5 ms·

I'm appalled by how this frontal assault on human dignity is shielded by law. What many of us learned this week is that it seems to be perfectly legal to bump o

by jeswin 10y ago

I'm appalled by how this frontal assault on human dignity is shielded by law. What many of us learned this week is that it seems to be perfectly legal to bump off poorer or less privileged people specifically from a plane. This is boat allocation on Titanic all over again.

mirimir 10y ago
No, it's not legal. Edit: See lawyer quote from tiatia.
- michaelt 10y ago
  In a way, there are two questions at work here. The first question is whether you can have rent-a-cops throw a passenger off a plane after they have taken their seat. As I understand it, that is not legal. The second question is about over-booking more broadly. After all, though there's a legal distinction between a passenger a second before boarding and a second after, from a customer service standpoint they're still denied the seat they were promised. Is it right that an airline can sell 310 tickets on a 300 seat plane, deliberately entering into 10 contracts it knows it cannot honour? As I understand it, that is legal. But should it be?
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Maybe not. But IANAL. However, why can't they bid for passengers to fly later. After boarding, they'd probably just need to pay more.
  - gm-conspiracy 10y ago
    Is it right that an airline can sell 310 tickets on a 300 seat plane, deliberately entering into 10 contracts it knows it cannot honour? As I understand it, that is legal. But should it be? I assume there are weasel words in the contract(airline ToS) to allow this.
    - briandear 10y ago
      In that case, a missed flight should result in the passenger having to buy a brand new ticket. That doesn't happen: a missed flight is generally put on the next flight free or at a very nominal fee. Imagine the outrage if someone missed their flight by 10 minutes and they had to buy an entirely new ticket. If airlines did that, they wouldn't need to overbook though. Alternatively, instead of overbooking, the airline just doubles ticket prices.
    - tyingq 10y ago
      There are full fare tickets that can be cancelled/refunded, or changed to other flights, at any time. So there's always some amount of no-shows. So they don't really "know" that they cannot honor the oversells. There's also equipment swaps to smaller aircraft, flights cancelled for mechanical issues that then moves passengers to other planes, etc. Denied boarding is actually pretty rare, happens to about 0.1% of passengers: https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_64.html https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/pu... The other approach would be to never overbook, but if you're the only airline not overbooking, your margins will be lower. Empty seats don't make money.
  - tlrobinson 10y ago
    Overboooking probably accounts for most of these incidents, but in this particular case they had to switch to a slightly smaller plane due to mechanical issues. So eliminating overbooking won't fix this problem completely. However, having a policy of not forcing passengers to relinquish seats they've already sat down in would...
  - pcmonk 10y ago
    I'm basically against overbooking, but playing devil's advocate: is it that hugely different from fractional reserve banking? They claim you can get your money out at any time, but that's not the case if everyone tries at once.
    - stagbeetle 10y ago
      IIRC, there are safeguards in place to make sure there isn't a run on the bank. I'm fairly certain retail banks can borrow from the FED to mitigate that.
  - diminoten 10y ago
    They weren't rent-a-cops, they were/are state employees, and of course they can remove people from planes if those people are trespassing, what makes you think they couldn't?
- diminoten 10y ago
  I'm getting tired of people claiming that United can't break their own contracts legally. Of course they can, and no it's not "illegal". Why is that the bar everyone look to for whether or not they should be doing something? If you believe what United did in this case or the case of the doctor being dragged out is illegal, please continue to pay close attention to what happens in the latter case, as I'm sure it will continue to be reported on for at least the foreseeable future. Specifically, notice the distinct lack of criminal charges.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    OK, breaking contracts isn't criminal. Just grounds for legal action. But assault and lying to police officers, those are criminal offenses.
ambulancechaser 10y ago
They bumped a rich guy in this instance. I'm not sure how this can amount to a "frontal assault on human dignity" by asking a dude to relinquish his seat when there's a conflict. They had too many people in first class and they gave priority to the seat not on who had already entered the plane but to the higher member in their club? Easy to disagree or think you would have done it the other way but this isn't really an assault on human dignity. And the great thing, they didn't consider net worth or anything like that. They treated their valued customer in their program by rewarding him with his or her seat at the expense of someone who wasn't enrolled in their program. > This is boat allocation on Titanic all over again. This is just funny in this instance.
zeveb 10y ago
> This is boat allocation on Titanic all over again. Contrary to James Cameron's abominable film, boat allocation on the Titanic was quite fair. One's odds of survival were better in First Class, but this was likely due to First Class passengers being closer to the life boats. Notably, women & children had a markedly better chance of surviving than men, despite not being notably 'privileged' in early 20th century society. C.f. http://blog.minitab.com/blog/real-world-quality-improvement/analyzing-titanic-survival-rates http://blog.minitab.com/blog/real-world-quality-improvement/...

