4 ms·

IMHO: The article is too much rage-laden. The much more interesting article comes beneath the one linked (https://www.wired.com/2017/04/united-airlines-overbook

IMHO: The article is too much rage-laden. The much more interesting article comes beneath the one linked (https://www.wired.com/2017/04/united-airlines-overbook-flights-usually-pays-off/ https://www.wired.com/2017/04/united-airlines-overbook-fligh...). At the core doesn't seem to be evilness of capitalist corporations, but rather a) the economic usefulness of overbooking b) an uncooperative (ex-)customer (his refusal to leave being unlawful) c) an unqualified and brutal airport police d) the disastrous United management resulting in employees unfit to deal with situations like these (diplomacy, authority to up the bump-fee) and a company that didn't understood what kind of PR fallout this situation would bring. See https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/united-airlines-video-passenger-private-property/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/united-airlines-video-pas... for why United had every right to remove the customer.

cryptarch 10y ago
They violated the contract with their customer because: a) the circumstances did not warrant his removal pre-boarding per the contract and b) there are no clauses pertaining to post-boarding removal IANAL so here's my source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sdtG0WyktMM https://youtube.com/watch?v=sdtG0WyktMM
erispoe 10y ago
> The property rights in this case are clear: the plane belongs to United Airlines, and the passenger’s ticket does not entitle him to a seat on the airplane in a situation like this where he is commanded to give it up due to overbooking. It is exactly what booking a seat is: buying an entitlement to seat in that plane for that specific flight. Otherwise what's the point? I understand that overbooking can be useful for companies, but in that case they should just buy back the service they oversold. That's how markets work. Property rights are not everything. What is protected in a market economy is the free transaction between two economic actors. United's property rights of the plane, of course (even though it's likely to be leased, anyway), but also the rights created by the contract between the carrier and the passenger. If you don't protect these rights, you have nothing like a functioning market economy. Capitalism relies on social structures able to protect rights.
vilhelm_s 10y ago
Incidentally, according to one blog post I read[0], it's not actually so clear that they had the right to remove the customer. Apparently their contract reserves the right to refuse someone boarding if e.g. they are oversold. However, the contract also sets out a much more restricted set of circumstances for when a customer who _has_ boarded can be evicted, and none of those applies here. It seems like under a literal reading (he did board the plane, after all), he had the right to stay on the plane... [0]: http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2017/04/united-airlines-own-contract-denied-it.html http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2017/04/united-airlines-own-contrac...
- mirimir 10y ago
  Yes! This in particular: > One might argue that Dao had not completed “boarding” until the cabin door was closed. This argument would be wrong. The term “boarding” is not defined in the definition section of the contract, and absent an explicit definition in the contract, terms are to be afforded their plain meaning. “Boarding” means that the passenger presents a boarding pass to the gate agent who accepts or scans the pass and permits entry through the gate to the airplane, allowing the passenger to enter the aircraft and take a seat. > It is possible in this regard to distinguish between the collective completion of the plane’s boarding process, which is not complete until all passengers have boarded and the cabin door is closed. But that is different from each passenger’s boarding, which is complete for each individual once he or she has been accepted for transportation by the gate agent and proceeded to the aircraft and taken his or her assigned seat.
csydas 10y ago
Except I'm not sure that this is entirely accurate, as has been widely discussed. United's own Contract of Carriage uses the term boarding and discusses overbooked flights: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx#sec25 https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag... However, by all accounts (including the statement from Oscar Munoz) is that the Airline Employees needed to board after the customers had already boarded. The simple matter is that United really doesn't have a policy in place for such an event, but they tried to treat is as an overbooking anyways, which is questionable. If this had happened before the passenger got on there wouldn't have been much of a story - but United got themselves into a pickle by not having a procedure in place for moving their employees around when the plane was already loaded up and ready to go. Strictly speaking, refusing to leave was a violation of the airline's rules, but they also didn't really have the right to eject him per their own Contract. You don't surrender all rights when you board a plane, and quite frankly it doesn't seem like United has a lot of ground to stand on when it comes to this particular incident. They didn't have a policy in place and tried to make another one fit, but it was an awkward fit at best.
- tyingq 10y ago
  Hopefully some aviation attorneys will be interviewed on this topic. I believe the fact that US airlines are considered "common carriers" also influences their ability to refuse service. The United CEO has already changed his mind about how to message this. He said this on Good Morning America today: "We are not going to put a law enforcement official to take them off...to remove a booked, paid, seated passenger...we can't do that." That's hard to reel back in later.
jasode 10y ago
>a) the economic usefulness of overbooking I realize that "overbook" can mean different things but United flight #3411 wasn't oversold to statistically offset no-shows. Instead, the plane had a capacity of 70 seats[1] and United sold all 70 seats to paying customers with zero cancellations. That's a perfect economic situation for United. What went wrong was 4 extra United employees needed a last-minute ride on that plane to Kentucky. Since this is an HN audience, I guess we could frame it as a massive failure in the "information flow" through their computer reservations system. The very second that United knew they had 4 employees they had to acccomodate, their computer system should have immediately confirmed those 4 employees on flight #3411 first such that the plane only shows 66 available seats instead of 70. (Computers doing math for the win!) That way, either 4 of the customers get denied a boarding pass at the check-in kiosk, or they get denied at the gate that scans the barcode before they enter the jetway. Instead, United let all 70 passengers board and settle in their seats. If United insists that their employees take precedence over paying passengers, their damn computer systems need to reflect that reality in the seating database! All of those opportunities to have the computer system "help" were missed that would have prevented the situation from escalating to a bloody face plastered all over the news. [1] https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Airlines_Embraer_EMB-170.php https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Air...
- Notre1 10y ago
  That's the part that drives me crazy about this situation here. I don't see any reasonable defense for involuntarily bumping a paying customer for an employee. Especially in this specific situation! It's a five-hour drive to Louisville from Chicago. United should have chartered a van for the employees and driven them there.
- michaelmrose 10y ago
  They could also have just paid for those employees to take a competitors airline if it was vital for them to be there immediately despite their poor planning.
  - woodpanel 10y ago
tyingq 10y ago
>See https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/united-airlines-video-pas.. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/united-airlines-video-pas.... for why United had every right to remove the customer. I don't see anything compelling there. The only somewhat legal word is "property rights". It doesn't mention the "common carrier laws" that may be involved here, and likely override any "property rights." I suspect we'll see more enlightened debate soon as aviation attorneys start talking about it.

