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I see this whole event kind of like the Rosa Parks situation. I'm not comparing the magnitude of injustice, just that (a)There was an unjust system and (b)It to

I see this whole event kind of like the Rosa Parks situation. I'm not comparing the magnitude of injustice, just that (a)There was an unjust system and (b)It took an individual to stick up for the just result, even though it was breaking the rules. Also, the author is wrong in this passage: From the article: "The gate agents offered offered $800 in airline scrip to anyone willing to deplane, which from past observation I think is the maximum that was allowed by United policy. That's an illegal cheapskate policy for which United fully deserves the condemnation it has received, and the fines it should be assessed for violating Department of Transportation regulations on denied boarding compensation. Obviously, the gate agents should have been allowed to offer more, and in cash, as Federal law requires. " The truth: The airline can try and get people to voluntary give up their seats with whatever method they would like. They can offer free kittens, cash, vouchers, etc. If no one accepts the airlines arbitrary amount, THEN DoT rules take effect, mandating the cash compensation amounts. So Dr Dao and the other 3 passengers that left the plane are entitled to a completely separate amount from what United offered. From the DoT website[1]: "DOT has not mandated the form or amount of compensation that airlines offer to volunteers. DOT does, however, require airlines to advise any volunteer whether he or she might be involuntarily bumped and, if that were to occur, the amount of compensation that would be due. Carriers can negotiate with their passengers for mutually acceptable compensation." https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights

deleted 10y ago
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dba7dba 10y ago
> Carriers can negotiate with their passengers for mutually acceptable compensation." How do you negotiate with an entity that has the ability to call in the goons on you but you cannot?
- rurban 10y ago
  They don't have this ability. It violates FAA regulations. And in this case also violated the cited trespassing rule.
- hueving 10y ago
  If you fly with any frequency, you witness this very often. Any time you hear them asking for volunteers at the gate and offering money. It's an auction system used hundreds of times a day by airlines all over the US.
  - metafunctor 10y ago
    This incident occurred when the paying customer was already seated on the plane. Normal overbooking negotiations happen at the gate. There are no goons dragging you out of the airport in a normal overbooking situation.
    - benmmurphy 10y ago
      this is the big mistake that united/republic made. if you deny boarding before the gate the passenger has very little recourse. if they try and run the gate they are going to get very little sympathy. however, once the passenger is seated they suddenly have the option of not moving which is going to cause lots of problems. i don't travel much and i've been on a flight where they have deboarded people after people had seated so i don't think this is that uncommon. we also thought it was a really good deal. like ~200 EUR + accommodation for the night + ticket for the next day but none of us could take it because we had luggage in the hold.
      - FireBeyond 10y ago
        Yes, because European airlines are a lot nicer in that regard. "200 EUR" (or whatever amount). In the US you hear "offered $800 compensation". It's not cash. It's a voucher for use only on that airline, only within 12 months, and only on select full-fare ticket classes. So an $800 ticket may only get you another round flight from Chicago to Louisville (around 500km/300mi).
        mikeash 10y ago
        Yeah, the compensation offered by American airlines is a joke. There have been many times where I could have easily volunteered to be bumped, but I've never bothered to volunteer because I'm effectively being asked to do so for free. I don't fly frequently enough on the same airline for those vouchers to be worth anything to me. Offer me some cold, hard cash, and that would completely change the game. I have, very rarely, seen airlines resort to that if the vouchers don't do the trick. I'd be utterly shocked if an offer of $800 cash couldn't produce four volunteers on a fully loaded plane.
- deleted 10y ago
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metafunctor 10y ago
From what I've understood, the problem is the United policy to never go above $800. Not ever, even if it means calling the cops. To me, such a policy appears to be in direct violation of the DoT rules.
- bb611 10y ago
  Until United staff say "Your ticket is revoked", you are still a volunteer. You are in the negotiation phase for volunteering until they actually come tell you that your ticket has specifically been revoked for the flight, at which point the DoT minimum compensation rules take over. This particular policy does appear to be in line with DoT's requirements - you can get volunteers for any price you're willing to negotiate. Even if United has set a maximum price of $800 in some evil combination of travel vouchers that you'll never use, that is expressly legal. The required compensation only kicks in if you refuse that offer AND they still revoke your ticket for the flight.
  - FireBeyond 10y ago
    Yeah, there's also a plausible argument that you're not really a volunteer, especially when United has released a statement saying "Police were called after the passenger refused to voluntarily deplane". "You can volunteer or be arrested" is an interpretation of "volunteer" that is neither the letter nor spirit of the definition.
    - bb611 10y ago
      It appears you're confused by the use of variations on volunteer in different The facts of the situation were this: 1. United offered vouchers up to $800 - this is the volunteer phase. 2. They received no volunteers. 3. Moving on from the volunteer phase, they selected 4 passengers to be removed from the flight. 4. They informed those passengers they needed to get off the flight (so now they're covered by the DoT minimum compensation, which is unrelated to #1). 5. Mr. Dao refused to VOLUNTARILY leave his seat, but 3 other passengers did. 6. Police were called, video was taken, lawsuits were started. "Voluntarily" in the sentence you're quoting doesn't refer to #1 above, it refers to the fact that Mr. Dao, after being told by a gate agent to leave the plane, did not do so. It does not have any relationship to the DoT "volunteer" rules, it has to do with whether he was willing to leave the plane after being told to do so by a person who was empowered by their employer to get people to leave the plane (although their exact legal right to do so remains somewhat grey). edit: your -> you're
masondixon 10y ago
> (a) There was an unjust system and There was a legislated racist system. The bumping laws are not discriminatory and are good for everyone. Airlines can stay more competitive (offer passengers cheaper seats) by being able to bump passengers and fill as many seats as possible for every flight. The compensation is set at a price point to disincentivise bumping. Its a completely free market approach. (b) It took an individual to stick up for the just result, even though it was breaking the rules. What is the just result? The law is still the law. Next time this happens, the passenger won't act like a child, and it won't be a headline.
- drakonandor 10y ago
  You are wrong. The law permits denial of boarding in the event of oversold flights, however, the passenger was already boarded and the flight was not actually oversold.
  - deleted 10y ago
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  - masondixon 10y ago
    If an airline says someone must leave the flight, the person must leave the flight. Simple as that. I can't imagine living in a society that does not allow the airline to do so. They can fight it out in court if they like afterwards.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - mikeash 10y ago
      Why is being able to remove paying customers such an important right, but not getting what you pay for? Kicking out a paying customer who has committed no wrongdoing is essentially theft. Airlines should be able to kick people off for actual good reasons, like if they're a safety threat. But "we want that seat more than you do" is not a good reason. For that, they should be required to secure the consent of the person in question by whatever means necessary, probably by paying them enough to make it worth their while.
AdamN 10y ago
Only on HN would somebody compare the United incident to Rosa Parks in the segregated South.
- gumby 10y ago
  That's a facile truth about an overblown analogy, buy there's good insight in that analogy: this could be a tipping point for a rights of individuals and the mass public vs exploitative rules of large corporations. Like 'The Jungle' a century ago. Probably won't be, but could be. Hasbrouck shows how the evidence has been building over the past few years, each time picking up more steam. And in the regards, Rosa Parks was just a small, single incident that has become iconic, so in that regard it's a good choice. Now this United event was spontaneous, while Rosa Parks was planned action (NAACP leaders saw what Claudette Colvin had done and recruited an activist, Rosa Parks, as part of a managed publicity campaign). It was used to good effect (in both the sense of working well and in support of an important and good cause). The thing that has fascinated me the most about the United event is that now that everyone has a camera and the opportunity to write, some balance of power is being restored.
  - treehau5 10y ago
    If you think there is insight to be gained by this analogy, you clearly do not understand the magnitude and the background leading up to the Rosa Parks incident. They are not comparable in any way shape or form. There is literally no insight to be had. It's a horrible analogy.
    - kefka 10y ago
      It seems the area where they are connected, is the rights of "Average Citizens vs Big Companies". Or better yet, poor people. (Yes I know he's a doctor, and has means to legally defend himself- he's an exception.) But how would you or I fare in this? We'd get assaulted, arrested, lives put in turmoil, and for what? Yeah, a pile of debt. Black people in the US have a substantially more of this to go through, primarily due to racial targeting and profiling. That's not to even discuss targeting crack cocaine and "nigger weed" for extra punishment (marijuana, go look up Hearst, Nixon, and others' comments *why marijuana was illegalized). So yeah, the analogy does sound rather decent. Except it's not White vs Black, but Monied vs Poor.
dalbasal 10y ago
I'm not American, so I guess it's a bit out of place for me to comment . That said, my reading of this incident is naked corporatism. Laws, industry regulations, corporate policies and police enforcement are jumbled together, collaborating in a corporatist manner. (A) The airline has policies and business practices such as overbooking & "must fly." These save money, get staff to their required destinations, whatever. (B) Police enforcement is a required for these business practices to actually be practiced. The only reason they can practically have this involuntary removal by lottery policy is police are willing to enforce it. If police of any city/airport refused to execute these corporate polices, the policies would have to change. That's ultimately who outrage should be directed at, the police. Why did they come in the first place? Had a crime been committed? Passenger safety endangered? Police were summoned by a "private" company. They were informed that corporate policy required them to drag a passenger of the plane. They said OK, I guess that's our job. I'm not as concerned about United or anyone else having nasty policies. Many companies do. I care more about police enforcing those policies. There is no consumer protection against police action.
- MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
  There's plenty of naked corporatism at play in this incident, and police forces acting as de-facto corporate goons is a big problem in America. But I think in this case the individual cops who said "OK, I guess that's our job" were probably not at all supported by the law or even their own departmental policy - I think this is part of the reason the incident made such waves, because the police actions were so beyond the pale in enforcing a trespassing claim. There's also the x-factor of societal attitudes towards air travel post 9/11 (with additional post Trump anxieties added in). For all we know, the police might not have been told that Dao had been randomly selected for removal - they might have just been told that he was a disruptive passenger that needed to be removed. In either case, just by being on an airplane, the police will be primed to think of all the bad things bad people can and have done on airplanes. Laws and public attitudes have changed and it's gotten a lot easier to prevent people from flying since 9/11, so the police probably didn't think much of it from a consumer/civil rights standpoint (not that they necessarily do in any context), and just went into autopilot mode of applying force to resolve the problem in front of them. None of which is to excuse them, just to explicate that I don't think the incident was strictly caused by naked corporatism.
tuna-piano 10y ago
Edit: I didn't explain the Rosa Parks analogy fully, so here's my thought process: 1. Sometimes there are unjust laws or company policies 2. People have busy lives, and in general just go with the flow. 3. Putting a face and a concrete story to a policy is what really makes the general population realize the unjustness of a policy. Public uproar leads to market and political policy changes. Rosa Parks' story led to uproar and changes in a similar way that Dr. Dao's story has. United has already changed their law enforcement policy and crew booking policy. Delta upped their max amount for compensation. The situation was talked about in a presidential press conference, and by countless politicians. This wouldn't have happened without the public uproar, which wouldn't have happened if Dr Dao went peacefully. Future airline consumers now have more rights because of Dr Dao, and they should be thankful for his actions (I know I am). I will clarify again, all analogies break down, and I am not comparing the magnitude of the injustices or the societal importance of the policy changes... just the general process. They do seem similar to me.

