Passenger dragged off overbooked United flight

[VeryBumpy 272]

Personally, I think the man was in the wrong. This assumes he was to be put up in a hotel by United for the night to catch the next day's flight.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/10/travel/passenger-removed-united-flight-trnd/index.html

[lennie 48]

How can he be wrong, with a paid-for ticket and a boarding pass, and jerked off to accommodate United non-flying employee. It was also reported that he was a MD and needed to see his patients, but i guess that doesnt really matter.

[ESzczesniak 128]

United has quite the disaster on their hand.  I don't know how to choose who loses, but a gentlemen already in his seat with boarding pass and a paid ticket sure doesn't seem to be the choice.  I've never understood how they can possibly overbook a flight.  And if they do, I've always felt it's up to them to make a deal so sweet that someone will volunteer, even it it costs them several thousand dollars.  I wonder if they even paid for a hotel room after all this, or decided they weren't obligated to since he had be "arrested" off the plane?  Good luck United, you deserve what you get.

3 minutes ago, lennie said:

...It was also reported that he was a MD and needed to see his patients, but i guess that doesnt really matter.

It shouldn't matter.  When it comes to an airplane seat, we should all be treated the same.  No reason he should keep his seat over anyone else just because of his job.  Everyone has something.  Get home and see their kids, etc.  Apologies I'm picking on this point.  I'm a M.D. and "privilege" treatment has been a bit of a pet peeve of mine...just guess how I feel about doctors who get out of speeding tickets by mentioning they're on their way to the hospital?

[Chock 17,769]

Frankly, if they can't find a seat for their crew to get somewhere, they should either charter a private plane or drive them. Bumping paying passengers off an airliner - especially when they've already been boarded - because of their rostering problem is completely unacceptable, it's their problem and they should have to deal with it without messing fare paying passengers around. It's likely they could have avoided the problem entirely by not boarding a few people in the first place, which admittedly would be annoying for those people, but it would have prevented the need to literally drag someone off the aircraft. And it's even more apparent that if you are faced with having to manhandle someone and you see those mobile phone cameras start coming out, then that's the time to chill out and realise what a PR disaster you'll be creating, so I don't think those security staff were the sharpest tools in the box.

On the bright side, the airline are unlikely to have to deal with that problem again for quite some time, because I doubt they will be anyone's airline of choice now after so many people have seen the way they chose to deal with this, thus you can pretty much guarantee you'll get a seat on a United airliner now lol.

The cost of chartering an aeroplane to get those four crew members on to their destination is going to seem like peanuts compared to how much they are going to have to pay that passenger in compensation to not have him go on every talk show in the entire US and put them out of business altogether. But even if they do so, it's still a PR disaster for them. I bet the other airlines are gonna love this one, and it's not the first time United have had to deal with bad PR either...

 

[KevinAu 441]

Just a few thoughts from someone who once flew rj's in the united express world.

1. This would have been the call of the gate agent.  Flight deck crew would have only been vaguely aware that there was some kind of boarding issue in the back, as he was not drunk or harrassing another passenger, so not a safety or security issue.  Most likely an agent with an authority complex like the other week, this time a little too zealous to bring in the police.  And when you bring a hammer to a party, everybody looks like a nail.

2. There could have been more that the agent could have done to solicit volunteers, as there is definitely more upwards room for the store credit coupons than a mere $800, before escalating to a physical altercation.

3. I have some questions as to the last minute nature of the four deadheaders that led to the situation.  Was this the absolute last flight they could have been placed on?  This flight that was already full that Republic crew scheduling decided to dh the four crew on that was already boarded, forcing the agent to unseat instead of the easier task of denying boarding?  Was it 'last minute' because the agent forgot to hold their seats?  Was it 'last minute' because Republic crew scheduling forgot to 'list' the four onto that flight, so that the agent knew nothing about them until they walked up?  Either way, if any of that is true, then that would be a screw up on the part of United/Republic, which no passenger on that plane should have been penalized for, in my opinion.  Delay the flight that dh crew was on their way to, mark the delay to scheduling or that agent, and then fire thr responsible person.  Better than this pr fiasco.

[ubersu 78]

I sure wish I was this guy's lawyer - he'd own UA by the time the case was over and we'd both be rich. Everybody on that plane anywhere near the incident recorded this.

DJ

[RedSpinnaker 35]

Fault for this PR nightmare can be placed onto all involved...

- CPD: Really need to resort to dragging this clown off the plane? Have seen reports that the officer violated SOP and has been placed on leave. I place most of the blame for the outcome on CPD, and NOT RPA.