cryptarch 10y ago

They violated the contract with their customer because: a) the circumstances did not warrant his removal pre-boarding per the contract and b) there are no clauses pertaining to post-boarding removal IANAL so here's my source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sdtG0WyktMM https://youtube.com/watch?v=sdtG0WyktMM

erispoe 10y ago

> The property rights in this case are clear: the plane belongs to United Airlines, and the passenger’s ticket does not entitle him to a seat on the airplane in a situation like this where he is commanded to give it up due to overbooking. It is exactly what booking a seat is: buying an entitlement to seat in that plane for that specific flight. Otherwise what's the point? I understand that overbooking can be useful for companies, but in that case they should just buy back the service they oversold. That's how markets work. Property rights are not everything. What is protected in a market economy is the free transaction between two economic actors. United's property rights of the plane, of course (even though it's likely to be leased, anyway), but also the rights created by the contract between the carrier and the passenger. If you don't protect these rights, you have nothing like a functioning market economy. Capitalism relies on social structures able to protect rights.

vilhelm_s 10y ago

Incidentally, according to one blog post I read[0], it's not actually so clear that they had the right to remove the customer. Apparently their contract reserves the right to refuse someone boarding if e.g. they are oversold. However, the contract also sets out a much more restricted set of circumstances for when a customer who _has_ boarded can be evicted, and none of those applies here. It seems like under a literal reading (he did board the plane, after all), he had the right to stay on the plane... [0]: http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2017/04/united-airlines-own-contract-denied-it.html http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2017/04/united-airlines-own-contrac...

