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United screwed up by not having a decent incentive system in place to avoid deplaning people. People have presented many options, including taking a ballpark fi

• zzrg 10y ago
  It's not clear to me that the police even did anything wrong in this case either. The passenger was going absolutely apeshit and it looked like he bashed his own head into the adjacent seatrest. I'm certainly no fanboy of United, but in this case it doesn't seem like they, or the airport police, did anything particularly wrong. [edit] I suppose I should expect the downvotes to continue flowing for this comment. If you do downvote, please also explain exactly who you think made the mistake, and where. Thanks!
  • sitepodmatt 10y ago
    Perhaps. From the video I watched I cant tell if he was given clear warning from the officer that he would be literally be physically uplifted and removed. Also once in the aisle would it of been possible to bring the person to his feet, or at least two people carry him, I don't know. Also seems a police failure that he was able to make it onto the airplane for a second time, again its not clear from report if this is the time the drama ensued.
  • Mithaldu 10y ago
    They were airport police and should be familiar with the rules and regulations. This was not a case of overbooking. Laws and rules differ in this case from the lies peddled by UA and media. They didn't have legal authority to remove him in the first place. They could've done a lot of things better before assaulting him, but i don't think after that initial fact any further are necessary.
    • mtanski 10y ago
      In my high school law and government class our teacher taught us that runof the mill cops rarely know the law. Also taught us that pointing out the law to the same cops was rarely going to lead to a satisfactory result. Also taught us to generally not let the cops into one's home and not speak to them without a lawyer (outside of you filling a police report). What I though was going to be a useless required class ended up being quite educational. The class was quite eye opening for somebody who just moved to this country 3 years prior.
  • dsr_ 10y ago
    Not downvoting, just advancing a theory: when the police are acting like hired thugs, all damage to persons and property is their fault.
  • braveo 10y ago
    This is something I've seen several people not seem to understand. A large part of why people are upset about it isn't just the physical brutality, it's the act of FORCIBLY removing someone from a plane after they've: 1. paid 2. boarded 3. spent all the time going through customs, etc. The fact that he got brutalized, even if it was not purposeful, is secondary. If you read through this very thread you'll see most of the commentary isn't centered around his injuries, but around UA's decision to forcibly remove him after boarding.
    • zzrg 10y ago
      What should they have done instead?
      • chrisbennet 10y ago
        United should have offered more $ to get people to volunteer. Saying that they couldn't get volunteers is like saying you can't hire developers - you can get either if you offer the market rate. Instead, United decided to use muscle instead of compensating customers for what was United's mistake.
        • zzrg 10y ago
          I don't think the level of moral outrage you're expressing is commensurate with the position "the only thing United did wrong was setting their cap for overbooked flight compensation too low." And in any case, that cap is set by the department of transportation.
          • chrisbennet 10y ago
            The "cap" is a limit on how much the airline must pay, not on how much they can pay in order to involuntarily dis-board a passenger. There was nothing stopping them from paying the passenger who "bid" $1600 to solve the problem they created in the first place.
            • 10y ago
• jwong_ 10y ago
  The main argument seems to be that WN or AA wouldn't let it get to that point for a forceful deplaning. I'd certainly be less upset if someone was being forced off for another reason. Also, Chinese? I don't see anything on the linked article about them being Chinese. In fact, it looks like he's Vietnamese?
  • peteretep 10y ago
    Netizens in both countries are getting upset because This Is The Internet. I also don't think it's possible to live in Kentucky for 20 years and not become thoroughly American.
• peteretep 10y ago
  The general policy makes sense for United, they just got unlucky this time. A law requiring all bumping to be voluntary would fix this, and require United to come up with a system that wasn't just "meh, call security".
