Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Fly the Unfriendly Skies
United Airlines has a PR nightmare on its hands as a disturbing video burned up the Internet. After overbooking the flight from Chicago to Louisville, the crew chose four passengers at random to leave the flight. Passenger number three was a doctor who said he needed to treat patients in the morning, so refused to leave. The flight crew called security, which forcibly yanked him out of his seat and dragged him down the aisle.
This being 2017, several passengers recorded the whole thing on their smartphones:
@united @FoxNews @CNN not a good way to treat a Doctor trying to get to work because they overbooked pic.twitter.com/sj9oHk94Ik
— Tyler Bridges (@Tyler_Bridges) April 9, 2017
Airline staff first tried a carrot before using a stick. Before boarding, they offered passengers $400 and a hotel stay to give up their seats. Once boarded, they doubled it to $800 and said the flight wouldn’t leave until four people were gone. When no one volunteered, a computer selected four passengers at random.
With condemnation raining down on the airline, United’s CEO issued a statement:
Using the term “re-accommodate” to describe forcibly dragging a customer off a plane only fueled the online firestorm.
How should United have reacted in this situation and what can they do to fix it?
Published in Culture
Could you imagine the lawsuit if he was some sort of specialist they were flying in for a very complex dangerous surgery and the patient dies while waiting for the surgery. Yes maybe they would of died anyways.
However airlines really treating passengers bad and the industry as a whole finally being profitable after deregulation went hand in hand. So Airlines are like screw you we are actually making money but competing on price not service so who cares about some bad press every once in a while.
Plan A: It’ll cost $XX,XXXX to get our crew from Chicago to Louisville B in time for their flight if we have to do a last minute charter. We’ll offer up to $XX,XXXX/4 per seat; if we don’t get takers then we call the private jet.
OR:
Plan B: We decide to order the plane captain to exercise his authority, which he does, instructing security to use force to the point of beating a passenger who refuses to give up the seat for which the airline issued him a boarding pass.
(Update: just thought of this one, ain’t hindsight great?) Plan C: “We urgently need to have four United crew members fly to Louisville so they can serve passengers on another flight. United has arranged for a private jet to fly from Chicago to Louisville departing in 3 hours. The first four passengers to give up their seats to help us out will be on board the private flight, and if they wish, United will cover their ground transportation in Lousiville.”
United goes for Plan B. Gee, I wonder how many people won’t be flying United for a while?
Read the contract you sign when you purchase a ticket. The airlines are within their rights to do this. It is a federal offense to disregard the instructions of an airline crew. If someone decides to disregard the instructions the police will be called and the person will be removed and arrested. Honest to God, this is the law. It happened less than 50 times last year, but it does happen. Resisting arrest (it was POLICE removing him) can cause injury. I have very little sympathy.
the man was assaulted. assault is a crime.
why is the local DA not having the United Security goons arrested?
and if the flight was overbooked, why were the four people who had not yet boarded not told, tuff luck?
Can you imagine if you saw your doctor refusing to get off the airplane then chanting “just kill me” as he was carried off? Think you’d want to go back and see this guy next time you needed some medical advice?
it IS rational. he had to do all he could to protect himself while being assaulted.
he had been boarded. United had judged that they had room for him on board.. Eff any united figure who now decides otherwise, it is HIS seat. i hope he sues for a million bucks.
Between overbooking, tiny seats, and then, not in this case concerning United, passengers that are in various states of intoxication, dressed in spandex, and pajamas, flying today is nothing more than taking a bus. Think of it as a DMV office that is housed in a long metal tube.
It was law enforcement, not “United Security goons”. And I read that one of the three has been put of leave for not following protocol. Let’s not jump ahead of the facts.
Look people, I hate that paying passengers get booted from airplanes, and would sincerely love for the industry to have a better plan. I would also love for the employees to use more compassion when this happens. And more smarts – in hindsight, I’m sure they’d have chosen to offer more for volunteers.
Also, its easy to put yourself in this guy shoes, but would you have steadfastly refused to get up when the police tell you to get up? Would you have required them to drag you off the plane? I would be angry, but I would not have required forcible removal.
That’s, like, evil. Weren’t you a seminarian at one point?
Wait, was a seminarian. Now I get it!
(-:
The quants who created the overbooking algorithms are very bright.
Gate agents and supervisors often are not.
Any airline based on hub-and-spoke distribution which doesn’t overbook would lose a fortune. It’s an arses-to-gallons business (the snacks they sell to widen the former are incidental). If you like free (or very low fee) standby for original missed flights, free standby for missed connections from other airlines, the ability to book flights with tight connections, less than full price fees for rebooking and a host of other perks (including many of the frequent flyer rebooking accommodations) then you can thank overbooking and the quants who created the overbooking science. Those last four seats sold were probably the priciest on the plane.
Airlines do a poor job of explaining what’s on offer to a often poorly informed travelling public (essentially tax free, involving upgrades and very decent hotels) and try too hard to recapture what’s on offer: travel vouchers rather than cash, hotel rooms and vouchers rather than a per diem; I’ll crash on a leather couch at Albuquerque and buy my own superb burrito at Black Mesa for an extra $150, thank you. $800 for a three hour flight should be marketable, but attendants are trained how to push the tapas box and not the travel vouchers. United being United.
Smart supervisors remember possession is 9/10th of the law. They announce that a larger plane is being commandeered and have everyone deplane and then reboard the same plane excluding 4 passengers. Instead of being dragged down the aisle, the aggrieved passenger would have to break federal law by charging through the gate.
