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Leaked email from United Airlines CEO blames passenger for violent removal

159 points by miraj 10y ago

SteveNuts 10y ago
Airlines are the worst.
- tdb7893 10y ago
  What most people (and the news) don't seem to realise is that airlines are the worst because of market forces. There is very little brand loyalty in general for airlines so small changes in prices have a large difference and they've found the there just isn't a large market for a better airline with significantly higher cost.
  - DamnYuppie 10y ago
    For recreational travelers I am inclined to agree with you. Yet for business travels, which are the backbone of most airlines, they are very brand loyal. They will contort their schedule and deaden their pain threshold to no ends to fly their preferred airline. Also price isn't a key driving decision for them, if one airline is $100 less on a given flight but the more expensive flight is still "in policy" they will go with the more expense flight on their preferred carrier. I am a weekly business travel as are all my peers so this is purely my observations from 15+ years of frequent business travel.
    - tdb7893 10y ago
      That's true and it would be interesting to see an airline catering more to them but that's not the case for the majority of consumers and it would be unlikely that an airline could fill a plane if a seat cost much more. The trend in airlines currently is actually providing cheaper and less services
dbg31415 10y ago
This whole situation reads like a playbook for how to have to resign from a CEO position.
- devy 10y ago
  Or the UAL's board should remove and "re-accommodate" somewhere outside of UAL's leadership team.
cube00 10y ago
If they had just increased the compensation passengers would have voluntarily given up their seat, everyone has their price. It didn't even need to be money, free flights, upgrades, it costs them next to nothing, especially when you consider this is still running in the media days later. Everyone hates to hear they overbook flights so you'd think when they get bitten United would take some of the savings made overbooking and spend it when it doesn't work out. At the end of the day I have a sneaking suspicion they'll still be ahead.
- creaghpatr 10y ago
  They should do a live auction on the plane, "I need 4 people to get off for $100...$200..." The competitiveness to "win" would save airlines money, make the "winners" feel even better about getting booted, and the "losers" don't actually lose anything. Probably more efficient too.
  - valuearb 10y ago
    They got up to $800 and had no takers. Not sure why they didn't go higher, wondering if United doesn't allow employees to offer more compensation than that. Which is a problem if so.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - cm2187 10y ago
      If there is a lawsuit, I bet the settlement will be several order of magnitudes that. Particularly given that the guy was a physician.
      - scurvy 10y ago
        I doubt that United would be party to the lawsuit. It would be the airport cops who were called and roughed up the passenger.
dingaling 10y ago
This e-mail illustrates the complete imbalance of the "contract" of carriage between passenger and airline, which is compounded by the Federal Aviation Regulations that give the crew ultimate power even when there's no safety risk[0]. The CEO states that the flight was 'fully boarded' and then later that it was decided to 'deny boarding' to four passengers. So was it fully boarded or not? It doesn't really matter, the airline can change its language as it sees fit, to achieve its desired business objective and the customer has no recourse. I'm an aviation enthusiast but I don't fly commercial airlines any more for this reason amongst others. [0] Because when there's no safety risk they can just escalate until the customer becomes aggravated, and then there's a safety risk.
- Shivetya 10y ago
  I take issue with the idea it was over booked when it was the airline wanting to transport its own people in place of booked customers. If anything we shall get to witness if the power of social media can overcome such abuse, It has helped turn the tables a bit with policing but usually only when it occurs in a public setting. People do need to take note that this actually is another case of police abuse just at the behest of a private company.
  - valuearb 10y ago
    So United should not have tried to board their flight personnel so that another plane full of passengers could sit on the tarmac for hours in Louisville with no crew?
    - cmurf 10y ago
      This is not the fault of any passenger. The airline ceased to be civil when they shifted from an auction, to inviting police power on board. It was morally wrong for them to do this, and it was even worse for the police to agree to it. There's no ethical, legal, or contractual argument for what the airline did; or the power they claim to have in this letter. They do not have the power to deplane people for the reason stated, their contract lists out numerous reasons for passenger removal but this is not one of them.
libc 10y ago
The fact that the airline technically didn't do anything illegal here really speaks to the lack of consumer protection laws in this country.
- trollied 10y ago
  Some people appear to think that what they did wasn't legal. See: http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/593329-usa-today-ua-forcibly-remove-random-pax-flight-15.html#post9736108 http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/593329-usa-today-ua-forci...
  - walterbell 10y ago
    This legal argument would explain both the CEO's twitter statements and the leaked letter. If airline employees cannot legally contribute to "overbooking" and if a passenger has different rights once seated, then there will be a legal settlement. In that scenario, every communication by United would need to serve dual PR and legal objectives.
  - BlackFly 10y ago
    That is a fantastic link. Summary of the points: CFR 250.2a covers overbooking but only applies before boarding. Since the United employees had no confirmed reserved seats on the aircraft, they cannot be given priority over a customer with a confirmed reserved seat. The passenger was already boarded, so they cannot rely on oversales rules to refuse service. Instead they need to rely on their Contract of Carriage which does not allow them to eject customers for any reason whatsoever. The most circular thing they could eject him for was failure to follow the terms of the contract of carriage for refusing to disembark. They publicly stated that their reason for asking him to leave was because he was selected by a computer, but this is not allowed by their rule 21. They had no legal right to refuse him service at that point.
    - true_religion 10y ago
      Yep, and in order to exercise his legal rights in this entirely civil case, he ought to have left the plane called his lawyer then gone before a judge. This whole act of struggling with the police is never going to get a good outcome. It will only escalate things from a civil matter to a criminal one.
bradleyjg 10y ago
Doesn't anyone with an ounce of PR sense work at this company? No one is impressed by the legal technicalities. No one cares that the internal policies were followed. If they want to get out ahead of this they need to understand and come to grips with the fact that they are well nigh universally perceived to have been in the wrong.
- tyingq 10y ago
  United is somewhat famous, even in the generally unfriendly airline industry, for being ham-handed around PR and customer relations. See http://untied.com http://untied.com, a parody/complaint site.
  - bertil 10y ago
    Oddly enough, the actual United website still praises their CEO for winning a PR award.
jbmorgado 10y ago
I seriously can't understand what kind of mental gymnastics this airline management is doing in order to justify in their heads that this is just fine. Even if the law is on their side, they still overbooked the plane by themselves, they still let everyone check in, they still let everyone in onboard and they still forcibly removed some random paying passenger just because someone on their staff wanted/needed (anyone can clarify this part?) to board. Here is an idea for United (your HR department can contact me, I'm available to hire for 50% of your CEO and I easily come up with much better ideas): 1 - you just have to simply get the attention of the passengers on the plane (if you can be a bit smart and do it OUTSIDE the plane it's even better). 2- keep increasing the compensation you give one (or the needed) of them in order for them to catch a later flight. Sooner or later someone would just accept the compensation. Also, that compensation wouldn't be anything special anyway since you have a plane full of people competing for it. The passenger would be happy, United would get what it wanted and you wouldn't have this media shitstorm in your hands. Yes... it's really that simple United (again, tell your HR department I'm available for hire).