  • terrestrial 10y ago
    A law would not "fix" this. It's a workaround. Which law was this guy breaking to begin with? The problem is lack of scrutiny by the officers handling this. The process should have gone something like this: United: "Hey, we have this guy refusing the leave the airplane. Can you help us remove him?" Chicago PD: "Why won't he leave the airplane?" United: "He says he needs to catch this flight for something work-related." Chicago PD: "Is he threatening other passengers? Why do you need to remove him?" United: "We need to fill the seat for some last-minute flight crew. Look, this is really important, can't you just come and take this guy for us? It's already becoming something of a scene." Chicago PD: "So what you are saying is, you are asking a paying passenger who is already seated in a departing plane to leave. And he won't do so voluntarily. Can't you ask someone else to go instead?" United: "We tried, but no one is willing to take less than $1600 worth of our $50 flight coupons. Ridiculous! We do no more than $1200 per FAA guidelines." Chicago PD: "But did he break any laws?" United: "Not sure, maybe there's something in the ToS." Chicago PD: Click
    • Turing_Machine 10y ago
      It wasn't the Chicago PD in this case.
      • selectodude 10y ago
        Somehow the CPD is a sympathetic character in this story for the first time in human history.
    • diminoten 10y ago
      What actually happened: United: "This man is trespassing on private property." Chicago PD: "We'll be right over." United breaking their agreement isn't illegal, but remaining on private property after you've been asked to leave by the people in charge is illegal.
• sjg007 10y ago
  He is 69 years old so you can even argue elder abuse.
• abecedarius 10y ago
  It was United who called in the cops. I'm not saying they weren't contractually able to, but they had to choose to do it.
  • braveo 10y ago
    This is the point that seems to get missed a lot. yes, the police did the brutalizing, but all of the decisions that lead to that confrontation were UA's. It's akin to arguing we shouldn't lock up people who pay for assassins, only the assassins themselves. And I'm not trying to compare an assassination to what UA did, only point out that the law doesn't give you a pass because you weren't the one who physically did the act.
    • singlow 10y ago
      But you can't be prosecuted because you called the police and the police beat someone up. Unless the police officer was conspiring with you to do something criminal, their illegal acts are not your responsibility. If I call the police because there is someone suspicious in my neighborhood and they show up and end up shooting an innocent person, I am not responsible for the shooting. The only exception I can imagine is in the case of a false report. If one were to call and say he saw someone with a gun walking down the street and waving it around threatening people, and that was false - I suppose he could be responsible for injury that resulted from a confrontation with police. But it would require a criminal act on the part of the person who calls the police to have lied to the police. If United is legally held responsible for the action of the authorities, I would have to expect that it could only be if they made a false claim to the police about his behavior prior to their arrival. I have a hard time believing they would be responsible just for misinterpreting the FAA boarding rules, even IF they did it knowingly.
      • abecedarius 10y ago
        This might be like a false report, since it's questionable they had any right to remove him at all (according to other comments above). But I only meant to imply here that United deserves moral blame, and e.g. boycotts.
• donald123 10y ago
  And also, those $800, $1000 are just United voucher. The worst is they only issue 16 or 20 $50 vouchers, you can only use one voucher each time, and can only book through phone (which some people say is usually more expensive than online), oh and expire after a year. When more people know that, they are not stupid, it's useless even if they give you $10k. Basically they caused this no volunteer situation themselves.
  • lifeformed 10y ago
    I think you are legally entitled to cash if you ask for it.
    • belovedeagle 10y ago
      Only if you were involuntarily denied boarding. The $800 offer is just that, an offer, and the carrier can set their own terms.
      • paulddraper 10y ago
        Isn't that what happened?
        • donald123 10y ago
          No, denied boarding means they won't let you board in the first place. In this case, he already sit in his seat.
          • belovedeagle 10y ago
            While I suspect you're correct in this instance, that's not actually the point I was making. A lot of people have been going around the past few days saying, "I accepted a $20 voucher for my cancelled flight; was that illegal and they should have paid cash?!?!" People seem to have no notion of voluntary exchange.
