Did United Airlines have any other choice than to eject that passenger?

[Loren Pechtel]

If there was only one guy on the plane, none of this would have happened. I've been on flights which were overbooked. Before boarding, someone comes on the intercom and asks if anyone would like to trade their ticket for a later flight, some number of air miles, and a small cash gift. I have yet to see the police become involved.

This time nobody took the offer. (I have heard conflicting reports of $800 and $1000 being offered, probably in travel credits rather than cash.) Then one of the people who lost the lottery had a meltdown rather than leave the plane.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

wrong

Asshole wouldn't move.

It's not his plane. The airlines have the right to eject anyone they want.

wrong

They needed the seat, he was chosen at random and he refused to get off,

their problem, not his

he refused to obey the flight crew (which as a passenger he's obliged to do, otherwise they can and will evict you), then he refused to obey the security guards and then injured himself struggling like a tantrumy child.

wrong

Chanting "wrong" doesn't make you not wrong.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Their mistake was in setting an arbitrary (and in this case clearly too low) ceiling for this compensation.

Only a person with no business sense (and a mindlessly authoritarian attitude that treats adults with a genuine grievance as though they were stubborn children) thinks that the bad press from having a passenger forcibly removed from the aircraft will cost less than the lowest bid for compensation that is acceptable to at least one passenger.

Minor point: It's not arbitrary. In general they offer up to what they would have to pay out for an involuntary denied boarding.

Some airlines empower their people to go higher, this one (note: It's not United. This was a regional airline codeshare flight) almost certainly didn't.

 

[Artemus]

This time nobody took the offer. (I have heard conflicting reports of $800 and $1000 being offered, probably in travel credits rather than cash.) Then one of the people who lost the lottery had a meltdown rather than leave the plane.

Have you even bothered to watch the videos? Here's a link for you. Some meltdown.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Much easier to prevent somebody from entering a plane than dragging them off.

A problem of communication.

Really the fault of the people who allowed the customer to get on the plane.

The question is, when the airline is at fault how much force is allowed to be perpetrated on others to rectify it?

Your post is the fault of someone who didn't pay attention to the details.

Namely, that this was a last minute thing. The problem obviously came up after the people were on board.

 

[RavenSky]

From the letter that United CEO Oscar Munzo sent to employees the day after the incident (emphasis mine):

On Sunday, April 9, after United Express Flight 3411 was fully boarded, United's gate agents were approached by crewmembers that were told they needed to board the flight.

The claim that no one is boarded until the door is closed or the plane backs out of the gate is total bullshit fabricated by apologists trying to defend the reprehensible behavior of United Airlines and the police who dragged the guy out. That has been made abundantly clear by personal-rights law professors, aviation-law attorneys, and even the CEO of the company itself. At this point it is just willful ignorance to claim otherwise.

^^^ that

 

[Artemus]

Some airlines empower their people to go higher, this one (note: It's not United. This was a regional airline codeshare flight) almost certainly didn't.

It is United here. The gate agents were United employees. They made the offers, they told the passenger to leave, they called the police. United is entirely at fault.

 

[RavenSky]

Only a person with no business sense thinks an airline needs to open up bidding on a seat that it owns.

Guy could sit there until they offered him millions, right?

Actually, they did have bidding. No takers at what no doubt was the maximum the front line people were allowed to offer...

Once again, if you bothered to read any of the multitude of articles cited/linked in this thread before pontificating on things you know nothing about, you would have learned that the "front line people" had NOT reached the upper limit of what they were authorized to offer.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Anything which didn't make consumers overall better off.

You mean such as an airline publically using force to remove a passenger from a plane, thereby incurring a massive backlash from consumers and a likely enormous legal bill that will ultimately lead to higher ticket prices for those consumers?

That kind of thing? For example?

Why should they realize they were going to run into a DYKWIA asshole? Involuntary bumps happen 60,000 times a year, this is the first time we've heard of someone having a meltdown when they get bumped.

 

[RavenSky]

wrong wrong

They needed the seat, he was chosen at random and he refused to get off,

their problem, not his

he refused to obey the flight crew (which as a passenger he's obliged to do, otherwise they can and will evict you), then he refused to obey the security guards and then injured himself struggling like a tantrumy child.

wrong

Chanting "wrong" doesn't make you not wrong.

But all of the articles already posted that refute your nonsense do make you wrong.

 

[Artemus]

Your post is the fault of someone who didn't pay attention to the details.

That was too much for my irony meter.

Namely, that this was a last minute thing. The problem obviously came up after the people were on board.

The people were on board but hadn't boarded. ***sigh***

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The practice of airlines overbooking to maximize their profits should be criminal. Sure, mistakes can happen.. in that case, FULL compensation would be expected (full retail cost of ticket plus every penny of expense, such as cost of hotel, cost of time off from work... every penny).

Selling a seat on a plane that does not exist is (should be) fraud. In what other industry is it acceptable to solicit and take payments for services that have no intention or possibility to provide (such as selling 500 seats on a 450 passenger plane)?

The example of a doctors visit is not the same. That is more like the plane being scheduled to take off at 5:00, but is delayed to 6:00 due to weather. It's not like showing up at the doctors office, waiting 2 hours after your scheduled appointment just to be asked to leave the office and come back another time... that does not happen routinely at all.

This would raise ticket prices by something like 20% and still wouldn't avoid all the problems.

Seats sometimes break. (It's happened to me, nothing to do about it at the time but unless a mechanic could fix it quickly the next flight was going out with that seat empty as it didn't meet the safety rules.)

