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What about putting unruly airport staff on a similar list? I trust everyone remembers a few years ago, when David Dao was dragged off a United flight for refus

• 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  If they ask you to get off then you get off. This isn't hard.
  • tartoran 5y ago
    Not that simple. Why inconvenience someone who paid for their ticket and not have the staff come on the next plane? There’s an easier solution, find someone to volunteer giving up their seat for a voucher or some attractive offer. People’d volunteer to give up their seat
  • 908B64B197 5y ago
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
      When is fighting with security the answer?
      • niij 5y ago
        It got him a multi million dollar payout and actually cost united much more money than that. They got bad press from it and surely a decent number of people who will boycott/avoid them from now on. Simply complying would have kept the status quo.
    • threeseed 5y ago
      • 908B64B197 5y ago
  • tlss 5y ago
    If you paid for the ticket, then you get service from point A to point B. This isn't hard.
    • mmasu 5y ago
      Unfortunately it’s not always that simple. In the tickets fine print you will often find that if they want to refuse service for whatever reason they can do it. Of course you can always settle in court, however most people don’t want or have the means to.
      • inter_netuser 5y ago
        Just because someone scribbles something doesn't make it law, or even simply legal.
        • midasuni 5y ago
          The law says you have to follow the orders of the captain, and that the captain has the right to remove you for safety purposes. An argument like this would be classed a potential safety issue. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2011-title49/html/USCODE-2011-title49-subtitleVII-partA-subpartiii-chap449-subchapI-sec44902.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2011-title49/html...
          • rixed 5y ago
            "Potential safety" is such a convenient backdoor! When looking for the reasons behind the growing prevalence of security concerns in modern society (both from governments and companies), one can hardly avoid the conclusion that it's just the perfect justification for anything.
            • midasuni 5y ago
              Sure it is, but that’s the law. Write your representatives to get it changed. The way the passenger was removed was wrong, and potentially illegal (I assume you can’t shoot someone because they are trespassing on your property, presumably you can’t injure them either). I believe United paid some hush money to stop him suing, but I see nothing to show the captain wasn’t allowed to have him removed.
  • sk5t 5y ago
    Rolling over isn't the solution to every confrontation or breach of contract.
    • Spivak 5y ago
      But it’s their plane. They can throw me off of it for literally any reason they want. If they do it can also be a breach of contract or violation of various laws depending on the why and I would be entitled to compensation or they face criminal charges. But like it’s not like the chair becomes my property once I get on the plane.
      • Chris2048 5y ago
        It's my body, my legs. I can refuse to leave for literally any reason I want. If I do it can also be a breach of contract or violation of various laws depending on the why and they would be entitled to compensation or I face criminal charges. But like it’s not like I become their property once I get on the plane.
      • sk5t 5y ago
        I don't understand what you mean by "they can throw me off"--that's only true in the same way that it is possible to do something unlawful, breach a contract, commit a crime, etc. You have rights as a passenger on an airline in which the U.S Government takes a rather active hand regulating. Those rights do not depend on owning the airframe or seat materials.
        • encryptluks2 5y ago
          Same people thinking airlines can just throw people off cause they bow to authority also prob believe a cop is the law and will do whatever they ask.
        • p_l 5y ago
          You have rights, yes, but the exact set of rights is different than most non-flight crew people think. a very TL;DR summary is that they can throw you out, and you can sue them for it later if it was for invalid reason, but you still get thrown out. Similar rules happen on the sea, which results in hilarious summaries like "yes, a Disney Princess can sentence you to death and do the execution, if specific conditions are met" (condition being "evacuated on escape boat/device of a Disney cruise ship"). The summary is hilarious, but the same applies to plane's captain so long as flight operations are ongoing, including pre-flight preparation after embarking.
• tepitoperrito 5y ago
  Does anyone else find it weird that most (all?) of the youtube videos referenced in the "Cultural Impact" section of that Wikipedia article are now private? I'm not saying that united paid anyone to make their videos private, but it's definitely not a good look now. Even a 404 or video not found would be better IMHO.
  • Dylan16807 5y ago
    Well do note that youtube did a mass privating of unlisted videos a while back. That might be a factor.
    • jokowueu 5y ago
      Any info about that mass private thing ?