- valuearb 10y ago
  They should have increased compensation. I'm wondering if they have a company limit of $800. The reason this happened is they had another crew that missed their flight and needed to get to Lousville in time or another plane load of passengers would be stuck on the tarmac.
  - jehoshaphat 10y ago
    I've read somewhere (can't find the link now) that the subject aircrew was from an associate airline (United Express--different operator than United who also operates regional jets for American and others, so not even technically their own employee. Other plane would not have been stuck on the tarmac. The crew had to get to Louisville that night to meet crew rest requirements. So that flight could have been cancelled/delayed hours in advance if no crew was available to fly it. The owners of that crew had other methods available to get that crew to Louisville, UA did not have to accommodate them on a fully booked flight, and in fact could not legally do so. I personally think there must have been some hanky-panky going on between members of the two flight crews. I can't think of any other reason UA would bend over backwards to fuck this up so badly.
arkis22 10y ago
Rough. I can see where he's coming from though. This was a private email to employees, and in that context he definitely needs to be a cheerleader for them. Overbookings are industry standard, and they called security for someone who wouldn't leave. "Correct" protocol. I think what most likely happened is the security guard that has been placed on leave did his job very poorly. As soon as he hit the passenger his coworkers probably thought "Uh oh. We need to just get him out of here before this gets worse. Because this is not what's supposed to happen." It's obvious to us though that calling security is a way to make ALL your customers unhappy, and should be avoided at whatever cost. They should have just kept raising their offer for passenger's seats, that would be the better protocol.
- openmosix 10y ago
  If you are the CEO of a public company, you know anything you write at all@<your_company> is, most likely, public record. "They were just following protocol" is the new "Befehl ist Befehl" - also known as Nurember defense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders The fact that a defenceless man has left a plane covered in blood should give everyone pause. They followed orders is a very poor response.
  - arkis22 10y ago
    My comment was not meant to suggest that what happened was right. My comment was meant to suggest that anger at the CEO for supporting his employees, who only called security, and didn't beat the guy up themselves, is misplaced. UA screwed up, but the email wasn't what went wrong. The UA employees followed protocol by calling security. Protocols are generally in place for a reason, and they can be reworked. I don't think comparing overbooking to German soldiers entering a plea against war crimes is a good analogy.
    - openmosix 10y ago
      We can argue what "be a cheerleader for them[employees]" means. If I were a United employee, I'd not be impressed by my employer. I'd feel ashamed of being part of an organization that has managed to escalate a logistical problem (because that's what we are talking about) into violence. I'd like to be proud of my employer and, today, I'd not feel great knowing my company is ok with beating up a harmless man. I'd seriously question the ethics and core value of my employer. As an employee, I'd like to know that /something/ went wrong in that situation - and we do not stand for violence. Frankly, that would cheer me up. As comparing overbooking to German soldiers - the Nuremberg defense, despite originated from Nazi's trial, refers today to any account where "I was just following orders". It refers to /any/ situation where someone claims unaccountability because "it is the protocol". This is exactly the case. If the protocol accounts for beating up a passenger, are the employees unaccountable just because "that's what the manual says"? No, they are not. They are human beings and they could say "fuck the protocol". There are a million other ways to handle a logistical problem without the use of violence.
_wmd 10y ago
I think the video of this incident is frankly disgusting, but it's not clear without more context why the situation escalated to the degree it did. For example, UA fly another plane 3 hours 20 minutes later to the same destination (which is to say, a very reasonable and perfectly expectable delay in any situation involving air travel), why did the doc need to be on exactly that plane, and why did the UA staff also have to be on exactly that plane? One point in favour of UA though, is that they're perfectly within their right to deny boarding for any reason whatsoever. Yes, it's completely a dick move on their part, but just because they're acting like dicks does not give a passenger the right to refuse disembarkation, it's not his aircraft. FWIW I 100% think the passenger was mistreated regardless, just saying there aren't enough facts to pass judgement so easily
- Oletros 10y ago
  He was a Dr. going to work
  - _wmd 10y ago
    At 9pm that same evening?
    - Oletros 10y ago
      Night shift?
  - valuearb 10y ago
    He is allegedly a doctor, not a demigod. Someone else can cover his shift.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - katbyte 10y ago
      If i have an appointment to see a specialist that i've been waiting months for, another doctor can't just 'cover his shift'
mvdwoord 10y ago
I feel the current system of overbooking and how it is "regulated" is backwards, and airlines should rethink. Perhaps they could do some sort of an auction without a maximum. It is their problem after all, and a market mechanism seems a reasonable way to deal with this. Sometimes this would mean someone who does not care as much will gladly take $150 as compensation. Other cases might lead to much higher numbers. The next bit will probably not make me particularly popular, seeing most of the reactions to this debacle, but here goes. The airplane itself is not a suitable place for any form of protest. No ifs, buts or anything else. Once the flight personnel asks you to leave the airplane, you leave. Take the fight outside of the airplane, in court or wherever or however you deem appropriate. But not on the plane. Your work/patients/personal tragedy is in no way relevant. If you disagree with the service offered, don't use it. Vote with your feet and your wallet. Don't claim you have no alternatives or whatever. Society does not owe you your preferred lifestyle in any way. If this guy refused to leave after he was asked to do so, according to the rules het agreed by upon entering an agreement, and I would be delayed by the ensuing situation, I would even consider pursuing some form of legal action towards him. Having said all that, I do feel the way commercial air travel is organised these days is beyond ridiculous. I therefore avoid it whenever and however I can. If more people did that, it would have changed by now. People don't, so it doesn't. Because most just feel entitled to whatever they feel entitled to, without any basis. Fuck them. Oh, and screw airlines too.
- tabeth 10y ago
  I completely disagree with your advice. If you truly care about something you should protest against it immediately.
  - mvdwoord 10y ago
    That IS my advice.. immediately stop using their services. It will come at a cost of convenience to yourself of course.
  - Neliquat 10y ago
    In spirit, to protest the injustice as it happens seems right. However in a world of laws, it is seldom the effective or meaningful action. I would have full knowledge that a lawyer would sort this, and keep my cool, not that you should have to. The real advice here is to vote with your dollar.
hedora 10y ago
Ignoring the physical assault, this sounds about par for United customer support... I've been avoiding United for years, but a few years ago, a few friends wanted to be picked up at the airport after United flights. Over 50% of them bought tickets for flights that didn't exist, and were instead consolidated onto other, later, flights. Airlines should have to pay large multiples of ticket prices (in cash) to passengers that encounter a schedule change or overbooking. As the overbookings increase, the refunds should grow exponentially. (2x if 0.1% are bumped, 4x if 0.2, then 8x, 16x, etc). If they didn't change their behavior, United would have to pay out its market cap in a matter of days, which is exactly what they deserve for systematically abusing customers for at least a decade.
- tyingq 10y ago
