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Doctor violently dragged from full United flight (2 Viewers)

elbowrm said:
Bad PR without question, but:

1) the airline is within its rights to deny a properly ticketed seat to anyone, for any reason - with legislated compensation amounts based upon the alternate travel options available, and:

2) he resisted instructions from the flight crew leading to a need to forcibly remove him from the aircraft
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I think that's the key here.

Rooting for the max award possible here to the assaulted passenger, and moving United right up my flights to avoid rankings.

 
Da Guru said:
This!

My wife and I were flying our of Ft Myers last year and the flight was overbook on a 7am Saturday morning flight.  They asked before we boarded if anyone would like to give up thier seat..nobody was really answering. I finally walked up and they offered me 2 round trip vouchers if I gave up my seat and if I could not get out on another flight that day they would pay for a hotel and meals.  We really did not have to be home until work on Monday so I took the deal.  They stored our luggage and said they would be in text contact with me.  My wife and I took off for the beach and sat in a Tiki bar and walked around the beach.  At 4pm I got a text saying that they had 2 seats on the 7:00pm nonstop flight to Detroit.  So instead of getting home at 9:30 in the morning we got home at 9:30 at night.

We used the tickets to fly to Vegas for our anniversery. So they were worth around 750.00 Plus they gave us 50.00 in food vouchers to use at the airport..50 does not go far at an airport but we did get some drinks.
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Delta gave me an $800 voucher for volunteering to give up my seat. I was on another plane two hours later and my wife and I flew to Vegas for free on the voucher. 

 
Buzzbait said:
Exactly. At what point in society have we come to the point where it's OK to forcefully drag a customer off a flight because it's over booked (legal or otherwise).

This country has gone loco with what it's OK to do because it's been "documented" rather than applying common sense.
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this

 
culdeus said:
People have short memories of outrage, see Donald Trump.
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Fair point :lmao:

Thinking if I'm United, I'm trying to get in front of this and settle quietly and eat whatever crow necessary/dismiss those who acted in this manner from United to move on. Of course they won't, though and will likely fight in court. Rooting for the passenger at any rate, no one deserves to be treated like that.

 
No flying customer should be treated this way. Really does not matter if the guy was a doctor or what he did.

Would the headlines say "Panda Express manager dragged off a flight"?

 
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Da Guru said:
No flying customer should be treated this way. Really does not matter if the guy was a doctor or what he did.

Would the headlines say "Panda Express manager dragged off a flight"?
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No, but the media will usually find some common ground.  Like, wounded Iraq war vet, now a retail manager pulled violently from a United flight. Or something.  There's always something to appeal here.

I mean were they going to do this to a woman if a number got drawn? I'd like to see how they played that out.

 
I love that they ####ed up by overbooking a plane, and then physically removed somebody to make up for their mistake. :lmao:  

 
Capella said:
I love that they ####ed up by overbooking a plane, and then physically removed somebody to make up for their mistake. :lmao:  
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to be fair it wasn't an overbook, per se.  They had to get a different flight crew to the destination airport to be able to make the return flight work because the flight crew that was to fly this plane was going to exceed their hours. 

 
rascal said:
1) They were not offering the compensation required by law

2) You shouldn't board people if you are overbooked.  You figure it out before you board people.

3) Doesn't appear he was read his rights as required by law.

4) United sucks
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That's the most baffling part.  Common sense should tell you that customers are not always going to voluntarily walk off the plane in this age since everything is on camera.  If this ever happens to me and I'm on the plane I'll let them drag me off too because I have a feeling worst case scenario one of those dumb talk shows will probably pay you decent money to talk about how terrible the airline was.  If United had said hey Doc you're out before the boarding process and he runs through security to get to his seat he looks like the instigator and the PR hit isn't nearly as bad.

 
culdeus said:
to be fair it wasn't an overbook, per se.  They had to get a different flight crew to the destination airport to be able to make the return flight work because the flight crew that was to fly this plane was going to exceed their hours. 
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That's a "you" problem (United), not a "me" problem.

 
culdeus said:
to be fair it wasn't an overbook, per se.  They had to get a different flight crew to the destination airport to be able to make the return flight work because the flight crew that was to fly this plane was going to exceed their hours. 
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Seems like an overbook to me. They can't figure these things out beforehand? Surely they have software that does this. 

 
culdeus said:
I imagine the airline has a fairly bulletproof out on this legally. 
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It's no surprise airlines routinely overbook flights.  I'm sure they followed the exact procedure.  Offer free tickets, increase price, then comes the randomizer.  The bottom line is, when they say get off the plane, then GTFO.  It's like dealing with cops at that point, "yes sir, no sir".

Unfortunately, passenger was uncooperative and had to get dragged out.

 
Capella said:
Seems like an overbook to me. They can't figure these things out beforehand? Surely they have software that does this. 
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No, if you follow the reddit thread there was a sequence of events like delays and things that caused the crew to be over their hours so they had to call in an extra crew.  So it wasn't like they had 180 seats and sold 184.  They likely sold 180 but needed to jump seat a crew to the destination of this aircraft and only figured that out perhaps within maybe an hour before the flight or so.

 
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culdeus said:
to be fair it wasn't an overbook, per se.  They had to get a different flight crew to the destination airport to be able to make the return flight work because the flight crew that was to fly this plane was going to exceed their hours. 
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Still a stupidity problem.  When people have cameras out and a passenger is refusing to leave the potential PR issues seems likely at that point.  Before you physically drag someone off the plane I think you up the price enough to get somebody to accept it.  If the doctor willingly leaves then you're fine.

 
culdeus said:
to be fair it wasn't an overbook, per se.  They had to get a different flight crew to the destination airport to be able to make the return flight work because the flight crew that was to fly this plane was going to exceed their hours. 
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Louisville announcement: We're sorry for the delay folks, the crew got stuck in traffic on the I90.

 
culdeus said:
Agree, and to solve this they needed to make an appeal to the passengers with cash.  Lots of it and just not roll back from the gate till someone takes it.  
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I read in that reddit thread that someone else on the plane told them they would get off the plane for $1500 and the crew laughed at him.