      • feupan 5y ago
        https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9230970?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9230970?hl=en
        • rkagerer 5y ago
          What's the difference between the old and newer, more secure URL's for unlisted videos? eg. More entropy?
          • Dylan16807 5y ago
            Any entropy at all. Supposedly the old ones were an encrypted counter, so if that key had gotten loose it would have been bad.
            • londons_explore 5y ago
              The key did get loose. Thousands of engineers had access to it and it showed up on dark corners of the internet for sale. A bunch of my unlisted videos got more view counts than they ought to have had, so I think abuse of it was pretty widespread.
• jl6 5y ago
  • prakhar897 5y ago
    Care to elaborate? Seems a perfectly reasonable comment to me.
    • XorNot 5y ago
      It's whataboutism. The OP has not shown why the situation he's talking about is relevant to the situation in question, nor why their existence or solutions are mutually exclusive. It's a completely different situation, and the only reason they bring it up is to try and deflect from answering any questions about the proposed issue. They certainly haven't engaged with the issue in question.
• ShamelessC 5y ago
  [flagged]
  • 4oh9do 5y ago
    What do you mean? It's a bit rich to hear airlines talk about putting unruly passengers on lists, while the behavior of unruly staff is supported.
    • sib301 5y ago
      Are there reports of widespread unruly airline staff I’m not aware of?
      • 4oh9do 5y ago
        I said 'staff', not 'airline staff'; in this case, it was 'airport staff', and the hypocrisy still stands: why are airlines fixating on passengers, not other staff?
        • Bud 5y ago
          Because they have no control over said "other staff". At all. You knew that, though.
    • whyenot 5y ago
    • Bud 5y ago
      Nobody is "supporting" the staff in question; you're just making that up. It's a huge reach and a sloppy argument. Unruly passengers represent a clear danger to the safe operation of flights. They cannot be tolerated. Period, paragraph. There is, obviously no such danger posed by the actions of airport security, on the ground, and in any case, airlines have no jurisdiction over those people. They absolutely do have jurisdiction over passengers, though. If you get on a plane you agree to fucking obey the directions of flight staff. It's federal law.
• manigandham 5y ago
  That's not unruly though. You can be refused service and if you don't follow instructions then eventually you'll be removed by force. What else would you expect them to do?
  • pcbro141 5y ago
    Stop defrauding customers by selling them seats that don't exist. Let paying customers occupy the seats they paid for.
  • 4oh9do 5y ago
    > What else would you expect them to do? How about...to not physically attack a paying customer who had done nothing wrong (and had medical patients to see, to boot) so that a bunch of airline staff could fly for free?
    • manigandham 5y ago
      Whatever the reason for the request, once it's issued you do need to follow it. Your personal appointments aren't relevant and don't grant you rights to remain on the plane.
      • 4oh9do 5y ago
        Why stop at just savagely beating the man then? Stands to reason he should be locked up indefinitely in an ASO holding cell so that he can't cause any more trouble at a later time, yeah? That'll cost a lot of money though, why not just a bullet in his head?
        • manigandham 5y ago
          His injuries are unfortunate but it's bound to happen when force is applied. This is a highly regulated and security sensitive mode of transport so there's even less leeway in case of someone refusing to move. Once he's off the plane, then the issue is resolved. Why would they lock him up after that? What's with the extremes and what does it have to do with any of this?
• stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Thats an isolated case. There are hundreds of these antivax people ruining flights and endangering other people on planes. What you are talking about is completely orthogonal.
  • elzbardico 5y ago
    There's the whole non-sense of mandating the use of useless cloth or surgical masks in a fucking commercial plane, one of the places with the best ventilation of all closed places. Do those people realize that an airliner cycles all the air in the cabin every few minutes?
    • p_l 5y ago
      It doesn't exactly "cycle", and in fact it's too dangerous to board with strong allergies due to how long the air circulates in a plane[1]. Anything else is airline PR trying to prevent total shutdown. A good fitted mask gives considerable increase in safety factor, though, so if you need to fly, wear one. [1] If you have really strong allergies for example for peanuts, you're obliged to inform the airline about it, and then the final decision on whether you fly or not belongs to plane captain. If they agree, it usually involves things like banning peanuts from the flight (no matter where bought), and keeping a steward(ess) with epipen close by for the whole of the flight. At least one person got banned from a low cost airline in Europe when they opened their airport-bought peanuts on such a flight (after multiple repeated announcements that it's disallowed). The air isn't cycled enough to prevent peanut dust from causing anaphylactic shock on the other side of an 737.
