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Listen, I'm not a United fan, but this stuff stinks of people jumping on the outrage train. This is pretty clear what happened: > Soon after moving to other,
by joelrunyon 10y ago
Listen, I'm not a United fan, but this stuff stinks of people jumping on the outrage train.
This is pretty clear what happened:
> Soon after moving to other, empty seats in the economy cabin a few rows up, flight crew denied their request to pay a supplement for the seats, which United sells as "economy plus", and told them to move back to their original seats, Hohl said.
So, they were not in their original seats when the plane was boarding. They don't allow this while people are boarding because the flight team needs to match people boarding to the manifest & it screws up other people who's seats they might be taking.
They might allow you to switch seats AFTER takeoff, but that's a different story.
The other part of the issue is they didn't move to comparable seats.
> "We thought not a big deal, it's not like we are trying to jump up into a first-class seat," Hohl told KHOU. "We were simply in an economy row a few rows above our economy seat."
From a fare standpoint, they're actually a different fare class. Just because it's not a different cabin, doesn't mean that's a headache. I'm not 100% sure of their policy, but United certainly isn't obligated to change people's seats and upgrade them once they're already issued a ticket & booked on the flight. Can you imagine the nightmare that ensues after people start requesting upgrades, exit rows, premium economy, etc when people are trying to board with children, suitcases that don't fit in bins and all the other stuff that happens in economy on boarding?
This article (https://www.yahoo.com/style/united-airlines-kicks-couple-off-plane-en-route-wedding-181721817.html https://www.yahoo.com/style/united-airlines-kicks-couple-off...) is pretty clear that the sleeping man was awakened and their seats were available for use and there's no clear reason why they refused to return to their original ticketed seats.
Like I said, I'm not a United fan, and I do everything I can to avoid flying them & use my points on their partner airlines internationally (which aren't bad actually), but this stuff screams of novice flyers not knowing the rules of the air and trying to milk the bad press train United is having.
Edit: typo
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago> match people boarding to the manifesto Manifest. A manifesto is rather different.
- joelrunyon 10y agofixed - thanks :)
- dionidium 10y agoI don't really understand what people are looking for, in general. I think it's pretty clear that: 1. Disputes between passengers and airlines are going to happen from time to time. 2. Some of these passengers will be asked to leave the airplane. 3. Some of those passengers will refuse to leave. There needs to be a generally applicable, reasonable step 4. And, no, "just let the customers stay on the plane whenever this happens" isn't that.
- joelrunyon 10y agoStep 4 here was pretty reasonable. 1. Asked to leave the plane. 2. Let the rest of the passengers leave on time. 3. Rebook them on the next flight. Not that hard.
- dheera 10y agoThe couple "found another passenger sleeping sprawled across their seats after they were the last to board the flight". They moved to other empty seats. They didn't go to first class or business class, they simply took other empty economy seats. They may not even have known the difference between various economy seats. The majority of airlines in the world don't differentiate economy seats. United should have asked the sprawling passenger to unsprawl, and punish the sprawling passenger if necessary, not the couple.
- joelrunyon 10y agoThey did. They moved the passenger and asked them to return. They refused, which is why they were moved out of the way. Exit rows are easy to distinguish. First 3 rows of the cabin are usually economy plus (maybe 5 with United). I don't like it either, but it's pretty clear and it's not unreasonable for an airline to ask you to sit in the seat number you're ticketed in...
- bobbytherobot 10y agoHow was a man sleeping across their seats during boarding? I have a hard time imagining a person doing this and not being told not to be a flight attendant. They make multiple passes up and down the cabin telling people to sit up with their bags properly away.
- joelrunyon 10y agoThis is probably one of those incidents where "draped across the seats" is a guy who boarded early, sitting aisle and fell asleep with his arm on the chair. The people tried to get a better seat and got told no. Then they made it into a headline story.
- chrisper 10y agoOne of the Number 1 complaints of people who pay for Economy Plus is that airlines sometimes let regular people sit there. Basically, if I paid more for this, why don't they have to? I think it was justified that they got removed. Also, if not the police, then who should remove unruly passengers? In the original case it was rather bad policy that caused all the issue, but in general, who else should do this?
- leephillips 10y ago"One of the Number 1 complaints of people who pay for Economy Plus is that airlines sometimes let regular people sit there. Basically, if I paid more for this, why don't they have to?" I don't doubt it. But are you saying that this complaint makes sense? Every passenger on the flight probably paid a different fare.
- chrisper 10y agoYes it makes sense. You can't just sit in the first class if you didn't pay for it and then expect that people are okay with it.
- leephillips 10y agoBut surely that's between me and the airline. What if they decide to give me a free upgrade, just because I'm awesome? How does that affect you?
- joelrunyon 10y ago1. I'm sure United doesn't want to encourage behavior of people taking seats they didn't pay for (or were ticketed for). 2. This wasn't United giving them anything. They tried to take an upgrade. Were told to go to their original seat, refused and then requested to deplane.
- leephillips 10y ago