  Jimmy Kimmel pointed out the main reason why they get away with this. “The next time we book a flight, it doesn’t matter if it’s United or Delta or American, if one of those flights is a dollar less than the other one, that’s the one we’ll pick. They know this. That’s why we’re stuck with them.” I don't understand the dynamics of how it ended up this way. Air travel used to be a luxury, and had fairly high margins. The race to the bottom has inspired a lot of terrible practice...unbundling things like "baggage fees", pushing load factors beyond what's reasonable, increasingly smaller seats, etc.
  - MandieD 10y ago
    One word: deregulation. It's been a very sharp double-edged sword: on the one hand, it gave us effective competitors like Southwest and jetBlue forcing the "legacy" carriers to compete on price and routes, enabling far more people to be able to fly. On the other, it caused the legacy carriers compete on price, not service (the only thing they could really compete on before deregulation). Personally, I fly Southwest and jetBlue when I'm in the US, but to get there, I end up on Delta/KLM/Air France. The prices are usually around what the legacy carriers are, but they have pretty much maintained the level of service they started with (Southwest famously never had meal service, only packets of peanuts). I think because they never got into the habit of cutting back a little bit each year, they haven't gotten into the same downward spiral the legacy carriers seem to have.
dmoy 10y ago
Relevant info: https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights Short version: if bumped, you're legally entitled to a cash payout equal to 2x fare cost.
- phonon 10y ago
  4x up to $1350 if the delay is more than 4 hours, actually.
danso 10y ago
While I'm sure it's possible an employee forwarded this email without official authorization, it is unlikely this email was written without the expectation that it would eventually make its way into the press. IOW, it's been written with the public as its ultimate audience, I wouldn't assume that it has anything that the CEO didn't want the world to know.
cm2187 10y ago
Overbooking is an indefensible practice. You sell a service that you knowingly have no intention to provide to people who base their travel plans on that expectation. This is like playing Russian roulette with your customers. No sympathy for United.
- protomyth 10y ago
  How is this an over sold (overbook) situation? The flight was not overbooked. It was United that added employees that shouldn't have and I'm more and more convinced they did it illegally.
- valuearb 10y ago
  Without overbooking, your plane ticket would cost roughly 10% more. So go ahead and start a "non-overbooking" airline, and see how popular you are with customers.
goatherders 10y ago
I love how they say he was advised that he was "denied boarding." Here's a tip: If I'm in a seat, you've already let me board. And if you planned poorly then that isn't my problem. Unlike any other industry of which I am aware, airlines are unbelievably skilled at making their problems their customers problems and then not apologizing for it.
- valuearb 10y ago
  10,000 flights a day, 365 days a year, sometimes the most improbable things happen. And once you are in your seat, doesn't mean you can't be asked to leave. http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2017/02/06/detroit-metro-passenger-taken-plane/97552370/ http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/201...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
protomyth 10y ago
Can someone explain how this was an "oversales" situation since the plane was actually fully booked and not over sold, and with that how United's action didn't violate the law. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/part-250 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/part-250 https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=CFR-2001-title14-vol4&granuleId=CFR-2001-title14-vol4-sec250-2a&collectionCode=CFR&browsePath=Title+14%2FChapter+II%2FSubchapter+A%2FPart+250%2FSection+250.2a&collapse=true&fromBrowse=true https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageI...
- devy 10y ago
  It simply wasn't - until United's crew members came on board. And United put prioritize employees over its boarded customers (if there are going to bump passengers out, they should never issue boarding pass in the first place).
  - protomyth 10y ago
    Reading the law, it seems very much like prioritizing employees over passengers is actually illegal.
    - true_religion 10y ago
      I don't actually think so. Prioritising employees may very well be essential to the continued or optimal operation of your airline. For example, getting person A to a city so they can crew in place of a sick employee, where otherwise we would have a plane with no pilot.
      - protomyth 10y ago
        > Prioritising employees may very well be essential to the continued or optimal operation of your airline But that doesn't seem to be legal. It wasn't an oversold flight and the rule is "In the event of an oversold flight, every carrier shall ensure that the smallest practicable number of persons holding confirmed reserved space on that flight are denied boarding involuntarily." The airline didn't do that because ensuring the "smallest practicable number of persons holding confirmed reserved space" would mean the non-flight employees get bumped not the passengers.
benji-york 10y ago
I honestly don't understand the outrage. A person was legally required to do something he didn't want to do, he refused to relent and escalated the situation. The passenger is the only person I see as having done anything wrong here. I don't claim that there aren't better ways to handle the situation, but I also don't see any wrongdoing in how this shook out.
- Noseshine 10y ago
  > A person was legally required to do something he didn't want to do That is your claim but it does not appear to be true. Read this comment on reddit from a lawyer (unless someone shows that to be wrong I'll assume it to be true): https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/64nluh/united_ceo_doubles_down_in_email_to_employees/dg3xvsy/ https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/64nluh/united_ceo_dou... (EDIT: The comment is actually just a quote of another comment here: https://thepointsguy.com/2017/04/your-rights-on-involuntary-bumps/ https://thepointsguy.com/2017/04/your-rights-on-involuntary-...) According to that guy's reasoning they violated the law and that's all. > and escalated the situation I don't understand the mental gymnastics unfortunately performed numerously by people like you which can be found all over the comments to somehow let United be in the right here. Apparently in your eyes customers have no rights, and anything the corporation demands must be done, period. Especially when I look at how you phrase it: It seems more than obvious that if anyone escalated the situation is was United. The other people on board apparently saw it that way too! Nor did they do what they were required by law to do, to the end the compensation they offered was below what they were legally required to offer. Who escalated, tell me again?
  - benji-york 10y ago
    Let's set aside the legality issue for the moment and assume that United was not legally allowed to have the man removed from the flight. What then is the appropriate response of the passenger? Is non-cooperation (i.e., require people to physically remove you from your seat) the right thing to do? Is physically resisting (hitting, pushing, grappling with, etc.) those sent to remove you permissible?
mikhailt 10y ago
This is what happens when you normalize violence, you focus on the blaming and legal stuff instead and you get people like this CEO but no one is reacting to the fact that a human being has been knocked out, dragged out like an animal for something he didn't have to give up. He had a legitimate reason not to give up his seat, he had patients he needed to see the next day. The airline CANNOT act like the computer is right all the time (they said for randomizing the seats to give up) and they should've been humans to understand and pick someone else or increase their incentives. Remember, the flight was NOT overbooked. They said they needed to get their four employees to a different state, so they wanted four people off the plane. This is all spinning by the airline, listen to the specifics. I don't care whose fault it was, there was absolutely no need for that violence in the first place, the escalation was not justified in any situations. The protocol needs to be changed, that's what people need to start asking for. Change the policy to include exemptions such as doctors or others (firefighters, cops, etc), increase the incentives and so on. The airline should've done its job correctly by informing their customers BEFORE boarding the plane and upping the incentives until it gets their goal. The customers should not be forced to give up what they paid before because the airline screwed up. I could care less that overbooking is a common thing. The society should not be about protecting the profits of the companies, they should be promoting the humanity and moving it further. This is a huge regression by allowing the companies to have more power.