  • chana_masala 5y ago
    • Edman274 5y ago
      https://www.faa.gov/data_research/passengers_cargo/unruly_passengers/ https://www.faa.gov/data_research/passengers_cargo/unruly_pa...
    • 5y ago
• friendlydog 5y ago
  He paid for a ticket, he was seated. Airline is in the wrong overbooking. Everything that happened after that is on them. Refusing to deboard and getting injured isn't a smart idea in the real world. Imagine this was any other industry. You can't rent your apartment complex to more people than can fit and have the police shoot their dog and flash bang their kids when they refuse to sleep under a bridge that night because occupancy rates are higher than you thought and you needed to evict them.
  • greenbcj 5y ago
    Yeah… it’s sort of like doctors routinely overbooking appointments, and you have to wait four hours after your scheduled time to see the doctor. I wonder if the doctor on this plane did this as well?
    • friendlydog 5y ago
      It would be poetic justic if he did, and it merely inconvenienced him, rather than having him brutalized. I walk out if I am not seen within 20 minutes of my appointment and drop the doctor if it happens twice. Doctors who don't respect your time aren't qualified to treat you.
• balls187 5y ago
  United was in the wrong, and they ultimately settled. > What about putting unruly airport staff on a similar list? Just don't fly United.
  • kelnos 5y ago
    Settling doesn't mean they were in the wrong. It just means they felt the price of settling was cheaper than the price of the bad publicity generated by dragging out a legal fight. (United employees didn't physically touch him; that was airport security.)
    • opo 5y ago
      >Settling doesn't mean they were in the wrong. I'll take the CEO's word on this one: >...Munoz issued an additional statement, apologizing and promising that such an incident would never again occur on a United aircraft. Yes, the airlines reserve the right to not let you board due to their overbooking. In the case of the United passenger (and many others that came to light after this assault) the person had already boarded. At that point, the reasons for not transporting (Rule 21) are spelled out and they don't include reasons like ("we decided to use the seat for our employee" or "a gold member wants the seat"), etc. The idea of involuntary bumping itself should probably be viewed as regulatory capture. We don't allow that in other industries. There is nothing inherently wrong with the idea of overbooking as it allows for more efficient use of planes. Whether that results in lower ticket prices or leads to more profit for the airline will actually vary, but it is ultimately immaterial - making more productive use of airplanes is good for everybody. The issue is involuntary bumping and people treating this as somehow acceptable. If the airlines screw up and have too many passengers for too few seats, it is up to them to solve the problem through voluntary means and not assault. Just about everyone has a price they would be willing to give up their seat and it will be different than the person next to them. If you are traveling on a last minute ticket to visit a family member in the hospital, you might not be willing to delay your travel for any amount of money. If you are traveling on a vacation, the amount might be relatively little. Also some passengers will value some things more than others - offering a year of platinum level membership might entice a business traveller, offering money might entice a college student, upgrades to first class might entice others, etc.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• rowathay 5y ago
  • jrockway 5y ago
    I'm not sure that allegedly running a pill mill and trading opiates for sex is a crime that is punishable by being dragged down the aisle of an airliner. I checked the laws there and that is not mentioned. And, we typically have trials with defense council and juries before punishing someone. Basically, two wrongs don't make a right.
  • selestify 5y ago
    Good on him for getting people access to the goods they want. Good on him for living the life. Makes him even more of a hero in my book.
  • Edman274 5y ago
    There was literally no way for anyone to know that at the time that they treated him like a bag of grain that needed to be dragged off of a cart. All they knew was that some old Chinese man seemed like an easy target to bully out of a seat and when he didn't do what they wanted, then he paid the price. They didn't have an iPad out running down the list of who to mete out justice to and ended up scrolling down to be like "hmm, this passenger trades drugs for sex, let's get 'em boys". I'm thinking of a scene from an episode of the adult swim show called Assy McGee where the hard-boiled detective ignores obvious signs that the 2nd president unintentionally killed a lover of his centuries ago, and instead target a random presidential re-enactor on an independence day float, killing him, but then gets his badge back when it's revealed by coincidence that the re-enactor was wanted in 28 states.
