3 ms·

Overbooking is an extremely common practice. In fact, I don't know of a single airline that doesn't overbook. On a plane with hundreds of seats you almost alway

Overbooking is an extremely common practice. In fact, I don't know of a single airline that doesn't overbook. On a plane with hundreds of seats you almost always get cancellations; the small amount of times you don't, you almost always get people volunteering to be pushed to the next flight in exchange for money (I've done it myself a few times as I don't mind working in airports). Cases like these are exceedingly rare. There's a million fucked up things with how they handled the situation, starting with assaulting the passenger. Overbooking itself is the last thing you should be worried about.

eutropia 10y ago
starting with not simply not offering a better deal to the first other person who volunteered...
- scrollaway 10y ago
  Like I said, there's a million things. But I'd say beating somebody up is far more criminal behaviour than having a stupid policy.
sf_rob 10y ago
As with you, I'm not opposed to overbooking, but: 1) Overbooking should be handled at the gate. 2) I'd like to see an incredibly high legal ceiling for compensating passengers who voluntarily reschedule. $800 (4x the ticket price) or we'll drag some of you out of the plane is ridiculous. And let's not forget that the ceiling is only a legal limitation; it was United's discretion to stop the bidding at the legal ceiling and use force.
- scrollaway 10y ago
  > Overbooking should be handled at the gate It generally is. No idea why it wasn't in this case. United completely fucked this up in so many ways. Like you said: 1. The overbooking issue should have been handled at the gate. Deplaning should only be done in extreme circumstances, this was not one. 2. The extra crew should have been boarded on a different flight when they didn't get enough volunteer leavers. 3. A much higher ceiling should be placed on the ticket compensation for the extreme cases, through an auction. I don't know if this is legally possible though, but if it's not I'm sure something can be worked out in miles/free future tickets/etc. Pre-flight deplaning costs a lot more in wasted time/delays and even more when it's forced with extra costs in bad press/publicity, security calls, etc. This is a classic example of wasting millions to save hundreds. 4. Security obviously used excessive force. The entire ordeal should have been halted and the CEO should have immediately spoken against their actions rather than come out supporting them. It's one thing to make idiotic decisions, follow idiotic policies and cost people money. Physical assault is in a completely different ballpark. We have video evidence of what happened -- I hope to see the officer fired and prosecuted. I'm not holding my breath though.
diogenescynic 10y ago
Just because it's common, doesn't make it not scummy. Yes there are cancellations, but airlines usually charge change fees and if you don't make the flight you don't get a refund either--so this policy is win-win for the airlines and lose-lose for consumers. >in exchange for money Sure, but not everyone knows that the airlines have to give you money. Usually they offer like $200-$600 in flight vouchers which can only be used $50 per flight... so not really a good deal for most people. Lastly, as a paying customer I find it beyond disgusting and degrading that after finding a seat that United would violently remove and humiliate their customer. That's absolutely not worth it. And United could have just rebooked the excess passengers on a Southwest flight for under $200/each. This was a colossal fuck up by United, no matter how you spin it.

eutropia 10y ago

starting with not simply not offering a better deal to the first other person who volunteered...

scrollaway 10y ago
Like I said, there's a million things. But I'd say beating somebody up is far more criminal behaviour than having a stupid policy.

sf_rob 10y ago

As with you, I'm not opposed to overbooking, but: 1) Overbooking should be handled at the gate. 2) I'd like to see an incredibly high legal ceiling for compensating passengers who voluntarily reschedule. $800 (4x the ticket price) or we'll drag some of you out of the plane is ridiculous. And let's not forget that the ceiling is only a legal limitation; it was United's discretion to stop the bidding at the legal ceiling and use force.

scrollaway 10y ago
> Overbooking should be handled at the gate It generally is. No idea why it wasn't in this case. United completely fucked this up in so many ways. Like you said: 1. The overbooking issue should have been handled at the gate. Deplaning should only be done in extreme circumstances, this was not one. 2. The extra crew should have been boarded on a different flight when they didn't get enough volunteer leavers. 3. A much higher ceiling should be placed on the ticket compensation for the extreme cases, through an auction. I don't know if this is legally possible though, but if it's not I'm sure something can be worked out in miles/free future tickets/etc. Pre-flight deplaning costs a lot more in wasted time/delays and even more when it's forced with extra costs in bad press/publicity, security calls, etc. This is a classic example of wasting millions to save hundreds. 4. Security obviously used excessive force. The entire ordeal should have been halted and the CEO should have immediately spoken against their actions rather than come out supporting them. It's one thing to make idiotic decisions, follow idiotic policies and cost people money. Physical assault is in a completely different ballpark. We have video evidence of what happened -- I hope to see the officer fired and prosecuted. I'm not holding my breath though.

diogenescynic 10y ago

Just because it's common, doesn't make it not scummy. Yes there are cancellations, but airlines usually charge change fees and if you don't make the flight you don't get a refund either--so this policy is win-win for the airlines and lose-lose for consumers. >in exchange for money Sure, but not everyone knows that the airlines have to give you money. Usually they offer like $200-$600 in flight vouchers which can only be used $50 per flight... so not really a good deal for most people. Lastly, as a paying customer I find it beyond disgusting and degrading that after finding a seat that United would violently remove and humiliate their customer. That's absolutely not worth it. And United could have just rebooked the excess passengers on a Southwest flight for under $200/each. This was a colossal fuck up by United, no matter how you spin it.