- United: Well, actually Republic, but UAL gets to deal with the s*** filled twinke PR mess... I agree with KevinAu. Screw up by the gate agent. Should have denied boarding before the passenger walked down the jetway. Also, definitely could have gone higher than $800. Can pretty much guarantee that the PR cost to UAL far exceeds what they could have offered for compensation to volunteer.

- Idiot clown: Have you (general term) ever read the contract of carriage when you purchased a ticket? Also, and this is the biggest thing a lot of people seem to overlook. We've seen only the last 5-10 minutes of an event. No video of the gate agent, or eventually CPD talking to the guy, telling him what would happen next. The airline has the right to pull you off the plane with compensation. Don't like it, don't buy the ticket and enter into the contract.

All in all, VERY bad PR for UAL, even though it didn't happen on a UAL proper aircraft.

 

[SolRayz 392]

Never liked United after extremely bad customer service over a decade ago. IMO they are the worst airline flying in our skies and would care less if they went bankrupt. Also the officers who assaulted this man at the behest of a corporate entity should all be fired. It seems these days a badge authorizes indiscriminate assault on the public at large. 

[Silicus 845]

Having some (limited) insites into the airlines, here is how it works:

Joe buys a ticket for $500 two months before the flight.

Bill is a business person and needs to go urgently tomorrow and is willing to pay much more, because of short notice, for the sake of this example $1200 (short notice flight are normally much more expensive).

The airlines offers Joe $400 compansation, still makes a $800 profit on that seat.

Flights are often more than 6 to 10 seats overbooked regardless of crew seats or not.

The airlines agrue they do that, because they always have a number of 'no shows'. Which is BS in my opinion.

I hope this incident will initiate a change in the law or at least increase the outrage.

In my opinion it is fraud to sell more than you have and should not be allowed at all.

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

United got this one very wrong. He paid for a ticket, issued a boarding pass, boarded the plane, was in his seat, the point for bumping a person was missed in many stages already. Forcibly removing a paying customer already aboard a plane is about the worse PR I have ever seen. 

I live in New Zealand and our media is laughing at how crazy things have become for you guys. You can't even fly home without the goon squad smashing your face in. Just Society ended a loooong time ago when things have become this bad for you

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

Only the pilot who has actually worked in the airline industry in this thread has any clue what he/she is talking about. Every one else is talking out of their butts. It's comments like these that truly show how little flightsim users actually know about the airlines and how they are ran.

To the user who literally suggest an airline should charter a plane to move four employees to where the airline needs them....You sir are unbelievably ignorant of airline ops.

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

4 minutes ago, ytzpilot said:

United got this one very wrong. He paid for a ticket, issued a boarding pass, boarded the plane, was in his seat, the point for bumping a person was missed in many stages already. Forcibly removing a paying customer already aboard a plane is about the worse PR I have ever seen. 

I live in New Zealand and our media is laughing at how crazy things have become for you guys. You can't even fly home without the goon squad smashing your face in. Just Society ended a loooong time ago when things have become this bad for you

You're wrong...

It doesn't matter if your butt touches the seat, you can be pulled off at anytime before the gate agent closes the flight. Sometimes, that's 10 prior to departure, other times it's when the door closes.

 

[HiFlyer 9,332]

13 minutes ago, ahsmatt7 said:

You're wrong...

It doesn't matter if your butt touches the seat, you can be pulled off at anytime before the gate agent closes the flight. Sometimes, that's 10 prior to departure, other times it's when the door closes.

Doesn't matter. The airline is going to look absolutely awful because of this, and rightly so.

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

34 minutes ago, ahsmatt7 said:

You're wrong...

It doesn't matter if your butt touches the seat, you can be pulled off at anytime before the gate agent closes the flight. Sometimes, that's 10 prior to departure, other times it's when the door closes.

 

Yes but I can't recall any time in the history of Canada or Australia or New Zealand when Police physically removed a paying customer from an aircraft like that. My point being things are that crazy for you guys now. 

In New Zealand our police still don't carry a gun, they would probably offer a passenger to come have a meat pie instead and talk it over, our cops are like that, great talkers and de-escalators. 

 

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

28 minutes ago, ytzpilot said:

Yes but I can't recall any time in the history of Canada or Australia or New Zealand when Police physically removed a paying customer from an aircraft like that. My point being things are that crazy for you guys now. 

In New Zealand our police still don't carry a gun, they would probably offer a passenger to come have a meat pie instead and talk it over, our cops are like that, great talkers and de-escalators. 

 

who said this guy wasn't offered other alternatives? Please don't fall in the trap thinking that what you saw in a small video clip is the whole story. Come on, I know you're better than that.