deleted 10y ago

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dba7dba 10y ago

> Carriers can negotiate with their passengers for mutually acceptable compensation." How do you negotiate with an entity that has the ability to call in the goons on you but you cannot?

rurban 10y ago
They don't have this ability. It violates FAA regulations. And in this case also violated the cited trespassing rule.
hueving 10y ago
If you fly with any frequency, you witness this very often. Any time you hear them asking for volunteers at the gate and offering money. It's an auction system used hundreds of times a day by airlines all over the US.
- metafunctor 10y ago
  This incident occurred when the paying customer was already seated on the plane. Normal overbooking negotiations happen at the gate. There are no goons dragging you out of the airport in a normal overbooking situation.
  - benmmurphy 10y ago
    this is the big mistake that united/republic made. if you deny boarding before the gate the passenger has very little recourse. if they try and run the gate they are going to get very little sympathy. however, once the passenger is seated they suddenly have the option of not moving which is going to cause lots of problems. i don't travel much and i've been on a flight where they have deboarded people after people had seated so i don't think this is that uncommon. we also thought it was a really good deal. like ~200 EUR + accommodation for the night + ticket for the next day but none of us could take it because we had luggage in the hold.
    - FireBeyond 10y ago
      Yes, because European airlines are a lot nicer in that regard. "200 EUR" (or whatever amount). In the US you hear "offered $800 compensation". It's not cash. It's a voucher for use only on that airline, only within 12 months, and only on select full-fare ticket classes. So an $800 ticket may only get you another round flight from Chicago to Louisville (around 500km/300mi).
      - mikeash 10y ago
        Yeah, the compensation offered by American airlines is a joke. There have been many times where I could have easily volunteered to be bumped, but I've never bothered to volunteer because I'm effectively being asked to do so for free. I don't fly frequently enough on the same airline for those vouchers to be worth anything to me. Offer me some cold, hard cash, and that would completely change the game. I have, very rarely, seen airlines resort to that if the vouchers don't do the trick. I'd be utterly shocked if an offer of $800 cash couldn't produce four volunteers on a fully loaded plane.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