 
Niles Standish said:
Still a stupidity problem.  When people have cameras out and a passenger is refusing to leave the potential PR issues seems likely at that point.  Before you physically drag someone off the plane I think you up the price enough to get somebody to accept it.  If the doctor willingly leaves then you're fine.
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Yes, I get that. 

 
Niles Standish said:
Still a stupidity problem.  When people have cameras out and a passenger is refusing to leave the potential PR issues seems likely at that point.  Before you physically drag someone off the plane I think you up the price enough to get somebody to accept it.  If the doctor willingly leaves then you're fine.
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I bet that's a company policy that will quickly get rectified.  There probably was a limit on what could be offered.  There needs to be someone on board that has the ability to override that limit (if there was one) in cases like this.

 
culdeus said:
No, if you follow the reddit thread there was a sequence of events like delays and things that caused the crew to be over their hours so they had to call in an extra crew.  So it wasn't like they had 180 seats and sold 184.  They likely sold 180 but needed to jump seat a crew to the destination of this aircraft and only figured that out perhaps within maybe an hour before the flight or so.
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I get what you're saying, but they dont start boarding an hour before. Looks to me like they not only started boarding, but pretty much finished before the incident. If they knew an hour ahead of time, they are doubling down on stupidity. 

 
Capella said:
I love that they ####ed up by overbooking a plane, and then physically removed somebody to make up for their mistake. :lmao:  
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Airlines routinely overbook highly traveled routes knowing that a certain percentage will typically miss the flight for some reason. 

Of course, the flip side is that your employees really need to handle the situations where everyone DOES show up in a manner that humans expect to be treated.

 
Don't think we have any pilots on here, but someone explain this.

Pilots are capped at 8? hours or whatever for a day.  So these guys were like 5 in to their 8 and were going to pop the limit on the outbound leg.

So they bring in a fresh crew and jumpseat them?

Why not just bump the crew and let them go home short on hours?  I'm sure it's more complex than that, and there's something I'm missing but that seems to be a potential alternative solution.  

 
"Let's see guys, we could either rent a car for our 4 employees, book them on another airline...or we'll just beat this passenger and pull him off the plane!  Let's go with that option!"

 
My dad, my brother, and I were offered 800$ for our seats before. My dad took it my brother and I did not. My brother and I landed and our ride didn't show up. We ended up being driven home by our dad with 800$ in his pocket.

 
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elbowrm said:
Ha.  In no way am I defending United, just pointing out that this guy's chances of seeing a dime out of all of this (other than maybe a gofundme account) are close to zero - unless United decides (probably rightly, although the precedent may be overly problematic) to do a public mea culpa and settlement in order to attempt to reverse the latest airline-related PR disaster.
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Based on what Rascal posted it doesn't look like United did their due diligence in getting to the point where they could kick the guy off the plane.

 
Limp Ditka said:
Why is this on United? Are the Air Marshalls employed by United?
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That's what has me baffled here. United crew followed their procedure. When the passenger refused to deplane and became unruly it wasn't United crew that forcefully removed him. Still looks bad on United but security did the forceful removal.

 
3C's said:
They have the right to remove me (have me removed by security/law enforcement). And they would be skewered on the internet.
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It would be a rare occurrence and there would be searing comments as they wood get grilled for it, but well done on your behalf. Well done!

 
Close to 10 years ago I flew United and my connector flight was late.  I ran between gates and made it something like 18 minutes prior to departure where their policy said you need to be 20 before.  They were still boarding passengers but had sold my seat to somebody going standby.  They gave me a crappy hotel room and my flight from Denver to Columbia, SC took more than 24 hours.  They did give me enough of a dinner voucher that I was able to almost cover a subway sandwich at the airport.  I have not flown United since and never will again.  If I had been late enough that they were done boarding I would have been less angry.  But it kind of sucks when there is still a line of people 10 deep boarding (I'd assume all standby at that point) and I wasn't allowed to use my ticket.

 
I wonder what kind of randomizer they use. Do they just draw names out of a hat, or does united have an actual randomizer software or something.

 
3C's said:
That's what has me baffled here. United crew followed their procedure. When the passenger refused to deplane and became unruly it wasn't United crew that forcefully removed him. Still looks bad on United but security did the forceful removal.
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In this situation, calling for the Air Marshalls to forcibly remove someone from the plane is a bad decision.

You can make the argument that the air marshalls really didn't do that much.  They had a job to do, they may not have even known the situation, and they got him off the plane.  

 
Cjw_55106 said:
Actually agree with this. The guy wasnt cooperating so they called the marshals. What they decide to do at that point really isnt United's fault or problem. 
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As a business you never should allow yourself to get to the point where you call the cops on paying customers who have done nothing wrong.

 
Quez said:
I wonder what kind of randomizer they use. Do they just draw names out of a hat, or does united have an actual randomizer software or something.
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Its tiered:

1) Indians (feather)

2) African Americans

3)Hispanics

4)Asians

5)Indians (Dot)

6)Eskimo

.

.

.

346) White Folks

 
Quez said:
I wonder what kind of randomizer they use. Do they just draw names out of a hat, or does united have an actual randomizer software or something.
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I'd almost guarantee United's "Randomizer" excludes Business Class, First Class and upper level frequent fliers.

 
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