- ambulancechaser 10y ago
  > He had a legitimate reason not to give up his seat This is true until an officer of the law asked him to get off the plane. Argument time happens before that, and after that in court. But at that point, you're being ordered off a plane by a law enforcement officer. When you don't comply there's only one way for it to proceed at that point. > The airline CANNOT act like the computer is right all the time It was the police officers who were right when they ordered the man off the plane.
  - mikhailt 10y ago
    The airline called the cops to enforce its rights; the cops could've ordered everyone off the plane to de-escalate the situation peacefully, which should've be done in the first place due to the space constraint in there causing safety concerns. What if the guy wanted to fight? Other customers could've gotten hurt. I've been in that situation before the cops ordered everyone to disperse first. They could've listen and ask if anyone else would be willing to give up their seat for the doctor. There are many options and based on the videos and what the other passengers said, the airline nor the cops gone through all of them before escalating the situation like this. Sorry, the cops were in the wrong as well. They may have all the laws on their side I'm sure but if we treat cops as right all the time, we normalize their behaviors as acceptable as well.
wnevets 10y ago
I just wish people would stop repeating that this was an overbooking issue, it wasn't. Customers were being forced off the plane to allow employees on after the fact. That has nothing to do with overbooking.
- valuearb 10y ago
  Doesn't matter. Airline can remove anyone they want from a flight for any reason. They had to get another air crew to louisville or another flight would be stuck on the tarmac full of passengers.
  - wnevets 10y ago
    It absolutely matters. One is an incorrect statement and the other isn't.
  - phonon 10y ago
    Not true. UA has a Contract of Carriage that specifically enumerates the possible reasons they can use to deny boarding or remove someone from a flight. There is no "catch-all" in it. https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx#sec21 https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...
bambax 10y ago
United used to only break guitars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars Now they break passengers, too.
typetypetype 10y ago
It's time to finally have an air passenger bill of rights as law!
ensiferum 10y ago
Seriously, next time this happens how about raising the compensation for someone willing to take the later flight. The Aircrew could announce on the PA that "we're very sorry that the fligth will be be delayed but we're overbooked and still looking for X ppl willing to take the next flight. We're offering a X $ compensation for your trouble." Then you just increase X until you will find people willing to take the deal. Idiots.
- valuearb 10y ago
  They went up to $800 and got no takers. $800 is what United has to pay for involuntarily bumping someone. So clearly United company policy is to not pay anything above that (other airlines will). This is what bit them in the ass here.
cmurf 10y ago
As it turns out the explanations are completely false, as in, not based on facts: a. It wasn't overbooked. It was apparently exactly 100% booked and filled. Four paying customers were replaced by four non-paying crew. That is not an overbook situation, so United's entire rule 25 in the contract of carriage doesn't apply. b. The removed customer didn't violate a single listed reason under rule 21 of the contract of carriage. Where else in the contract is passenger removal permitted? c. Even if it were an overbooking, the airline's contract only says boarding can be denied. It doesn't say anything about rescinding an authorization to board, i.e. changing their mind. What's going on here, are unwritten rules that they just made up out of thin air, convinced the police they exist, and got the police to do their dirty work. That rule is "upon refusal to comply with a polite request, the airline will petition an ignorant police force to (violently) remove the passenger from the plane." This perverted, uncivilized, unwritten rule needs to be challenged. I hope this passenger takes them to court without settling. It needs to become part of the public record. If he settles, the details will get buried behind a non-disclosure agreement, and we won't actually learn that it's the airline who violated their own contract of carriage, and the police almost certainly broke the law not just their policies, in physically removing this person from the plane. And unfortunately most of the media has spread false information by saying that the airline can have a person thrown off a plane for pretty much any reason, which is only true if you agree. If you look at the written contract, removal in this case is not supportable, even with a very vivid imagination.
tuna-piano 10y ago
How to fix this problem: 1. Hand out prefilled in vouchers/checks to all the passengers with the amount filled in, which become valid when redeemed at the counter. There's an irrational human thing that people hate losing something they have more than they like gaining something[1], so helping to feel like they are losing the $800 voucher by not redeeming it would be more beneficial. I imagine that having the (fake) voucher/check in their hand would increase voluntary rates by a lot (and lower the compensation the airlines would need to pay), while only increasing some paper printing costs. --- Other ideas --- 1b. Add in language during ticket purchase saying "To keep prices low, bla bla bla, 1 in 20,000 passengers may be unable to fly. Purchase protection from this event for $1". The passengers that don't purchase that protection would then be eligible for denied boarding, but at least they had more of a choice. Although, it still feels like "guaranteed seat" should just be included by default when you purchase a ticket (as I type this, it feels insane that "guaranteed seat" would be an upsell... but that seems to be the case). 1c. Offer more in compensation to passengers (obvious). This is not like eminent domain, where you need 100% of people in a given area to agree to something. You only need 4/100 passengers to agree to something, it truly can work like an auction. --- Other thoughts --- 1. Everyone is blaming United for this event, but is there a different US airline who this event couldn't have happened to? They all have involuntary boardings, and presumably if you choose not to go peacefully, the airline will involve law enforcement. The only reason people leave peacefully when they don't want to is because they know the airline has the ultimate physical control. 2. Jimmy Kimmel mentioned it, but you just cannot imagine this happening in any other industry. Being kicked out of a restaurant table after being seated, being kicked out of a hotel room just checked into, etc. 3. The management of United seems completely out of touch with sentiment and reality, given their statements. Using the word "re-accomodate" in a three sentence statement seems like a symptom of a larger problem... it should have been obvious how people would react to that. I believe they are so deep into their philosophy of "this is how the industry works" that they have lost sense of the bigger customer picture. It's really as simple as: He bought a confirmed ticket with real money->boarded the plane->told ticket is no longer valid and kicked off. No amount of industry financial rationalization will change that. 4. This is still a rare issue, only about 1 in 15,000 flyers in the US is involuntarily denied boarding[2]. That said, United has 5x the rate as Delta, so this problem is not inherently terrible everywhere in the industry. Worth noting that this flight was operated by Republic, not United. --Citations-- [1] https://hbr.org/2016/05/why-buyers-and-sellers-inherently-disagree-on-what-things-are-worth https://hbr.org/2016/05/why-buyers-and-sellers-inherently-di... [2]http://6331-presscdn-0-25.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016_12_26-B6DBs.jpg http://6331-presscdn-0-25.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/u...
pascalxus 10y ago
I'm sure they could have avoided this whole situation by offering the first 4 persons of the airplane, a 1000$ CASH. Instead, their policy is to risk incidents like this, for one simple reason: because they can. This is what happens when you get monopolies. Come on people, I thought we learned from the ISP monopolies already. Whenever you have limited or No choice: like monopolies, no good can come from it. I'm not surprised by this at all. And, I wouldn't be surprised if we see large increases in air fares above inflation, in coming years, as airlines consolidate their monopolistic powers. It won't be too long untill they're competing with Comcast and At&t for worst customer service.