Air marshals sometimes displace passengers.

Sometimes a plane has to go out with empty seats for weight and balance reasons.

Sometimes the whole plane doesn't go out.

- - - Updated - - -

No. This wasn't a planning problem. The way things played out it's quite obvious it wasn't planned.

That is pretty much the exact definition of a planning problem: the planning did not plan for the problem encountered.

They did plan for the situation--fly the crew out on their airplanes.

This only became a big issue because the guy was a moron and there are a lot of people who don't know how the system works.

 

[Artemus]

Why should they realize they were going to run into a DYKWIA asshole? Involuntary bumps happen 60,000 times a year, this is the first time we've heard of someone having a meltdown when they get bumped.

Blacks got thrown off the bus all the time. Rosa Parks was the the first time we heard of one having a meltdown when they got thrown off. (And if you would actually watch the video you would know that the "meltdown" he had was exactly the same level of "meltdown" that Rosa Parks had.)


ETA:

This only became a big issue because the guy was a moron and there are a lot of people who don't know how the system works.

It only became a big issue because Rosa Parks was a moron who didn't know how the the system works.

The video shows that the passenger knew his rights under the law far better than the United employees (including the CEO) and the port cops did. That is not encouraging.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The plane was still boarding.

HE was not "still boarding"

HE was in his seat.

And IF there were passengers still boarding - as you claim without evidence - the United Airlines should have stopped four of those passengers at the gate.

Sorry, your claim doesn't pass the smell test.

There's been another video released--the guy clearly knew he was in the wrong in defying the police.

Looks like a clear case of DYKWIA gone nuts.

Looks like a clear case of another unsourced Loren claim

Boarding continues until the doors are closed.

And since you can't accept facts without them being spelled out in 10' letters:

http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/...ger-before-was-dragged-off-united-flight.html

 

[LordKiran]

HE was not "still boarding"

HE was in his seat.

And IF there were passengers still boarding - as you claim without evidence - the United Airlines should have stopped four of those passengers at the gate.

Sorry, your claim doesn't pass the smell test.

There's been another video released--the guy clearly knew he was in the wrong in defying the police.

Looks like a clear case of DYKWIA gone nuts.

Looks like a clear case of another unsourced Loren claim

Boarding continues until the doors are closed.

And since you can't accept facts without them being spelled out in 10' letters:

http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/...ger-before-was-dragged-off-united-flight.html

I guess we'll just see what happens with this lawsuit. I'm betting on a settlement, but for the purposes of this thread, that's just as good as a favorable deliberation.

 

[RavenSky]

That was too much for my irony meter.

Mine, too

I tried, but couldn't even formulate a response because I was laughing too hard.

 

[RavenSky]

HE was not "still boarding"

HE was in his seat.

And IF there were passengers still boarding - as you claim without evidence - the United Airlines should have stopped four of those passengers at the gate.

Sorry, your claim doesn't pass the smell test.

There's been another video released--the guy clearly knew he was in the wrong in defying the police.

Looks like a clear case of DYKWIA gone nuts.

Looks like a clear case of another unsourced Loren claim

Boarding continues until the doors are closed.

And since you can't accept facts without them being spelled out in 10' letters:

http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/...ger-before-was-dragged-off-united-flight.html

The passenger was on the plane and in his seat. He was boarded. You are wrong in your claims. United was wrong in how they handled the situation. You can repeat your errors forever and you will still be wrong.

And for the record, not even your Faux-News link shows or reports the passenger "gone nuts". You are again wrong. YOU are the one who can't accept facts

 

[ksen]

This would raise ticket prices by something like 20% and still wouldn't avoid all the problems.

Seats sometimes break. (It's happened to me, nothing to do about it at the time but unless a mechanic could fix it quickly the next flight was going out with that seat empty as it didn't meet the safety rules.)

Air marshals sometimes displace passengers.

Sometimes a plane has to go out with empty seats for weight and balance reasons.

Sometimes the whole plane doesn't go out.

- - - Updated - - -

No. This wasn't a planning problem. The way things played out it's quite obvious it wasn't planned.

That is pretty much the exact definition of a planning problem: the planning did not plan for the problem encountered.

They did plan for the situation--fly the crew out on their airplanes.

This only became a big issue because the guy was a moron and there are a lot of people who don't know how the system works.

i.e. you

 

[ksen]

Man, I hope Loren is forwarding all of his hot takes to Oscar Munoz. Obviously a low level keyboard jockey knows more of the intricacies of the US airline system than the CEO of United.

Maybe Loren will get a cut of all that money he could save them.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

 

[Artemus]

HE was not "still boarding"

HE was in his seat.

And IF there were passengers still boarding - as you claim without evidence - the United Airlines should have stopped four of those passengers at the gate.

Sorry, your claim doesn't pass the smell test.

There's been another video released--the guy clearly knew he was in the wrong in defying the police.

Looks like a clear case of DYKWIA gone nuts.

Looks like a clear case of another unsourced Loren claim

Boarding continues until the doors are closed.

And since you can't accept facts without them being spelled out in 10' letters:

http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/...ger-before-was-dragged-off-united-flight.html

The passenger was on the plane and in his seat. He was boarded. You are wrong in your claims. United was wrong in how they handled the situation. You can repeat your errors forever and you will still be wrong.

And for the record, not even your Faux-News link shows or reports the passenger "gone nuts". You are again wrong. YOU are the one who can't accept facts

Nor does the link say that the passengers are not boarded until the doors are closed. It was a complete non-sequitur.