airlines to oversell flights, which would otherwise be an illegal business practice, DOT has jurisdiction over what circumstances passengers can be denied their paid and reserved ticket. UA also initially claimed that it was an oversold flight, and used the authority given to them by DOT to deny boarding only in the case of an oversold flight, so that alone may justify investigating it as such and then figuring what if any violations apply to the situation.
Besides any question about oversold flights any activity that isn’t in the public interest or unfair and deceptive business practices are prohibited under an entirely different set of codes.
They didn’t spell out in their contract of carriage that last minute needs of employees may be grounds to refuse service to paid passengers. That may be determined to be a deceptive and unfair practice without even considering regulations about oversold flights.
The bottom line is that DOT and the courts will determine what if any violations occurred, and UA being the “property owner” of the plane won’t be considered relevant to the situation in any case.
IANAL, but I would think that the contract you have with them does guarantee you a seat on the airplane, with the caveat that you could lose your seat due to factors outlined in the CoC.
If the reason they want your seat is not covered in the CoC, then I cannot see how they have the right to take it from you.
The United CEO has not even mentioned Republic in any of his statements, likely because a) Republic was operating as an extension of United as a United Express flight rather than as an independent agent, and b) because the situation would have been ultimately controlled by the United gate agent and United’s policies, not by the Republic crew.
But as has been pointed out (with cites) many times, federal law only allows them to remove a seated passenger from a plane under a short list of circumstances, and last minute needs of employees is not on that list. Nor is being overbooked.
If they’re going to bump passengers it has to be done before boarding.
About police getting involved, or not, in contract disputes:
Consider the well-known and much-discussed cases where:
(a) Someone hires a moving company to move all their stuff. At the destination, moving company demands extra money, upon some pretext, and refuses to unload the stuff. Police get called, but refuse to get involved.
(b) Family takes a vacation, and comes home to find squatters occupying their house, who refuse to leave. Police get called, but refuse to get involved, saying it’s not for them to determine who legitimately occupies (or should occupy) the house.
Are these cases somehow analogous to the case du jour?
I agree and I’ve argued that point extensively in this thread. I’m not sure how you’re taking from my quoted post anything that doesn’t support that. It wasn’t an oversold flight and the contract doesn’t spell out any reason a person can be deplaned that applies to this passenger.
Once a fellow passenger and I were involuntarily bumped from an international flight before boarding. We were compensated with $400 (cash) and various vouchers for food, drink, etc. I reasoned I was dealing with circumstances beyond my control and took it in stride, but the other lady grew borderline hysterical. Anyway, no sooner was I seated in the lounge over a drink, trying to relax as well as calm her down a bit, when a breathless gate agent rushed up to us and instructed us to run down to the boarding gate. It turned out that a couple of seats were in fact somehow available, and both of us made our original flight after all!
So did you have to give back the $400?
No. (Could they even do that?)
We rushed to the plane where everybody else was already strapped in and ready for departure, were quickly shown to our seats, and the flight promptly left the terminal.
Sure the airline was out $800, but at least they didn’t have to deal with squeezing us onto the next, potentially also overbooked, flight.
What was going to happen to your luggage? Was it going on the first flight no matter what? If you get pulled /bumped from a flight don’t they have to take your luggage off the plane as well?
Amazingly, they managed to load it (back?) on in time. A few times on this airline my checked-in baggage somehow ended up on a later flight, and they had to deliver it to my door later; I certainly would not have been surprised had it flown without me.
Don’t lose those luggage claim tickets!
The reason, of course, why they would remove your checked bags is due to fear of someone checking luggage containing a bomb and then not boarding. But if the reason you didn’t fly was due to events out of your control, then it may be OK for the luggage to fly on without you.
For people who’ve mostly sat on the sidelines of this kerfluffle because they can kinda see both sides:
United Airlines incident: Law and order inside a jam-packed metal tube
Just because rules can apply, should they, always? And is this, by chance, like eminent domain?
And of course, in this case, where the passengers had already boarded, their luggage would fly on without them.
The written contract does not. I don’t necessarily disagree, but I don’t believe that it is entirely clear. There is something called “usage of trade” which can serve as an implied term in any contract.
Let’s say I sell you my car. We have a written purchase agreement, with price, dates, warranty (if any), odometer disclosure, etc. You pay me the agreed upon money and I point to the car and we shake hands. You ask me for the key. I ask you to point out where in the terms of our written contract is it specified that you get a key.
Suppose we left that part out. Could I argue that since we had a fully executed contract that didn’t specify that a key was part of the agreement that I am not obligated to give you a key?
This is “usage of trade.” Since it is implied in every sale of a car that you get a key along with the car, any judge would order that I have to give you a key as well.
In the airline context, is this implication a valid one as well? When I buy a ticket, have I bought a possessory interest, subject only to the written terms of the CoC? Or is it implied that on the reasonable discretion of the airline, they can remove me and compensate me?
I don’t know; which is why I believe it would be an open question if litigated.
When I lived in Thailand, we used to say the motto of Bangladesh’s Biman Air was “You fly, you die.” Maybe United could adopt that one.
If that was the case why would DOT ever investigate the deplaning or denied boarding of any paid passengers? At the end of the day they could always claim it’s their property so regardless of the details they were in the right.
DOT definitely seems to have the right to determine if the airline was within its legal rights in such cases, and the fact that they are investigating this case indicates they suspect they might not have been.
In the examples of previous DOT enforcement actions against airlines I cited upthread, there are many examples where the airline was penalized for not following their CoC to the letter or their “customer service pledge”, or various other things that one would normally not think were a matter of legal regulation for most businesses.
I agree there are open questions about this until the investigation or any litigation have concluded but I don’t think any of them are based on property rights.
I think this is right. When all of this shakes out, I think we will see interpretations of statutes and regulations and contractual agreements. And those analytical frameworks are not going to rely on notions of property or possessory interest.
I believe the current front runner is “It’s time to kick ass and sell seats… And we’re all outta seats.”