mirimir 10y ago
Yes! This in particular: > One might argue that Dao had not completed “boarding” until the cabin door was closed. This argument would be wrong. The term “boarding” is not defined in the definition section of the contract, and absent an explicit definition in the contract, terms are to be afforded their plain meaning. “Boarding” means that the passenger presents a boarding pass to the gate agent who accepts or scans the pass and permits entry through the gate to the airplane, allowing the passenger to enter the aircraft and take a seat. > It is possible in this regard to distinguish between the collective completion of the plane’s boarding process, which is not complete until all passengers have boarded and the cabin door is closed. But that is different from each passenger’s boarding, which is complete for each individual once he or she has been accepted for transportation by the gate agent and proceeded to the aircraft and taken his or her assigned seat.

csydas 10y ago

Except I'm not sure that this is entirely accurate, as has been widely discussed. United's own Contract of Carriage uses the term boarding and discusses overbooked flights: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx#sec25 https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag... However, by all accounts (including the statement from Oscar Munoz) is that the Airline Employees needed to board after the customers had already boarded. The simple matter is that United really doesn't have a policy in place for such an event, but they tried to treat is as an overbooking anyways, which is questionable. If this had happened before the passenger got on there wouldn't have been much of a story - but United got themselves into a pickle by not having a procedure in place for moving their employees around when the plane was already loaded up and ready to go. Strictly speaking, refusing to leave was a violation of the airline's rules, but they also didn't really have the right to eject him per their own Contract. You don't surrender all rights when you board a plane, and quite frankly it doesn't seem like United has a lot of ground to stand on when it comes to this particular incident. They didn't have a policy in place and tried to make another one fit, but it was an awkward fit at best.

tyingq 10y ago
Hopefully some aviation attorneys will be interviewed on this topic. I believe the fact that US airlines are considered "common carriers" also influences their ability to refuse service. The United CEO has already changed his mind about how to message this. He said this on Good Morning America today: "We are not going to put a law enforcement official to take them off...to remove a booked, paid, seated passenger...we can't do that." That's hard to reel back in later.

jasode 10y ago

>a) the economic usefulness of overbooking I realize that "overbook" can mean different things but United flight #3411 wasn't oversold to statistically offset no-shows. Instead, the plane had a capacity of 70 seats[1] and United sold all 70 seats to paying customers with zero cancellations. That's a perfect economic situation for United. What went wrong was 4 extra United employees needed a last-minute ride on that plane to Kentucky. Since this is an HN audience, I guess we could frame it as a massive failure in the "information flow" through their computer reservations system. The very second that United knew they had 4 employees they had to acccomodate, their computer system should have immediately confirmed those 4 employees on flight #3411 first such that the plane only shows 66 available seats instead of 70. (Computers doing math for the win!) That way, either 4 of the customers get denied a boarding pass at the check-in kiosk, or they get denied at the gate that scans the barcode before they enter the jetway. Instead, United let all 70 passengers board and settle in their seats. If United insists that their employees take precedence over paying passengers, their damn computer systems need to reflect that reality in the seating database! All of those opportunities to have the computer system "help" were missed that would have prevented the situation from escalating to a bloody face plastered all over the news. [1] https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Airlines_Embraer_EMB-170.php https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Air...

Notre1 10y ago
That's the part that drives me crazy about this situation here. I don't see any reasonable defense for involuntarily bumping a paying customer for an employee. Especially in this specific situation! It's a five-hour drive to Louisville from Chicago. United should have chartered a van for the employees and driven them there.
michaelmrose 10y ago
They could also have just paid for those employees to take a competitors airline if it was vital for them to be there immediately despite their poor planning.
- woodpanel 10y ago

tyingq 10y ago

>See https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/united-airlines-video-pas.. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/united-airlines-video-pas.... for why United had every right to remove the customer. I don't see anything compelling there. The only somewhat legal word is "property rights". It doesn't mention the "common carrier laws" that may be involved here, and likely override any "property rights." I suspect we'll see more enlightened debate soon as aviation attorneys start talking about it.