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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
Sorry, but that “the flight crew can do no wrong and has absolute power” thing doesn’t really work in the civilian world. They have a certain amount of power for the important stuff, yes (safety and organization), but “we’re kicking you off the plane because we screwed up and don’t feel like offering any more money” isn’t part of it. He was sitting in his seat, not breaking any rules, and they were trying to fix their own mistake by making another, larger mistake.
As I said, you’d better hope I’m not on your jury if you’re ever in the same situation.
The airlines are allowed to involuntarily bump passengers, for whatever reason they may have. If they do so, there is legally required compensation they must provide. The bumpee is not allowed to say “no thank you, I’d prefer to stay on board”. That’s why it’s called “involuntary”. When they tell you to get off, you get off. If you choose to resist, too bad for you. You get nothing.
I think all this could have been avoided with an offer of a Pepsi. That’s how we settle things these days (I’m told).
Sorry, but that’s false. They can bump for some reasons, but “it’s going to save us some inconvenience because we screwed up and don’t feel like paying for it” is not a legal reason to bump someone. They were offering about a third of the potential “bump cost” for volunteers when they decided to strongarm this guy.
I know a lot of airlines like foisting this “you can’t argue” line on people, but it’s just not true. If he was doing something unsafe or something that bothered the other passengers, yes, but “we need to make more profit” isn’t part of that.
I care what Future President Mark Cuban thinks!
I haven’t watched the vid, but if he’s in the right before he starts screaming, how is he not after he starts?
I took Old Bathos’ comment as expressions of sympathy and not so much a statement on the merits of his decision to resist.
The airline is required to seek volunteers. There’s no requirement they have to offer the same compensation to the volunteers as they would have to offer to an involuntary bump. And (as far as I can see) there’s no requirement that they can’t discontinue seeking volunteers and move to involuntary bumping even if they haven’t reached the “potential” bump cost yet.
Citation? The bumping regs talk about involuntary bumping when a flight is “oversold”. “not enough seats” and “oversold” would seem to be synonymous. Likewise, Airline operating personnel transferring to another city to cover another flight would seem to be a reasonable priority for an airline to allocate seats over regular passengers (i.e, we can strand four people now, or we can strand an entire plane load tomorrow morning).
As the proud owner of a Taylor 810e and 110 — they have never recovered in my eyes from this devastating expose:
I would have. He was assaulted. he had every right to se guys with a bat, if he had one. Most of us still support self defense, maybe you dont.
If I’m on the Jury in the court of law, I might be with you (legally, but the contract of carriage talks about being denied boarding, not about being ejected after boarding). But any company (especially one selling a service to the public) operates in the court of public opinion as well. As a member of the jury of public opinion my verdict is “off with her head!” and it is final.
You treat your customers like this regardless of whether it was legal, you deserve every picogram of unremitting hate you receive, and there is NO APPEAL!
Self defense? The police asked him to get off the plane, he had no legal right to be there (per the term of the ticket agreement). You and I might not like the terms of that ‘contract’, but that’s the way it is.
Even if the airline was completely wrong in having this passenger removed, at some point (certainly by the time the police came on board), it would have been clear that there was no set of circumstances under which the passenger was going to remain on the airplane. The passenger putting up resistance wasn’t going to change that outcome. He was going to leave that airplane one way or another. Resistance just made that inevitable outcome more difficult for all.
My comment #133 should be read in the context of the particular situation (commercial airplane preparing to leave, in the United States), and not as a general “never resist” statement. If he were on his own property, or in some country that doesn’t have a rule of law with a system of redress for wrongs suffered, or where people taken by the police “disappear” I might answer differently.
Right, but how could sympathy not be tied to the rightness of his cause?
I also think flight attendants should be young, female, attractive, and tall. When I flew in Asia, the flight attendants were each more gorgeous than the next, because there of course you should be able to discriminate based on age and attractiveness; give the consumer what he wants! In America, the flight attendants are fat, old cows. I want this crime against free markets to end! Who’s with me?
We can have sympathy with his predicament, but he was not legally in the right. Sorry, but that’s true.
