Passenger dragged off overbooked United flight

[vc10man 732]

Oddly enough, Al, that was just the United topic re: that band's guitars. that first came to mind, when this news broke yesterday.

[KevinAu 441]

Except now it's United breaks faces.

[dbw1 445]

The airline business is one of the few where you can inconstantly treat your customers like sh!t and get away with it. 

[Captain_Al 66]

'Fly the Friendly Skies" is so true for United Airlines, on the ground, not so much...

They will suffer big time for this combined with what happened a few weeks ago. You don't drag off a paying passenger by the arms like we are in 1940 ###### Germany. This was handled poorly on many levels and their system will be revamped because of this PR nightmare.

[ESzczesniak 128]

10 hours ago, ahsmatt7 said:

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.

I think you misunderstand what some of us are saying. I have no doubt that this (charter a plane) would never happen. I think we're expressing frustration that the airline industry has us by the balls. I can't think of any other industry that can take away you "product" after you purchase it...or sell more than exist without complaints of fraud.

So of course they won't charter a plane. They'll take the $1,000 hit to give compensation to a passenger in an instant. But, we don't like that they have complete control of us even after we pay. Often our trips on airplanes are some of the more rigidly scheduled things in our lives. Yet we still can't plan on the flight. 

[rototom 198]

1 minute ago, ESzczesniak said:

I can't think of any other industry that can take away you "product" after you purchase it.

X-Aviation does that all the time.

[joelpacheco 9]

I am sure there is a lot more to the story leading to a bloody face. People and the media specially have the skill of only telling the part more convenient to them. It will be a completely different story in a few months or years in front of a judge.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

This is going to cost them big time. Its trending news all over the place, and stuff like this is showing up on the web. Its well on its way to becoming a meme. I can't imagine any scenario in which the pain their actions will cause them can possibly be worth it. Their stock has even fallen.

 

[dave2013 1,130]

I find it amusing that some here are criticizing the passenger who got dragged off the plane like an animal. It may be true that the airlines have the right to kick you off a flight for many reasons, but that doesn't make it right.  I'd like to see if you'd feel the same way if you were kicked off a flight for no good reason.

This whole fiasco could have been avoided if the airline had just been reasonable. For example, they could have offered more money to entice more folks to give up their seats. They could have found alternate transportation for their employees if no other passengers were willing to renounce their seat on that flight. There were likely other options that we don't even know about.

This just reinforces my belief that airlines don't give a crap about their customers. Clearly United cared more about their 4 employees than they did about the passengers on that flight seeing as how they decided to kick people off who already had a ticket and were counting on getting to their destination by a certain date and time.

Following an unfortunate and easily avoidable incident involving a major airline, I stopped flying domestically about 5 years ago and have vowed to never do it again. The flight attendant and airline management in that case were clearly incompetent and couldn't have cared less about the awkward situation they put me in. I just got tired of paying a lot of money for a flight only to be treated like a head of cattle.

Dave

[BIGSKY 316]

Great song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

[laserit 93]

7 hours ago, SirBismuth said:

I am on UAL's side here, they gave pax the chance to volunteer, no one did, so they, or the computer, randomly chose four people, as I understand.

The other 3 deplaned, this one refused to, so the forcibly removed him.  Does it not state somewhere in the Ts&Cs that they can ask to to leave, with or without assistance, for pretty much any reason?

However, this is indeed going to be a PR nightmare for United, and this guy will probably get a pile of cash from them as a result.

I worked for a local regional airline that had a server dedicated to calculating how much they can overbook a flight by.  I somehow doubt they are the only one that does this.  The airlines do this so that they can get their flights as full as possible.  As already stated in this thread, that works 99% of the time, for the other 1%, you have pax that are denied boarding, usually at the gate/checkin, or in this case, dragged off the flight.  

Its a gamble is it? 100% win doesn't sound like a gamble to me. Maybe for that 1% of the time it shouldn't be the customer on the loosing end of the stick.

I hope it costs UA more money than they have ever profited from overbooking their flights. 

[Woozie 732]

Well, the timing of yesterdays United app update was a bit unlucky...

EDIT: Seems to be a fake, but a good one ;)

[odourboy 1,289]

At least they've solved their over-booking problem.

[evaamo 549]

The amount of posters here defending UAL and trashing the passenger is unbelievable. I reckon it would be a whole different story if it had been you or any member of your family.

Gladly there are more sane and rational posters than the opposite, and it seems that regardless of it being "right" and "legal" to get your a$$ kicked from an airplane (airlines, it seems, have a blank cheque to do as they please), most people don't take this kind of behavior lightly. In the end, this could happen to ANY of us.

Think it's just a PR nightmare? Think again: go and check UAL stock now. They have lost close to $700 million in the last 24 hours. 

I'm sure it would have been cheaper to buy the passenger his own 787 instead.

The arrogance of United's CEO is even worse than the event per se. But I'm sure the herd will applaud his stance.

cheers

-E

 

[Chock 17,769]

13 hours ago, ahsmatt7 said:

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.

Nope, I am not unbelievably ignorant of airline operations, in fact I have done work for a numner of airlines over the years, so I'm well aware of their standard procedures, which are; they should not have boarded the passengers, they should have bumped them at the gate or check in. But because that did not occur, there was no room on the flight for their crew, so they should then have gone for the option of either offering a crapload more money for someone to deplane, because I'm sure someone would take it when the price went up, or failing that, in the absence of other options, driving the crew there or flying the crew there. And if that meant chartering a Cessna Citation or whatever, then so be it, because we've seen how the choice they did go with panned out.

I'm willing to bet that the airline PR dept would gladly have advocating buying the passenger his own personal LearJet in preference to what has transpired, because it would have likely been cheaper to do so given that United stocks have tanked in the past 24 hours and they are having to deal with a PR nightmare which will inevitably cost them a vast amount of money. Over and above any airline op procedures, the one which ultimately costs the least is the one to go for.