159 points by miraj 10y ago

SteveNuts 10y ago

Airlines are the worst.

tdb7893 10y ago
What most people (and the news) don't seem to realise is that airlines are the worst because of market forces. There is very little brand loyalty in general for airlines so small changes in prices have a large difference and they've found the there just isn't a large market for a better airline with significantly higher cost.
- DamnYuppie 10y ago
  For recreational travelers I am inclined to agree with you. Yet for business travels, which are the backbone of most airlines, they are very brand loyal. They will contort their schedule and deaden their pain threshold to no ends to fly their preferred airline. Also price isn't a key driving decision for them, if one airline is $100 less on a given flight but the more expensive flight is still "in policy" they will go with the more expense flight on their preferred carrier. I am a weekly business travel as are all my peers so this is purely my observations from 15+ years of frequent business travel.
  - tdb7893 10y ago
    That's true and it would be interesting to see an airline catering more to them but that's not the case for the majority of consumers and it would be unlikely that an airline could fill a plane if a seat cost much more. The trend in airlines currently is actually providing cheaper and less services

dbg31415 10y ago

This whole situation reads like a playbook for how to have to resign from a CEO position.

devy 10y ago
Or the UAL's board should remove and "re-accommodate" somewhere outside of UAL's leadership team.

cube00 10y ago

If they had just increased the compensation passengers would have voluntarily given up their seat, everyone has their price. It didn't even need to be money, free flights, upgrades, it costs them next to nothing, especially when you consider this is still running in the media days later. Everyone hates to hear they overbook flights so you'd think when they get bitten United would take some of the savings made overbooking and spend it when it doesn't work out. At the end of the day I have a sneaking suspicion they'll still be ahead.

creaghpatr 10y ago
They should do a live auction on the plane, "I need 4 people to get off for $100...$200..." The competitiveness to "win" would save airlines money, make the "winners" feel even better about getting booted, and the "losers" don't actually lose anything. Probably more efficient too.
- valuearb 10y ago
  They got up to $800 and had no takers. Not sure why they didn't go higher, wondering if United doesn't allow employees to offer more compensation than that. Which is a problem if so.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - cm2187 10y ago
    If there is a lawsuit, I bet the settlement will be several order of magnitudes that. Particularly given that the guy was a physician.
    - scurvy 10y ago
      I doubt that United would be party to the lawsuit. It would be the airport cops who were called and roughed up the passenger.

dingaling 10y ago

This e-mail illustrates the complete imbalance of the "contract" of carriage between passenger and airline, which is compounded by the Federal Aviation Regulations that give the crew ultimate power even when there's no safety risk[0]. The CEO states that the flight was 'fully boarded' and then later that it was decided to 'deny boarding' to four passengers. So was it fully boarded or not? It doesn't really matter, the airline can change its language as it sees fit, to achieve its desired business objective and the customer has no recourse. I'm an aviation enthusiast but I don't fly commercial airlines any more for this reason amongst others. [0] Because when there's no safety risk they can just escalate until the customer becomes aggravated, and then there's a safety risk.

Shivetya 10y ago
I take issue with the idea it was over booked when it was the airline wanting to transport its own people in place of booked customers. If anything we shall get to witness if the power of social media can overcome such abuse, It has helped turn the tables a bit with policing but usually only when it occurs in a public setting. People do need to take note that this actually is another case of police abuse just at the behest of a private company.
- valuearb 10y ago
  So United should not have tried to board their flight personnel so that another plane full of passengers could sit on the tarmac for hours in Louisville with no crew?
  - cmurf 10y ago
    This is not the fault of any passenger. The airline ceased to be civil when they shifted from an auction, to inviting police power on board. It was morally wrong for them to do this, and it was even worse for the police to agree to it. There's no ethical, legal, or contractual argument for what the airline did; or the power they claim to have in this letter. They do not have the power to deplane people for the reason stated, their contract lists out numerous reasons for passenger removal but this is not one of them.

libc 10y ago

The fact that the airline technically didn't do anything illegal here really speaks to the lack of consumer protection laws in this country.

trollied 10y ago
Some people appear to think that what they did wasn't legal. See: http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/593329-usa-today-ua-forcibly-remove-random-pax-flight-15.html#post9736108 http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/593329-usa-today-ua-forci...
- walterbell 10y ago
  This legal argument would explain both the CEO's twitter statements and the leaked letter. If airline employees cannot legally contribute to "overbooking" and if a passenger has different rights once seated, then there will be a legal settlement. In that scenario, every communication by United would need to serve dual PR and legal objectives.
- BlackFly 10y ago
  That is a fantastic link. Summary of the points: CFR 250.2a covers overbooking but only applies before boarding. Since the United employees had no confirmed reserved seats on the aircraft, they cannot be given priority over a customer with a confirmed reserved seat. The passenger was already boarded, so they cannot rely on oversales rules to refuse service. Instead they need to rely on their Contract of Carriage which does not allow them to eject customers for any reason whatsoever. The most circular thing they could eject him for was failure to follow the terms of the contract of carriage for refusing to disembark. They publicly stated that their reason for asking him to leave was because he was selected by a computer, but this is not allowed by their rule 21. They had no legal right to refuse him service at that point.
  - true_religion 10y ago
    Yep, and in order to exercise his legal rights in this entirely civil case, he ought to have left the plane called his lawyer then gone before a judge. This whole act of struggling with the police is never going to get a good outcome. It will only escalate things from a civil matter to a criminal one.

bradleyjg 10y ago

Doesn't anyone with an ounce of PR sense work at this company? No one is impressed by the legal technicalities. No one cares that the internal policies were followed. If they want to get out ahead of this they need to understand and come to grips with the fact that they are well nigh universally perceived to have been in the wrong.

tyingq 10y ago
United is somewhat famous, even in the generally unfriendly airline industry, for being ham-handed around PR and customer relations. See http://untied.com http://untied.com, a parody/complaint site.
- bertil 10y ago
  Oddly enough, the actual United website still praises their CEO for winning a PR award.

jbmorgado 10y ago

I seriously can't understand what kind of mental gymnastics this airline management is doing in order to justify in their heads that this is just fine. Even if the law is on their side, they still overbooked the plane by themselves, they still let everyone check in, they still let everyone in onboard and they still forcibly removed some random paying passenger just because someone on their staff wanted/needed (anyone can clarify this part?) to board. Here is an idea for United (your HR department can contact me, I'm available to hire for 50% of your CEO and I easily come up with much better ideas): 1 - you just have to simply get the attention of the passengers on the plane (if you can be a bit smart and do it OUTSIDE the plane it's even better). 2- keep increasing the compensation you give one (or the needed) of them in order for them to catch a later flight. Sooner or later someone would just accept the compensation. Also, that compensation wouldn't be anything special anyway since you have a plane full of people competing for it. The passenger would be happy, United would get what it wanted and you wouldn't have this media shitstorm in your hands. Yes... it's really that simple United (again, tell your HR department I'm available for hire).