Smart, decisive, commanding and professional gate agents don’t last long; I’ve hired at least five for completely unrelated supervisory positions. So have many of my associates. Great track record.
I’ve seen people removed after seating before. It may make us angry, but its not a breech of contract.
I’m sure this nut will get a settlement. For throwing a fit. Then everyone will throw fits on airplanes, because $$$$$. Looking forward to it. /sarc
Added: Maybe the good that can come out of this horrible incident is that airlines will review their policies and improve them One can hope! But, as much as I hate that all four of these people were made to leave their seats (including the more civil 3 people who did not require forceable removal), I cannot support million dollar settlements for nuts who throw public fits.
Hmm. In a really dim light he does look sorta like Jerry Lee Lewis.
A police officer who dragged a passenger off a United Airlines flight has been placed on leave, a Chicago Aviation Department spokesperson told Business Insider.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/one-officers-dragged-united-airlines-200343691.html
I have one other problem with this and that is the police being used in a non-violent situation. I’m not sure why it’s a law enforcement problem if a United flight can’t leave the gate due to a business problem. They should have offered a lot more money until they found 4 passengers that believed they were getting a pretty good deal. One of those four seats is going to cost United airlines a lot more than an empty seat, in fact the entire flight will probably be a total financial loss, perhaps several flights that day will not cover the loss.
Overbooking – isn’t that a safety hazard? If you have pilots and crew that need to get somewhere, find a way, but never by forcing your paying customers off or calling the cops. The PR damage done in that one incident will cost them a thousand times over. It also shows complete disrespect for their customers. I heard the guy was a doctor and was trying to get back to his patients? Not sure if true, but no matter. I will pass on their airline.
They should have just driven the crew. Chicago to Louisville? What is that, four hours, tops? The flight was delayed for three, add flight time/boarding/taxi and the crew took four hours to get there as it was.
Doesn’t I-65 run from Gary directly yo Louisville?
Seems to me that they have a crew shortage problem if they absolutely had to beat a passenger to get one of them where he was needed.
9-1-1: Please press 1 if you want us to raise your children for you. Press 2 if you want us to remove your girlfriend from your apartment, house, or trailer that has been living with you for the past four years.
To be fair, the police have a total monopoly on moving people by force. Us citizens do it, we go to jail.
Or four passengers. A limo would probably be a lot more comfortable than a United cattle car.
That’s all fine and dandy. But like any airline, United is in the customer service business and the optics of what happened and the protests of other passengers as the doctor was being dragged down the aisle and then later shown to be bloodied are not good. Especially if four passengers are being booted to make way for 4 United crew members who were dead heading to the next destination. United will be the butt of jokes for a long time. The late night talkshow hosts and their writers will have a field day with this.
There are two parts of a contract, the letter and the spirit. Scoundrels use the letter to subvert the spirit. The spirit of a ticket is that I give the airline money, for them to deliver me to my destination on such and such a date and time. I understand things may happen, but that is the agreement.
What the airline does in practice, is make it very expensive for me to book last moment, a problem to rebook, and will charge me if I do not make it to my seat. I take all the risk. The airline reserves the right to overturn our contract, and not even give me back my money, but credits. And I still have not been delivered to where I wanted.
Better idea. No worry about union regs, give them an open bar and snacks, stop to pee in Indianapolis.
(I would rather pee on Indianapolis, but that’s just me.)
To add to what Brian said:
Given that it’s both legal and rare for airlines to need to bump people from planes which have already boarded, there’s no excuse for them not to have a policy of raising the incentives until enough people volunteer to leave. A situation like this should never even approach the point of having to involuntary remove people from the plane, by force or otherwise.
Sometimes the market demands much more than what’s required/allowed by law, and that can be a very good thing. As in this case.
I don’t necessarily want this guy to sue the pants off United (unless they actually exercised malice or gross negligence), but I do hope United loses millions in bad publicity off of this.
Not necessarily, I’ve been on countless roommate disputes, and if they share the rent I cannot remove one of them from the home. I’m not sure why local police are enforcing federal laws concerning airlines and passengers in a non-violent situation.
Not quite. It’s a Federal law to disregard the instructions of a crew member within reason. They don’t have absolute power. They can tell you to sit down, to buckle your seat belt, or to comply with other safety mandates. They’re getting beyond that when they decide to save money and randomly kick you off the plane for some crew members who are running a bit late, because they didn’t want to offer more money for volunteers (I’ve been given more money for delays that weren’t even overnight). If they’re telling you to do something that’s arbitrarily outside of your contract with the airline (the ticket) to save a little money, they’re on pretty thin ice.
The ice broke today.
If it turns out that there were other, non-time-sensitive United personnel on that plane, they’re screwed, to the tune of millions of dollars. If it turns out that there were a bunch of pilots sitting on the ground at the other end of the flight who just weren’t scheduled, they’re also screwed.
I wonder if they offered the whole plane the money, or just the four they picked?
If they didn’t do an auction, slowly upping the price? Screwed.
United may call it screwed, the rest of us will call it justice. Or payback, which as we all know is a [expletive.]
People, people, we are forgetting the most important point.
“The first rule of United’s Flight Club is never talk about Flight Club.”
The police are in a no-win situation here. If a police officer tells you to get off the plane it is much better for you if you walk off under your own power.