    • donald123 10y ago
• Mithaldu 10y ago
  United acted illegally from the very get-go. Via https://np.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/64m8lg/why_is_rvideos_just_filled_with_united_related/dg3xvja/ https://np.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/64m8lg/why_is_... and more: > Lawyer here. This myth that passengers don't have rights needs to go away, ASAP. You are dead wrong when saying that United legally kicked him off the plane. > 1. First of all, it's airline spin to call this an overbooking. The statutory provision granting them the ability to deny boarding is about "OVERSALES", specifically defines as booking more reserved confirmed seats than there are available. This is not what happened. They did not overbook the flight; they had a fully booked flight, and not only did everyone already have a reserved confirmed seat, they were all sitting in them. The law allowing them to denying boarding in the event of an oversale does not apply. > 2. Even if it did apply, the law is unambiguously clear that airlines have to give preference to everyone with reserved confirmed seats when choosing to involuntarily deny boarding. They have to always choose the solution that will affect the least amount of reserved confirmed seats. This rule is straightforward, and United makes very clear in their own contract of carriage that employees of their own or of other carriers may be denied boarding without compensation because they do not have reserved confirmed seats. On its face, it's clear that what they did was illegal-- they gave preference to their employees over people who had reserved confirmed seats, in violation of 14 CFR 250.2a. > 3. Furthermore, even if you try and twist this into a legal application of 250.2a and say that United had the right to deny him boarding in the event of an overbooking; they did NOT have the right to kick him off the plane. Their contract of carriage highlights there is a complete difference in rights after you've boarded and sat on the plane, and Rule 21 goes over the specific scenarios where you could get kicked off. NONE of them apply here. He did absolutely nothing wrong and shouldn't have been targeted. He's going to leave with a hefty settlement after this fiasco.
  • ams6110 10y ago
    IANAL but pretty sure there are some specific exceptions for employees en route to another location to staff a flight (deadheading). If airlines could not do this they would have to possibly cancel flights that they could not otherwise staff, inconveniencing dozens or hundreds of passengers instead of just a few. That said, United utterly botched this in the way they handled it. And I don't let the PD off the hook either. That police can use violence to settle what is essentially a business dispute is just wrong.
• mc32 10y ago
  The company representatives, i.e. employees handled the situation very poorly. He deserves some compensation and by convention, an apology. He's looking for a payout. Some people just want justice --some people want more, much more. The McDonald's woman initially just wanted (restorative) justice --Mac Donald's to pay for medical bills --McD went full corporate and got handed by the jury. Here it's the opposite, right out the gate, he's looking for major compensation and damages, rather than say medical bills, lost wages, etc. Sure passengers in general feel a bit emasculated/defeminated on an airplane and want to give it to the airlines, but honestly I don't see a case for severe damages. I'm certainly not going to drop United as a possible carrier over this incident. I'd drop them if it happened to me personally but I would not expect others to follow suit. Just like I won't ask anyone to boycott a particular car dealer from a particularly popular brand because I think they treated me poorly. He must be one of those guys you don't want to prank even as a friend because embarrassment is too much for him.
  • greenhatman 10y ago
    He got assaulted. That is a case for severe damages, usually.
    • mc32 10y ago
      Sure. Photographers get assaulted too. They don't get huge payouts --you go file charges and the judge issues a sentence, some damages. Usually not a jackpot.
      • IAmGraydon 10y ago
        Photographers? What are you even talking about?
      • nyolfen 10y ago
        i have no idea what you're referring to, but it sounds like the photographers ought to. what's wrong with pursuing a payout if it also helps to incentivize avoiding future abuses? do you think airlines are run as a charity or something?
• chrismcb 10y ago
  I don't know what algorithm they used to select him. But united does have a procedure based on ticket class, time of check-in and other parameters.
  • evilDagmar 10y ago
    That policy only applies before the passengers have boarded the plane.
    • sokoloff 10y ago
      I could read the boarding as defined by "completed when crossing the door from the terminal into the jetway or aircraft", but I could also define as "the entire process of loading the aircraft, the completion of which is marked by the pilot accepting the manifest and flight and the boarding door being closed". If you define it the second way, the doctor hadn't completed boarding. (And I don't think it's a totally ridiculous torturing of the words to read it that way.)
      • dingaling 10y ago
        There are a few problems with the second definition: 1. Airlines in general don't seem to have defined 'boarded' in their contracts. This usually means that the meaning as tested in court will default to that commonly understood, i.e. 'has entered the aircraft and is seated'. 2. Accepting the manifest isn't final, there have been many instances of aicraft returning to the gate for manifest changes. Even to embark a late but high-value passenger. So when is the aircraft finally boarded? when the wheels leave the ground? 3. The United CEO stated that the flight in question was 'fully boarded'. That may have been an error in terms of hsi legal team but shows that even the airline doesn't have a concrete internal definition.