valuearb 10y ago
They should have increased compensation. I'm wondering if they have a company limit of $800. The reason this happened is they had another crew that missed their flight and needed to get to Lousville in time or another plane load of passengers would be stuck on the tarmac.
- jehoshaphat 10y ago
  I've read somewhere (can't find the link now) that the subject aircrew was from an associate airline (United Express--different operator than United who also operates regional jets for American and others, so not even technically their own employee. Other plane would not have been stuck on the tarmac. The crew had to get to Louisville that night to meet crew rest requirements. So that flight could have been cancelled/delayed hours in advance if no crew was available to fly it. The owners of that crew had other methods available to get that crew to Louisville, UA did not have to accommodate them on a fully booked flight, and in fact could not legally do so. I personally think there must have been some hanky-panky going on between members of the two flight crews. I can't think of any other reason UA would bend over backwards to fuck this up so badly.

arkis22 10y ago

Rough. I can see where he's coming from though. This was a private email to employees, and in that context he definitely needs to be a cheerleader for them. Overbookings are industry standard, and they called security for someone who wouldn't leave. "Correct" protocol. I think what most likely happened is the security guard that has been placed on leave did his job very poorly. As soon as he hit the passenger his coworkers probably thought "Uh oh. We need to just get him out of here before this gets worse. Because this is not what's supposed to happen." It's obvious to us though that calling security is a way to make ALL your customers unhappy, and should be avoided at whatever cost. They should have just kept raising their offer for passenger's seats, that would be the better protocol.

openmosix 10y ago
If you are the CEO of a public company, you know anything you write at all@<your_company> is, most likely, public record. "They were just following protocol" is the new "Befehl ist Befehl" - also known as Nurember defense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders The fact that a defenceless man has left a plane covered in blood should give everyone pause. They followed orders is a very poor response.
- arkis22 10y ago
  My comment was not meant to suggest that what happened was right. My comment was meant to suggest that anger at the CEO for supporting his employees, who only called security, and didn't beat the guy up themselves, is misplaced. UA screwed up, but the email wasn't what went wrong. The UA employees followed protocol by calling security. Protocols are generally in place for a reason, and they can be reworked. I don't think comparing overbooking to German soldiers entering a plea against war crimes is a good analogy.
  - openmosix 10y ago
    We can argue what "be a cheerleader for them[employees]" means. If I were a United employee, I'd not be impressed by my employer. I'd feel ashamed of being part of an organization that has managed to escalate a logistical problem (because that's what we are talking about) into violence. I'd like to be proud of my employer and, today, I'd not feel great knowing my company is ok with beating up a harmless man. I'd seriously question the ethics and core value of my employer. As an employee, I'd like to know that /something/ went wrong in that situation - and we do not stand for violence. Frankly, that would cheer me up. As comparing overbooking to German soldiers - the Nuremberg defense, despite originated from Nazi's trial, refers today to any account where "I was just following orders". It refers to /any/ situation where someone claims unaccountability because "it is the protocol". This is exactly the case. If the protocol accounts for beating up a passenger, are the employees unaccountable just because "that's what the manual says"? No, they are not. They are human beings and they could say "fuck the protocol". There are a million other ways to handle a logistical problem without the use of violence.

_wmd 10y ago

I think the video of this incident is frankly disgusting, but it's not clear without more context why the situation escalated to the degree it did. For example, UA fly another plane 3 hours 20 minutes later to the same destination (which is to say, a very reasonable and perfectly expectable delay in any situation involving air travel), why did the doc need to be on exactly that plane, and why did the UA staff also have to be on exactly that plane? One point in favour of UA though, is that they're perfectly within their right to deny boarding for any reason whatsoever. Yes, it's completely a dick move on their part, but just because they're acting like dicks does not give a passenger the right to refuse disembarkation, it's not his aircraft. FWIW I 100% think the passenger was mistreated regardless, just saying there aren't enough facts to pass judgement so easily

Oletros 10y ago
He was a Dr. going to work
- _wmd 10y ago
  At 9pm that same evening?
  - Oletros 10y ago
    Night shift?
- valuearb 10y ago
  He is allegedly a doctor, not a demigod. Someone else can cover his shift.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - katbyte 10y ago
    If i have an appointment to see a specialist that i've been waiting months for, another doctor can't just 'cover his shift'

mvdwoord 10y ago

I feel the current system of overbooking and how it is "regulated" is backwards, and airlines should rethink. Perhaps they could do some sort of an auction without a maximum. It is their problem after all, and a market mechanism seems a reasonable way to deal with this. Sometimes this would mean someone who does not care as much will gladly take $150 as compensation. Other cases might lead to much higher numbers. The next bit will probably not make me particularly popular, seeing most of the reactions to this debacle, but here goes. The airplane itself is not a suitable place for any form of protest. No ifs, buts or anything else. Once the flight personnel asks you to leave the airplane, you leave. Take the fight outside of the airplane, in court or wherever or however you deem appropriate. But not on the plane. Your work/patients/personal tragedy is in no way relevant. If you disagree with the service offered, don't use it. Vote with your feet and your wallet. Don't claim you have no alternatives or whatever. Society does not owe you your preferred lifestyle in any way. If this guy refused to leave after he was asked to do so, according to the rules het agreed by upon entering an agreement, and I would be delayed by the ensuing situation, I would even consider pursuing some form of legal action towards him. Having said all that, I do feel the way commercial air travel is organised these days is beyond ridiculous. I therefore avoid it whenever and however I can. If more people did that, it would have changed by now. People don't, so it doesn't. Because most just feel entitled to whatever they feel entitled to, without any basis. Fuck them. Oh, and screw airlines too.

tabeth 10y ago
I completely disagree with your advice. If you truly care about something you should protest against it immediately.
- mvdwoord 10y ago
  That IS my advice.. immediately stop using their services. It will come at a cost of convenience to yourself of course.
- Neliquat 10y ago
  In spirit, to protest the injustice as it happens seems right. However in a world of laws, it is seldom the effective or meaningful action. I would have full knowledge that a lawyer would sort this, and keep my cool, not that you should have to. The real advice here is to vote with your dollar.

hedora 10y ago

Ignoring the physical assault, this sounds about par for United customer support... I've been avoiding United for years, but a few years ago, a few friends wanted to be picked up at the airport after United flights. Over 50% of them bought tickets for flights that didn't exist, and were instead consolidated onto other, later, flights. Airlines should have to pay large multiples of ticket prices (in cash) to passengers that encounter a schedule change or overbooking. As the overbookings increase, the refunds should grow exponentially. (2x if 0.1% are bumped, 4x if 0.2, then 8x, 16x, etc). If they didn't change their behavior, United would have to pay out its market cap in a matter of days, which is exactly what they deserve for systematically abusing customers for at least a decade.