metafunctor 10y ago

From what I've understood, the problem is the United policy to never go above $800. Not ever, even if it means calling the cops. To me, such a policy appears to be in direct violation of the DoT rules.

bb611 10y ago
Until United staff say "Your ticket is revoked", you are still a volunteer. You are in the negotiation phase for volunteering until they actually come tell you that your ticket has specifically been revoked for the flight, at which point the DoT minimum compensation rules take over. This particular policy does appear to be in line with DoT's requirements - you can get volunteers for any price you're willing to negotiate. Even if United has set a maximum price of $800 in some evil combination of travel vouchers that you'll never use, that is expressly legal. The required compensation only kicks in if you refuse that offer AND they still revoke your ticket for the flight.
- FireBeyond 10y ago
  Yeah, there's also a plausible argument that you're not really a volunteer, especially when United has released a statement saying "Police were called after the passenger refused to voluntarily deplane". "You can volunteer or be arrested" is an interpretation of "volunteer" that is neither the letter nor spirit of the definition.
  - bb611 10y ago
    It appears you're confused by the use of variations on volunteer in different The facts of the situation were this: 1. United offered vouchers up to $800 - this is the volunteer phase. 2. They received no volunteers. 3. Moving on from the volunteer phase, they selected 4 passengers to be removed from the flight. 4. They informed those passengers they needed to get off the flight (so now they're covered by the DoT minimum compensation, which is unrelated to #1). 5. Mr. Dao refused to VOLUNTARILY leave his seat, but 3 other passengers did. 6. Police were called, video was taken, lawsuits were started. "Voluntarily" in the sentence you're quoting doesn't refer to #1 above, it refers to the fact that Mr. Dao, after being told by a gate agent to leave the plane, did not do so. It does not have any relationship to the DoT "volunteer" rules, it has to do with whether he was willing to leave the plane after being told to do so by a person who was empowered by their employer to get people to leave the plane (although their exact legal right to do so remains somewhat grey). edit: your -> you're

masondixon 10y ago

> (a) There was an unjust system and There was a legislated racist system. The bumping laws are not discriminatory and are good for everyone. Airlines can stay more competitive (offer passengers cheaper seats) by being able to bump passengers and fill as many seats as possible for every flight. The compensation is set at a price point to disincentivise bumping. Its a completely free market approach. (b) It took an individual to stick up for the just result, even though it was breaking the rules. What is the just result? The law is still the law. Next time this happens, the passenger won't act like a child, and it won't be a headline.

drakonandor 10y ago
You are wrong. The law permits denial of boarding in the event of oversold flights, however, the passenger was already boarded and the flight was not actually oversold.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- masondixon 10y ago
  If an airline says someone must leave the flight, the person must leave the flight. Simple as that. I can't imagine living in a society that does not allow the airline to do so. They can fight it out in court if they like afterwards.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - mikeash 10y ago
    Why is being able to remove paying customers such an important right, but not getting what you pay for? Kicking out a paying customer who has committed no wrongdoing is essentially theft. Airlines should be able to kick people off for actual good reasons, like if they're a safety threat. But "we want that seat more than you do" is not a good reason. For that, they should be required to secure the consent of the person in question by whatever means necessary, probably by paying them enough to make it worth their while.