• 1270018080 5y ago
  What about? Whataboutism?
• MattGaiser 5y ago
  The officers involved got fired.
  • loceng 5y ago
    And they're on some blacklist preventing them from being hired in some other law enforcement jurisdiction role?
    • MattGaiser 5y ago
      Any decent one they probably are, but many jurisdictions don’t have a choice of who they hire. They just need bodies. https://www.propublica.org/article/stebbins-alaska-cops-criminal-records-domestic-violence https://www.propublica.org/article/stebbins-alaska-cops-crim...
    • rhizome 5y ago
      No, that requires decertification (revocation of their "police license"), which is fairly rare. Rarer than it should be, if you ask me.
• phendrenad2 5y ago
  Many Americans are injured while resisting police every year, just because it happened on a plane does not make it particularly noteworthy.
  • rat9988 5y ago
    You could say the same about the current article we are commenting.
• midasuni 5y ago
  Wow that case seems to have a rather extreme reaction from posters. It’s like I walked into a YouTube comment section on a 5g causes covid video.
  • rixed 5y ago
    I find it amazing as well; It's like watching the two americas fighting each other. The one to whom society means to be free from the violence imposed upon citizens by any authority, against the one to whom society means the enforcement of a set of rules protecting it against chaos (I reckon my phrasing may be biased, can't help it I guess). I was actually very surprised by the many different (seemingly legit) posters who interjected in favor of the right for a corporation to expel anyone for any reason, not withstanding that this right might actually not be legal, or added in small print in a contract designed to be misleading, or that the plane might actually not be their property, or that, more importantly, "rights" are ultimately just an evolving bag of conventions that probably benefit in the long term from being periodically challenged... I went as far as counting those posters, and according to my current census there are eleven different persons, all legitimate users with lots of karma, for whom apparently it's acceptable to use violence against a paying customer. I would have expected this opinion to be quite marginal and unpopular (I would have expected the more libertarian stance that the company should have bought the seats back from those customers instead, at whatever price was the "market price" in that situation). When I look into myself, I think I can find some traces of what makes the "rule over everything else" appealing. Of course as a software engineer by trade this is partly a professional bias: I like predictable systems, therefore I like simple rules easy to interpret. I like leaving assertions in production, getting a nice core dump whenever the slightest precondition does not hold, even when an invisible work-around would have benefited the customer more. But there is also something stronger and deeper than that, an almost unconscious fear that if we start to bend the rules, mayhem will follow. I do not own much, so chaos is not that frightening to me, but if you happen to own a lot of things, to care for a family, in a place fraught with poverty induced unruly behaviors, then the faint desire of simple hard rules (esp around trespassing) can grow into the strong desire for unchallenged laws and the consecration of property, I presume. Or maybe that's just some natural feeling that's in all social apes in varying proportions.
• scotty79 5y ago
  I really don't see how whether he paid or not for the seat has any influence. The rule is that plane staff has ultimate authority regardless of any external factors. Even if he owned the entire plane he should have been dragged out of it if the pilot wishes that. He can take whatever actions he wants but only after he's out of the plane.
  • A_non_e-moose 5y ago
    Sure, it's the law, screw ethics, that's how it works, right?
    • scotty79 5y ago
      Law is informed by ethics. If you are locked together in a metal tube that might be flying with a bunch of people it's ethical to postpone raising your issues till you are out of it. And it's only ethical to let the people who run it to decide where you should be removed from it.
    • tsol 5y ago
      Law and ethics are separate. I think it's unethical for people to starve, but if you don't have money you can't buy food. You can't take away a legal right because it's unethical to retain it
    • p_l 5y ago
      It's an ethical framework formed over hundreds of years (Aviation built its ethics on top of maritime experience), that if the captains throws you out (resulting in death), at worst there will be inquiry at next port that will decide if they should be charged. Of course these days we have a lot more ready-made actions and much more robust legal system, but that's the bedrock ethics of crew responsibilities - and the range of actions they can take in pursuit of fulfilling them. If a change of weather results in weight and balance no longer be correct for safe flight, booting off passengers in order of "who loses first on oversold flight" is probably the least problematic way possible.
• mda 5y ago
  I think unruly airport staff to unruly passenger ratio is very close to Zero. I don't think your anecdote is very meaningful.
