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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
Well… I suppose they could start by only selling the number of seats they have available. If people don’t show up, then people don’t show up and you fly with an empty seat. Because you’re paying for the seat, it should be yours whether you’re in it or not.
United faced real-time pricing for the seats. They offered $400 then $800 and still had no takers. They should have bid more. They overbook to maximize revenue from each flight. But, on the occasions it backfires they should either keep bidding for the seats until they get takers or put the extra passengers on a private plane.
Just shows what they actually think about the passengers.
I’ve been in overbooking situations before, but never after people have actually boarded the plane. It’s just that somebody’s not getting a boarding pass.
I’ve seen other reporting that indicates they had four crew dead-heading to the destination that they were bumping for. Pretty stupid on United’s part. They could have put the crew in a car to Cincinnati and gotten them there in time.
In a general sense, airlines could do themselves a lot of good PR-wise, if they would just be honest with people. Stop telling people you’ll be boarding shortly when it’s actually going to be 3 hours. And carry that all the way through, which means either not overbooking in the first place, or telling people at the time that it happens.
It’ll be fun to see how this plays out…
I heard that they were trying to boot passengers to get their own crew on the plane. That’s even worse.
I promise you after this, I will never fly United again.
They should also offer cash instead of airline credit. I don’t want credit with the airline that just told me they can’t get me there.
How should United have handled it?
No, rule number one is NEVER EVER EVER drag peaceful, paying passengers off the aircraft after assaulting them. All other rules follow from that.
And I thought United was hard on guitars!
I agree with you. I’ve seen much overbooking but never have I seen anyone removed for this reason after being seated. I don’t think they actually over assign seats so once all seats are taken no one else gets on. Yes, it sounds as if it was being done for a crew.
I felt sorry for the guy until he started screaming like a girl. Then I felt sorry for the security guys stuck with this assignment.
They should have done it like men. I’m tired of commercial cowardice. The guy should have slapped himself in the mirror & then told the press, hey, folks, we get a lot of people flying because we overbook. We make money, the seat don’t fly empty, people get to where they need to get. We screwed up here & someone did a crazy thing to a doctor. We’re gonna do better, but enough with the hysteria!
Or words to the effect-
Was there cultural appropriation in that video?
I’ve never seen a case where multiple boarding passes were issued for the same seat. Once you have your boarding pass, you’re golden. If you don’t have one, you’re not getting on the plane, so you won’t get dragged off.
What appears to have happened in this case was not overbooking, but bumping paying passengers in favor of giving the seats to a crew that needed to relocate.
What else would do you expect from a company headquartered in Chicago?
If I were the doctor, I would have said, “OK, you may proceed in dragging me off this flight. It will be recorded while you are doing so. Then we will all meet my lawyers.”
I would love to see what information is on the ticket. If it does not say specifically, “In the event that we have overbooked the flight, you may be bumped off this flight once you have boarded and taken your seat,” then I would imagine the airline has a legal problem today.
Let the lawsuits fly. :)
A $1,000 error will turn into a $1 billion headache. :)
The Ritz-Carlton would not treat people this way. They empower all of their employees with actual cash to make things right. The management says, “We want happy guests. We’ll settle with you later.”
But then they “hire for attitude and train for skill.” Mostly they treat all of their employees with the utmost respect, and their employees pass that respect along to the guests.
I tend to agree. In my experience if more people get on than there are seats (a rare occurrence) then the person in the seat wins, and the ones without a seat get off. Again, usually handled at the gate not on the aircraft, but they will offer the compensation to individuals on the aircraft, to see if they can accommodate the passengers still at the gate, without seats, to try and keep everyone happy. I have not seen a case where they forced someone off the plane. (Except were someone was being arrested for reasons unrelated to the flight, or ill.). I understand the financial need for over-booking but they should not be bumping paying passengers to meet their own crew/staff shuffle needs, but here again a delay at one point will snowball into big disruptions, but usually they can find crew/staff in multiple places, and make do. If they had time to get there by alternate means, then they should do that.
Keep upping the payment until you get takers. Period.
Airlines have a monopoly of sorts, because of the barriers to entry. It is classic case of being able to screw over passengers because, they have to use someone, and if they all are lousy, what are you going to do? Drive? (Yes in many cases, I will). Therefore, in order to fly, you have to put up with all sorts of unfair practices. I cancel at the last moment? I am screwed. They cancel at the last moment? I am still screwed. I am late to the gate? All on me. They are late to take off? Not their problem. Air travel appears to be an area where the free market does not work very well.
And Crap! Because United is who we are flying out West with in June. I did not book the flight. Grrr. I hate they will get my money.
There is probably some policy that enforces a maximum with no exception process that United is allowed to offer to passengers to give up their seat and take a later flight. If they had continued to increase their offer, they likely would have had takers and some very satisfied customers who would become loyal United flyers. Instead they have multiple videos, social media (the internet is forever) and likely at least one lawsuit. Every decision-maker involved should be disciplined, if not terminated.
You hire a guy for $300 to act drunk and sit in the section. Tell him to annoy everyone around him. Then, just when they’re about to punch his lights out … that’s when you make the offer to re-assign the tickets for a reasonable price. That, or you get a toddler to start crying.
You’ll get plenty of takers.
I’ve been bumped multiple times, despite booking many months in advance.
When it happens, I always tell them, so you didn’t sell me an airline ticket, you sold me a lottery ticket..
I also always have a copy of the rules for bumped passengers and make them live up to the letter.
I spread my arms, take up as much counter space as I can and politely refuse to move until i’m satisfied….
I wonder if there’s some kind of arbitration clause in every ticket you buy from United that would somehow protect UA from a law suit. I predict some big out of court settlement for the passenger…
That’s the problem. Their contract gives them all the power. A decent company (which rules out airlines and cable companies) would work hard to make it right. Instead, they lie, they won’t tell you your rights, and work as hard as possible to make you go away, with less money.
With the benefit of hindsight, maybe United shouldn’t have used this movie clip as part of their employee training program.
This is exactly right. The airline should keep upping the amount until they get takers.
Devil’s Advocate:
I hate flying these days. It’s a P.I.T.A. I dislike airlines and the way they are operated. I dislike the boorish attitudes of many passengers. This story illustrates why.
Interesting business model most US airlines have; they hate their customers and their customers hate them.
On the other hand, they’ve conditioned us well. We expect to be lied to and misled.
In a weird, anti-social way, I kind of like the way United handled this. Stop coddling the clientele. The customer is not always right. This isn’t a government agency owned by”the People”! Who’s airplane is it, anyway?
(You can probably tell I don’t fly often)