AdamN 10y ago

Only on HN would somebody compare the United incident to Rosa Parks in the segregated South.

gumby 10y ago
That's a facile truth about an overblown analogy, buy there's good insight in that analogy: this could be a tipping point for a rights of individuals and the mass public vs exploitative rules of large corporations. Like 'The Jungle' a century ago. Probably won't be, but could be. Hasbrouck shows how the evidence has been building over the past few years, each time picking up more steam. And in the regards, Rosa Parks was just a small, single incident that has become iconic, so in that regard it's a good choice. Now this United event was spontaneous, while Rosa Parks was planned action (NAACP leaders saw what Claudette Colvin had done and recruited an activist, Rosa Parks, as part of a managed publicity campaign). It was used to good effect (in both the sense of working well and in support of an important and good cause). The thing that has fascinated me the most about the United event is that now that everyone has a camera and the opportunity to write, some balance of power is being restored.
- treehau5 10y ago
  If you think there is insight to be gained by this analogy, you clearly do not understand the magnitude and the background leading up to the Rosa Parks incident. They are not comparable in any way shape or form. There is literally no insight to be had. It's a horrible analogy.
  - kefka 10y ago
    It seems the area where they are connected, is the rights of "Average Citizens vs Big Companies". Or better yet, poor people. (Yes I know he's a doctor, and has means to legally defend himself- he's an exception.) But how would you or I fare in this? We'd get assaulted, arrested, lives put in turmoil, and for what? Yeah, a pile of debt. Black people in the US have a substantially more of this to go through, primarily due to racial targeting and profiling. That's not to even discuss targeting crack cocaine and "nigger weed" for extra punishment (marijuana, go look up Hearst, Nixon, and others' comments *why marijuana was illegalized). So yeah, the analogy does sound rather decent. Except it's not White vs Black, but Monied vs Poor.

dalbasal 10y ago

I'm not American, so I guess it's a bit out of place for me to comment . That said, my reading of this incident is naked corporatism. Laws, industry regulations, corporate policies and police enforcement are jumbled together, collaborating in a corporatist manner. (A) The airline has policies and business practices such as overbooking & "must fly." These save money, get staff to their required destinations, whatever. (B) Police enforcement is a required for these business practices to actually be practiced. The only reason they can practically have this involuntary removal by lottery policy is police are willing to enforce it. If police of any city/airport refused to execute these corporate polices, the policies would have to change. That's ultimately who outrage should be directed at, the police. Why did they come in the first place? Had a crime been committed? Passenger safety endangered? Police were summoned by a "private" company. They were informed that corporate policy required them to drag a passenger of the plane. They said OK, I guess that's our job. I'm not as concerned about United or anyone else having nasty policies. Many companies do. I care more about police enforcing those policies. There is no consumer protection against police action.

MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
There's plenty of naked corporatism at play in this incident, and police forces acting as de-facto corporate goons is a big problem in America. But I think in this case the individual cops who said "OK, I guess that's our job" were probably not at all supported by the law or even their own departmental policy - I think this is part of the reason the incident made such waves, because the police actions were so beyond the pale in enforcing a trespassing claim. There's also the x-factor of societal attitudes towards air travel post 9/11 (with additional post Trump anxieties added in). For all we know, the police might not have been told that Dao had been randomly selected for removal - they might have just been told that he was a disruptive passenger that needed to be removed. In either case, just by being on an airplane, the police will be primed to think of all the bad things bad people can and have done on airplanes. Laws and public attitudes have changed and it's gotten a lot easier to prevent people from flying since 9/11, so the police probably didn't think much of it from a consumer/civil rights standpoint (not that they necessarily do in any context), and just went into autopilot mode of applying force to resolve the problem in front of them. None of which is to excuse them, just to explicate that I don't think the incident was strictly caused by naked corporatism.

tuna-piano 10y ago

Edit: I didn't explain the Rosa Parks analogy fully, so here's my thought process: 1. Sometimes there are unjust laws or company policies 2. People have busy lives, and in general just go with the flow. 3. Putting a face and a concrete story to a policy is what really makes the general population realize the unjustness of a policy. Public uproar leads to market and political policy changes. Rosa Parks' story led to uproar and changes in a similar way that Dr. Dao's story has. United has already changed their law enforcement policy and crew booking policy. Delta upped their max amount for compensation. The situation was talked about in a presidential press conference, and by countless politicians. This wouldn't have happened without the public uproar, which wouldn't have happened if Dr Dao went peacefully. Future airline consumers now have more rights because of Dr Dao, and they should be thankful for his actions (I know I am). I will clarify again, all analogies break down, and I am not comparing the magnitude of the injustices or the societal importance of the policy changes... just the general process. They do seem similar to me.