tyingq 10y ago
Jimmy Kimmel pointed out the main reason why they get away with this. “The next time we book a flight, it doesn’t matter if it’s United or Delta or American, if one of those flights is a dollar less than the other one, that’s the one we’ll pick. They know this. That’s why we’re stuck with them.” I don't understand the dynamics of how it ended up this way. Air travel used to be a luxury, and had fairly high margins. The race to the bottom has inspired a lot of terrible practice...unbundling things like "baggage fees", pushing load factors beyond what's reasonable, increasingly smaller seats, etc.
- MandieD 10y ago
  One word: deregulation. It's been a very sharp double-edged sword: on the one hand, it gave us effective competitors like Southwest and jetBlue forcing the "legacy" carriers to compete on price and routes, enabling far more people to be able to fly. On the other, it caused the legacy carriers compete on price, not service (the only thing they could really compete on before deregulation). Personally, I fly Southwest and jetBlue when I'm in the US, but to get there, I end up on Delta/KLM/Air France. The prices are usually around what the legacy carriers are, but they have pretty much maintained the level of service they started with (Southwest famously never had meal service, only packets of peanuts). I think because they never got into the habit of cutting back a little bit each year, they haven't gotten into the same downward spiral the legacy carriers seem to have.

dmoy 10y ago

Relevant info: https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights Short version: if bumped, you're legally entitled to a cash payout equal to 2x fare cost.

phonon 10y ago
4x up to $1350 if the delay is more than 4 hours, actually.

danso 10y ago

While I'm sure it's possible an employee forwarded this email without official authorization, it is unlikely this email was written without the expectation that it would eventually make its way into the press. IOW, it's been written with the public as its ultimate audience, I wouldn't assume that it has anything that the CEO didn't want the world to know.

cm2187 10y ago

Overbooking is an indefensible practice. You sell a service that you knowingly have no intention to provide to people who base their travel plans on that expectation. This is like playing Russian roulette with your customers. No sympathy for United.

protomyth 10y ago
How is this an over sold (overbook) situation? The flight was not overbooked. It was United that added employees that shouldn't have and I'm more and more convinced they did it illegally.
valuearb 10y ago
Without overbooking, your plane ticket would cost roughly 10% more. So go ahead and start a "non-overbooking" airline, and see how popular you are with customers.

goatherders 10y ago

I love how they say he was advised that he was "denied boarding." Here's a tip: If I'm in a seat, you've already let me board. And if you planned poorly then that isn't my problem. Unlike any other industry of which I am aware, airlines are unbelievably skilled at making their problems their customers problems and then not apologizing for it.

valuearb 10y ago
10,000 flights a day, 365 days a year, sometimes the most improbable things happen. And once you are in your seat, doesn't mean you can't be asked to leave. http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2017/02/06/detroit-metro-passenger-taken-plane/97552370/ http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/201...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

protomyth 10y ago

Can someone explain how this was an "oversales" situation since the plane was actually fully booked and not over sold, and with that how United's action didn't violate the law. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/part-250 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/part-250 https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=CFR-2001-title14-vol4&granuleId=CFR-2001-title14-vol4-sec250-2a&collectionCode=CFR&browsePath=Title+14%2FChapter+II%2FSubchapter+A%2FPart+250%2FSection+250.2a&collapse=true&fromBrowse=true https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageI...

devy 10y ago
It simply wasn't - until United's crew members came on board. And United put prioritize employees over its boarded customers (if there are going to bump passengers out, they should never issue boarding pass in the first place).
- protomyth 10y ago
  Reading the law, it seems very much like prioritizing employees over passengers is actually illegal.
  - true_religion 10y ago
    I don't actually think so. Prioritising employees may very well be essential to the continued or optimal operation of your airline. For example, getting person A to a city so they can crew in place of a sick employee, where otherwise we would have a plane with no pilot.
    - protomyth 10y ago
      > Prioritising employees may very well be essential to the continued or optimal operation of your airline But that doesn't seem to be legal. It wasn't an oversold flight and the rule is "In the event of an oversold flight, every carrier shall ensure that the smallest practicable number of persons holding confirmed reserved space on that flight are denied boarding involuntarily." The airline didn't do that because ensuring the "smallest practicable number of persons holding confirmed reserved space" would mean the non-flight employees get bumped not the passengers.

benji-york 10y ago

I honestly don't understand the outrage. A person was legally required to do something he didn't want to do, he refused to relent and escalated the situation. The passenger is the only person I see as having done anything wrong here. I don't claim that there aren't better ways to handle the situation, but I also don't see any wrongdoing in how this shook out.

Noseshine 10y ago
> A person was legally required to do something he didn't want to do That is your claim but it does not appear to be true. Read this comment on reddit from a lawyer (unless someone shows that to be wrong I'll assume it to be true): https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/64nluh/united_ceo_doubles_down_in_email_to_employees/dg3xvsy/ https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/64nluh/united_ceo_dou... (EDIT: The comment is actually just a quote of another comment here: https://thepointsguy.com/2017/04/your-rights-on-involuntary-bumps/ https://thepointsguy.com/2017/04/your-rights-on-involuntary-...) According to that guy's reasoning they violated the law and that's all. > and escalated the situation I don't understand the mental gymnastics unfortunately performed numerously by people like you which can be found all over the comments to somehow let United be in the right here. Apparently in your eyes customers have no rights, and anything the corporation demands must be done, period. Especially when I look at how you phrase it: It seems more than obvious that if anyone escalated the situation is was United. The other people on board apparently saw it that way too! Nor did they do what they were required by law to do, to the end the compensation they offered was below what they were legally required to offer. Who escalated, tell me again?
- benji-york 10y ago
  Let's set aside the legality issue for the moment and assume that United was not legally allowed to have the man removed from the flight. What then is the appropriate response of the passenger? Is non-cooperation (i.e., require people to physically remove you from your seat) the right thing to do? Is physically resisting (hitting, pushing, grappling with, etc.) those sent to remove you permissible?

mikhailt 10y ago

This is what happens when you normalize violence, you focus on the blaming and legal stuff instead and you get people like this CEO but no one is reacting to the fact that a human being has been knocked out, dragged out like an animal for something he didn't have to give up. He had a legitimate reason not to give up his seat, he had patients he needed to see the next day. The airline CANNOT act like the computer is right all the time (they said for randomizing the seats to give up) and they should've been humans to understand and pick someone else or increase their incentives. Remember, the flight was NOT overbooked. They said they needed to get their four employees to a different state, so they wanted four people off the plane. This is all spinning by the airline, listen to the specifics. I don't care whose fault it was, there was absolutely no need for that violence in the first place, the escalation was not justified in any situations. The protocol needs to be changed, that's what people need to start asking for. Change the policy to include exemptions such as doctors or others (firefighters, cops, etc), increase the incentives and so on. The airline should've done its job correctly by informing their customers BEFORE boarding the plane and upping the incentives until it gets their goal. The customers should not be forced to give up what they paid before because the airline screwed up. I could care less that overbooking is a common thing. The society should not be about protecting the profits of the companies, they should be promoting the humanity and moving it further. This is a huge regression by allowing the companies to have more power.