  • ams6110 10y ago
    The algorithm probably tries to select a passenger who is unlikely to be flying again soon, to minimize future lost business. Might be someone who flies rarely, or has never flown that route before, etc.
• prostoalex 10y ago
  > so had American or Southwest got to the point of needed to removing a non-co-operative passenger (it seems that point is less likely to occur) it would probably of been the same police team that actioned it The process is quite different with other airlines https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-united-and-delta-manage-overbooked-flights-differently-1491951711 https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-united-and-delta-manage-ove... Relevant quote: "Last year, Delta had the highest rate of people without seats for flights by far and United was No. 2. But they handled those customers differently, according to DOT data. Delta was the most generous airline in voluntary compensation. On Delta, 100 times as many customers voluntarily took vouchers as those who were involuntarily denied boarding. United had 17 times as many volunteers as customers involuntarily denied boarding: 62,895 volunteers and 3,765 forcibly bumped."
• foxylad 10y ago
  Would renting a private jet have been a viable solution for United to get their four employees where they needed to go? I have no idea what it costs, but given they were in the hole for several thousand dollars in refunds, it might have saved them money as well as grief.
  • redler 10y ago
    It would probably take a day to arrange, and then coat about $15,000 per flight hour. Not the quickest or most frugal option.
    • selectodude 10y ago
      They're flying to Kentucky, not Tokyo. They're not using a Gulfstream G650. $5k/hr max.
      • neurotech1 10y ago
        If United (Or Republic Airline) flew an Embraer 170 (same as 3411) just for the crew that needed transport to Louisville, the cost would be about $5k for a round trip. The E170 costs about $2500 an hour to operate. Stupidly, The cost of the likely lawsuits (even from lesser incidents, that didn't involve beaten passengers, just extremely annoyed passengers) often negates any cost saving for the airline.
  • Mtinie 10y ago
    Hindsight is 20/20. A private plane charter would have been significantly cheaper and no one would have been the wiser.
    • kelnos 10y ago
      That is exactly it. Hindsight. In hindsight I'm sure a lot of the people involved would have made different decisions. That's easy, and it's easy for all of us to criticize what they did, given that we have the benefit of hindsight (and a distinct lack of solid information, so the usual outrage machine has taken hold). This was a very rare event: in the majority of cases, they're able to get volunteers to take a later flight. In almost every single one of the cases where they aren't, the people involuntarily bumped leave without incident. I doubt anyone on the flight crew foresaw their chain of actions ending in violence, right up until it happened. And I think that lack of foresight is entirely reasonable and understandable. United (as a company) did a poor job of handling the aftermath, though.
• chrisallick 10y ago
  Hi, as someone who worked on this, let me say, that's not the point. Consumers are in fact treated like shit, either knowingly/actively or not, and that is an abuse of power and trust. Power and trust that should be dissolved and then earned back. This chrome extension, created in a couple of hours, illustrates a simple fact: be evil, be ignored. That's it. The power is in the hands of the consumer. We all have the right to voice our opinion with how we spend our dollars. Too bad if your company gets caught up in someone's else's bullshit. Be evil. Be associated with evil. Ignore evil. Be ignored yourself. The internet is not a free advertising platform. The rules of infinite reach apply to big money and just someone willing to slap a few lines of code together.
• cylinder 10y ago
  This was not an overbooking situation.
• devdoomari 10y ago
  woah this is quite in-direct defense for united, as if you're a some PR guy for them... anyway, if the guy payed for his tickets, doesn't he have the right to stay on his seat as long as he's not a terrorist/criminal? Also, united should be blamed for 99% of this incident, as it was united that called security to force the guy out - even when they had the chance to offer some other guy more rewards/etc for a smoother process.
• th4dv 10y ago
  > But this was the police/airport-security that should shoulder most of blame Not really. It's the United that called those "cops" so they should take the full responsibility for their actions. I'm still amazed that "overbooking" is legal though. It feels to me like it's a one big scam - airlines basically sell a product that don't have and it's absolutely fine by the law. WTF world?