by jeswin 10y ago

mirimir 10y ago

No, it's not legal. Edit: See lawyer quote from tiatia.

michaelt 10y ago
In a way, there are two questions at work here. The first question is whether you can have rent-a-cops throw a passenger off a plane after they have taken their seat. As I understand it, that is not legal. The second question is about over-booking more broadly. After all, though there's a legal distinction between a passenger a second before boarding and a second after, from a customer service standpoint they're still denied the seat they were promised. Is it right that an airline can sell 310 tickets on a 300 seat plane, deliberately entering into 10 contracts it knows it cannot honour? As I understand it, that is legal. But should it be?
- mirimir 10y ago
  Maybe not. But IANAL. However, why can't they bid for passengers to fly later. After boarding, they'd probably just need to pay more.
- gm-conspiracy 10y ago
  Is it right that an airline can sell 310 tickets on a 300 seat plane, deliberately entering into 10 contracts it knows it cannot honour? As I understand it, that is legal. But should it be? I assume there are weasel words in the contract(airline ToS) to allow this.
  - briandear 10y ago
    In that case, a missed flight should result in the passenger having to buy a brand new ticket. That doesn't happen: a missed flight is generally put on the next flight free or at a very nominal fee. Imagine the outrage if someone missed their flight by 10 minutes and they had to buy an entirely new ticket. If airlines did that, they wouldn't need to overbook though. Alternatively, instead of overbooking, the airline just doubles ticket prices.
  - tyingq 10y ago
    There are full fare tickets that can be cancelled/refunded, or changed to other flights, at any time. So there's always some amount of no-shows. So they don't really "know" that they cannot honor the oversells. There's also equipment swaps to smaller aircraft, flights cancelled for mechanical issues that then moves passengers to other planes, etc. Denied boarding is actually pretty rare, happens to about 0.1% of passengers: https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_64.html https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/pu... The other approach would be to never overbook, but if you're the only airline not overbooking, your margins will be lower. Empty seats don't make money.
- tlrobinson 10y ago
  Overboooking probably accounts for most of these incidents, but in this particular case they had to switch to a slightly smaller plane due to mechanical issues. So eliminating overbooking won't fix this problem completely. However, having a policy of not forcing passengers to relinquish seats they've already sat down in would...
- pcmonk 10y ago
  I'm basically against overbooking, but playing devil's advocate: is it that hugely different from fractional reserve banking? They claim you can get your money out at any time, but that's not the case if everyone tries at once.
  - stagbeetle 10y ago
    IIRC, there are safeguards in place to make sure there isn't a run on the bank. I'm fairly certain retail banks can borrow from the FED to mitigate that.
- diminoten 10y ago
  They weren't rent-a-cops, they were/are state employees, and of course they can remove people from planes if those people are trespassing, what makes you think they couldn't?
diminoten 10y ago
I'm getting tired of people claiming that United can't break their own contracts legally. Of course they can, and no it's not "illegal". Why is that the bar everyone look to for whether or not they should be doing something? If you believe what United did in this case or the case of the doctor being dragged out is illegal, please continue to pay close attention to what happens in the latter case, as I'm sure it will continue to be reported on for at least the foreseeable future. Specifically, notice the distinct lack of criminal charges.
- mirimir 10y ago
  OK, breaking contracts isn't criminal. Just grounds for legal action. But assault and lying to police officers, those are criminal offenses.

ambulancechaser 10y ago

They bumped a rich guy in this instance. I'm not sure how this can amount to a "frontal assault on human dignity" by asking a dude to relinquish his seat when there's a conflict. They had too many people in first class and they gave priority to the seat not on who had already entered the plane but to the higher member in their club? Easy to disagree or think you would have done it the other way but this isn't really an assault on human dignity. And the great thing, they didn't consider net worth or anything like that. They treated their valued customer in their program by rewarding him with his or her seat at the expense of someone who wasn't enrolled in their program. > This is boat allocation on Titanic all over again. This is just funny in this instance.

zeveb 10y ago

> This is boat allocation on Titanic all over again. Contrary to James Cameron's abominable film, boat allocation on the Titanic was quite fair. One's odds of survival were better in First Class, but this was likely due to First Class passengers being closer to the life boats. Notably, women & children had a markedly better chance of surviving than men, despite not being notably 'privileged' in early 20th century society. C.f. http://blog.minitab.com/blog/real-world-quality-improvement/analyzing-titanic-survival-rates http://blog.minitab.com/blog/real-world-quality-improvement/...