One of my concerns here is, if everyone sides with this man, and he is given a settlement, he will have been amply rewarded for his choices, and the flying public will be treated to this type of behavior from other people frequently (ie refusing to follow the rules). And flying will become even worse than it alrealdy is. Again, he was not legally in the right. But we can still feel for his predicament.
Don’t think this is going to see the inside of a courtroom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV28_ENzFog
Or they could fly them on another airline, like I’ve seen them do before. Or they could shuffle crews around on the other end. Or they could arrange for a crew from a different city. Or they could keep upping the payment until they got someone to actually volunteer.
The regulation also talks about involuntary bumping before boarding, but the airlines have sometimes used the very iffy definition of boarding as “any time before the plane takes off.” By any reasonable usage, he had already boarded, since he was sitting in his assigned seat.
I keep seeing the airline comment that they chose the four people “at random.” Anyone want to bet that the standard method to choose bumpees (usually either last four on or four cheapest tickets sold) resulted in people they didn’t want to bump, like airline employees?
To all the people who say: Airlines should never overbook! Seats should be bigger! Food should be better (or at least available)! I shouldn’t be charged for (fill-in-the-blank)! You can have what you want! But your ticket will cost a lot more. Personally, I would like that because I don’t pay for most of my tickets, and the whole experience would be more pleasant for me. You want low fares? This is what low fares look like. Life is about trade-offs.
You guys are getting angry, and you’re imaging things that are not true.
They’ll bump a non-rev passenger first – even it its their best employee. (I have a friend in the biz – says this is true) The four in this story were apparently needed for a flight the next day. The airlines don’t have a lot of extra crew and planes around ‘just in case’ because its expensive and the flying public wants cheap tickets. And believe me I understand the frustration. I lost a day of vacation once because there was a ‘maintenance’ problem, and while they were fixing it, the crew ‘fell out of crew rest’ or whatever and could no longer fly, and there were no extra crew on hand, so the flight was, at long last, cancelled. And I was spitting mad, as anyone would be, after sitting there for hours hoping to go on my trip. This is how I was school about how they don’t have a lot of extra planes/crew on hand to step up in a pinch.
Flying sucks. If we want it not to suck, we’re going to have to pay more. I’m willing. Are you?
I don’t know what the answer to this is, but more regulation is not the answer. If United treats passengers badly, then don’t fly United. The government should not tell United they can’t do this.
Flying sucks and the airlines do a terrible job. But when I think about all the miserable times I’ve had when flying, the biggest problems were always other passengers. No kidding.
Exactly. A settlement will be made. An undisclosed settlement.
Plus: they should be called “stewardesses”.
1) I wonder if the fine print allows the airline company to force a customer off the plane, or if they’re required to bump passengers before they board.
2) I heard the crew members that replaced the customers were on stand-by. I wonder if the fine print allows the state of “stand-by” to preempt the state of “paid and boarded”.
Oh I don’t know. There are regulations after all. Maybe the attorney can ask the following questions: Does “overbooking” cover both paying and non-paying flyers? (You can’t oversell a seat if it isn’t sold to begin with)
Please show me the accounting where this crew re-assignment is actually charged to the company for this particular instance. (goes to the previous point)
Were they really “booked” on to the flight or was this a last minute directive? – (if they weren’t “booked” then the flight isn’t “overbooked”.)
Were they “booked” onto the flight before or after the mandatory minimum check-in time? – While airlines can set their own priorities about who gets bumped and when general practice is that lowest paying get booted first, followed by last to check-in, followed by whomever…
Just remember the old adage, “Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” This will go badly for United.
I don’t think that’s true. (have a friend in the industry – called him last night on my way home). They don’t bump paying passengers for staff flying on a ‘pass’. But this is a good example of what I mean about everyone getting upset and charging ahead with ‘alternative facts’.
My guess is, the airlines are over-regulated as it is, but this sort of thing causes more regulation.
Yeah, this wasn’t flight attendants going to Louisville for a weekend vacation. This was relocating a crew to cover a flight. Happens all the time. I was on a flight last year that had to divert for weather. While on the ground in Albuquerque, the current crew ran out their hours, and we had to wait several hours while an alternate crew was flown in from another airport.
So you’re going to tell all 100-plus of us from that plane that we were going to have to stay in Albuquerque overnight because some whiny doctor thought he was too important to give up his seat to the crew that was coming to get us?