  • A_non_e-moose 5y ago
    Correcting just one side will incentivize a higher number of unruly people in the opposing side. It would be best to reduce or eliminate unrulyness, not just move it around, even if it ends in a small reduction.
  • _dain_ 5y ago
    the TSA? I guess their unruliness is encoded into law
• ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  My all-time favorite airline complaint video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo Don't piss off bards.
• greenbcj 5y ago
  I side with the airline here. What no one mentions, is that this guy bought a ticket where the fare rules clearly state your seat is conditional; it was a deeply discounted fare. If I have something important where I need to be somewhere, I buy a fare that guarantees me a seat. It’s an option you select in nearly every reservation system I’ve used (including the airlines websites). The airline was well within its rights. If he was a doctor, and it was that important, he should be buying a fare that reflects that and avoid these issues. He bought the cheapest fare that clearly stated the rules where he would lose his seat under certain conditions, then acted indignant when there were consequences. The airline asked him to leave, he refused. That’s trespassing, “plane” and simple. When the police came, he still refused. They arrested him, and he still refused. I’m not really sure how else you remove any trespasser that refuses to comply, without some use of force. I fly all the time, and I have to buy the more expensive fares because I’m an adult that has appointments. It would make me angry if the airline was prioritizing deeply discounted fares and bumping me instead because of someone’s self-important claims. Need to be there at a certain time? Buy a real ticket.
  • DannyBee 5y ago
    This is totally and completely wrong, legally. They may deny boarding. This is the legal term even ("Denied boarding"). That is why they do it prior to boarding the aircraft. You will get "Denied Boarding compensation" (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/part-250 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/part-250) Once they have taken your ticket, you have boarded, and have sat down, you may no longer be denied boarding due to oversale. Heck, once they have taken your ticket and told you you can proceed to board, they can't remove you whether you've gotten on the plane or not. They may only remove you "due to a safety, security, or health risk, or due to a behavior that is considered obscene, disruptive, or otherwise unlawful" See, e.g., https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer-protection/bumping-oversales https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer... Scroll to "Can airlines involuntarily bump me after I have boarded the flight?"
    • rgbrenner 5y ago
      Thats a rule change the FAA made because of David Dao https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/travel/airlines-bumping-rules.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/travel/airlines-bumping-r...
• DannyBee 5y ago
  Before someone gets into the "they can deny you boarding" argument - they cannot. Legally, they may not remove you for oversale once they have taken your ticket, let you board, and you have taken your seat.
  • kortilla 5y ago
    But they could before and they still can if they use safety as an excuse: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/travel/airlines-bumping-rules.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/travel/airlines-bumping-r...
    • Macha 5y ago
      Sure, and if they made up safety as an excuse with no valid basis I'm sure they would still lose just as much in the court of public opinion, and actual court
      • op00to 5y ago
        What are the damages for getting booted off an airplane? A few thousand dollars? What happens if you get your head busted up on the way out? Maybe $50k? The only attorneys that would take a case like that would net you pennies on the dollar after fees are taken.
        • DannyBee 5y ago
          It's a few hundred k probably - juries hate airlines :) Most attorneys have no problem taking these cases. Also note that once it's clear it's not legal, the police/city also can be sued if they intervened. Part of Dao's settlement was an agreement not to sue the city of chicago for that reason.
  • op00to 5y ago
    Oh no, the plane is off balance. You need to leave. Now it’s not denying boarding. Fighting with an airline is the same thing as pissing into the wind.
• op00to 5y ago
  Paying for a seat doesn’t entitle you to very much. The airline reserves the right to kick you off for literally any reason that isn’t basically discrimination against protected classes. Just like on a boat, train, bus, etc. They just say it’s a safety issue. Is it bullshit? Maybe. But it’s their plane. When the airline says get off the plane, you get off the plane. You argue later. Hire lawyers. Whatever makes you feel better. If you struggle or resist, you’re liable to get hurt. It’s a constrained space. I hit my elbow every time on a plane. Let’s analyze his excuse that he needed to see patients. What kind of irresponsible doctor doesn’t have a coverage/plan b for if they get stuck? His failure to plan for getting bumped doesn’t rise above the airline’s rights to decide who’s on their planes. Dao comes off like an entitled asshole who should have seen the outcome of his actions.