ambulancechaser 10y ago
> He had a legitimate reason not to give up his seat This is true until an officer of the law asked him to get off the plane. Argument time happens before that, and after that in court. But at that point, you're being ordered off a plane by a law enforcement officer. When you don't comply there's only one way for it to proceed at that point. > The airline CANNOT act like the computer is right all the time It was the police officers who were right when they ordered the man off the plane.
- mikhailt 10y ago
  The airline called the cops to enforce its rights; the cops could've ordered everyone off the plane to de-escalate the situation peacefully, which should've be done in the first place due to the space constraint in there causing safety concerns. What if the guy wanted to fight? Other customers could've gotten hurt. I've been in that situation before the cops ordered everyone to disperse first. They could've listen and ask if anyone else would be willing to give up their seat for the doctor. There are many options and based on the videos and what the other passengers said, the airline nor the cops gone through all of them before escalating the situation like this. Sorry, the cops were in the wrong as well. They may have all the laws on their side I'm sure but if we treat cops as right all the time, we normalize their behaviors as acceptable as well.

wnevets 10y ago

I just wish people would stop repeating that this was an overbooking issue, it wasn't. Customers were being forced off the plane to allow employees on after the fact. That has nothing to do with overbooking.

valuearb 10y ago
Doesn't matter. Airline can remove anyone they want from a flight for any reason. They had to get another air crew to louisville or another flight would be stuck on the tarmac full of passengers.
- wnevets 10y ago
  It absolutely matters. One is an incorrect statement and the other isn't.
- phonon 10y ago
  Not true. UA has a Contract of Carriage that specifically enumerates the possible reasons they can use to deny boarding or remove someone from a flight. There is no "catch-all" in it. https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx#sec21 https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...

bambax 10y ago

United used to only break guitars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars Now they break passengers, too.

typetypetype 10y ago

It's time to finally have an air passenger bill of rights as law!

ensiferum 10y ago

Seriously, next time this happens how about raising the compensation for someone willing to take the later flight. The Aircrew could announce on the PA that "we're very sorry that the fligth will be be delayed but we're overbooked and still looking for X ppl willing to take the next flight. We're offering a X $ compensation for your trouble." Then you just increase X until you will find people willing to take the deal. Idiots.

valuearb 10y ago
They went up to $800 and got no takers. $800 is what United has to pay for involuntarily bumping someone. So clearly United company policy is to not pay anything above that (other airlines will). This is what bit them in the ass here.

cmurf 10y ago

As it turns out the explanations are completely false, as in, not based on facts: a. It wasn't overbooked. It was apparently exactly 100% booked and filled. Four paying customers were replaced by four non-paying crew. That is not an overbook situation, so United's entire rule 25 in the contract of carriage doesn't apply. b. The removed customer didn't violate a single listed reason under rule 21 of the contract of carriage. Where else in the contract is passenger removal permitted? c. Even if it were an overbooking, the airline's contract only says boarding can be denied. It doesn't say anything about rescinding an authorization to board, i.e. changing their mind. What's going on here, are unwritten rules that they just made up out of thin air, convinced the police they exist, and got the police to do their dirty work. That rule is "upon refusal to comply with a polite request, the airline will petition an ignorant police force to (violently) remove the passenger from the plane." This perverted, uncivilized, unwritten rule needs to be challenged. I hope this passenger takes them to court without settling. It needs to become part of the public record. If he settles, the details will get buried behind a non-disclosure agreement, and we won't actually learn that it's the airline who violated their own contract of carriage, and the police almost certainly broke the law not just their policies, in physically removing this person from the plane. And unfortunately most of the media has spread false information by saying that the airline can have a person thrown off a plane for pretty much any reason, which is only true if you agree. If you look at the written contract, removal in this case is not supportable, even with a very vivid imagination.

tuna-piano 10y ago

How to fix this problem: 1. Hand out prefilled in vouchers/checks to all the passengers with the amount filled in, which become valid when redeemed at the counter. There's an irrational human thing that people hate losing something they have more than they like gaining something[1], so helping to feel like they are losing the $800 voucher by not redeeming it would be more beneficial. I imagine that having the (fake) voucher/check in their hand would increase voluntary rates by a lot (and lower the compensation the airlines would need to pay), while only increasing some paper printing costs. --- Other ideas --- 1b. Add in language during ticket purchase saying "To keep prices low, bla bla bla, 1 in 20,000 passengers may be unable to fly. Purchase protection from this event for $1". The passengers that don't purchase that protection would then be eligible for denied boarding, but at least they had more of a choice. Although, it still feels like "guaranteed seat" should just be included by default when you purchase a ticket (as I type this, it feels insane that "guaranteed seat" would be an upsell... but that seems to be the case). 1c. Offer more in compensation to passengers (obvious). This is not like eminent domain, where you need 100% of people in a given area to agree to something. You only need 4/100 passengers to agree to something, it truly can work like an auction. --- Other thoughts --- 1. Everyone is blaming United for this event, but is there a different US airline who this event couldn't have happened to? They all have involuntary boardings, and presumably if you choose not to go peacefully, the airline will involve law enforcement. The only reason people leave peacefully when they don't want to is because they know the airline has the ultimate physical control. 2. Jimmy Kimmel mentioned it, but you just cannot imagine this happening in any other industry. Being kicked out of a restaurant table after being seated, being kicked out of a hotel room just checked into, etc. 3. The management of United seems completely out of touch with sentiment and reality, given their statements. Using the word "re-accomodate" in a three sentence statement seems like a symptom of a larger problem... it should have been obvious how people would react to that. I believe they are so deep into their philosophy of "this is how the industry works" that they have lost sense of the bigger customer picture. It's really as simple as: He bought a confirmed ticket with real money->boarded the plane->told ticket is no longer valid and kicked off. No amount of industry financial rationalization will change that. 4. This is still a rare issue, only about 1 in 15,000 flyers in the US is involuntarily denied boarding[2]. That said, United has 5x the rate as Delta, so this problem is not inherently terrible everywhere in the industry. Worth noting that this flight was operated by Republic, not United. --Citations-- [1] https://hbr.org/2016/05/why-buyers-and-sellers-inherently-disagree-on-what-things-are-worth https://hbr.org/2016/05/why-buyers-and-sellers-inherently-di... [2]http://6331-presscdn-0-25.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016_12_26-B6DBs.jpg http://6331-presscdn-0-25.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/u...

pascalxus 10y ago

I'm sure they could have avoided this whole situation by offering the first 4 persons of the airplane, a 1000$ CASH. Instead, their policy is to risk incidents like this, for one simple reason: because they can. This is what happens when you get monopolies. Come on people, I thought we learned from the ISP monopolies already. Whenever you have limited or No choice: like monopolies, no good can come from it. I'm not surprised by this at all. And, I wouldn't be surprised if we see large increases in air fares above inflation, in coming years, as airlines consolidate their monopolistic powers. It won't be too long untill they're competing with Comcast and At&t for worst customer service.