United Airlines Forces Man off of oversold flight

[amberpi]

So, its up to $700m market cap fall, and the CEO just now said they'd review policy, etc. That was obviously not their first reaction...

Here's the deal, it violates the Rules of Carriage to bump someone AFTER they are boarded. United has nothing.

 

[bcla]

so comply or get injured? Is that what we have become as a society? You don't do exactly what we want when we want it or we will beat you into submission.

It's not comply or get injured. Police are supposed to be trained in crowd control techniques that minimize injury. I'd expect that airport police (even if unarmed) are trained in how to remove someone from a seat who refuses to leave. Removing someone who refuses to move is supposed to be something they're capable of doing while minimizing injury risk. Yes it is force, but it doesn't have to be terribly violent.

I agree that this guy did not perform a proper "extraction". He yanked the passenger, which threw him into the armrest. Whether it was intentional I can't tell.

 

[sunshinehighway]

So, its up to $700m market cap fall, and the CEO just now said they'd review policy, etc. That was obviously not their first reaction...

Here's the deal, it violates the Rules of Carriage to bump someone AFTER they are boarded. United has nothing.

Oh, so I guess United felt the rules didn't apply to them and were acting entitled and stubborn (which is apparently automatically unruly and belligerent to some).

 

[amberpi]

Oh, so I guess United felt the rules didn't apply to them and were acting entitled and stubborn (which is apparently automatically unruly and belligerent to some).

I guess they were feeling like they had the authority to get their people on whatever flight they wanted despite having multiple other flights they could have put those employees on. They felt it more important to break the carriage laws to do what they want, oh, and to assault someone to do it.

 

[Westcoastwild]

So, its up to $700m market cap fall, and the CEO just now said they'd review policy, etc. That was obviously not their first reaction...

Here's the deal, it violates the Rules of Carriage to bump someone AFTER they are boarded. United has nothing.

Where is that written though? No one has put that anywhere in this thread. I'm willing to believe they broke the rules, I just haven't seen anything indicating that. (Judging by my last few flights, they have a LOT of leeway when it comes to RoC.)

 

[pryncess527]

Where is that written though? No one has put that anywhere in this thread. I'm willing to believe they broke the rules, I just haven't seen anything indicating that. (Judging by my last few flights, they have a LOT of leeway when it comes to RoC.)

I'm not sure that it's clear-cut, but several people in this thread have suggested that the Rules of Carriage were violated. It spells out procedures for bumping passengers, but in all cases seems to clearly mean BEFORE boarding.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

It's not comply or get injured. Police are supposed to be trained in crowd control techniques that minimize injury. I'd expect that airport police (even if unarmed) are trained in how to remove someone from a seat who refuses to leave. Removing someone who refuses to move is supposed to be something they're capable of doing while minimizing injury risk. Yes it is force, but it doesn't have to be terribly violent.

I agree that this guy did not perform a proper "extraction". He yanked the passenger, which threw him into the armrest. Whether it was intentional I can't tell.

And NONE of this should be necessary to deal with United's mismanagement of crew travels and what THEY made into a customer service issue. Asinine, United.

 

[nkereina]

If they had upped their offer they'd have easily had takers within 5 minutes

Maybe. Or maybe not. They didn't have any takers at $800 was it? That's a pretty generous offer, and no one was budging. Every time I've been on a flight, the offers have been for less than that. United probably felt they were between a rock and a hard place, so they went with the involuntary bump which is their next course of action, probably hoping to move this process along. Of course United should have acted more professionally with the guy, but the guy should have acted more like a civilized human being.

They could have deescalated the situation. Talk to him and find out his issue with going tomorrow. See what they could do to make him ok with taking another flight. Talk to him like a human and not drag him on the floor bloodied like an animal.

They could have, for sure. But he was acting irrationally. You can't reason with someone when they act like that.

 

[Albort]

And what would prevent another doctor from attending the patient? Or putting the guy onto a life flight to a bigger hospital with a doctor of the same specialty? Hospitals have backup plans in case doctors are sick or unable to attend to their critical patients for some reason. Say you go into labor when your obgyn is on vacation- a doctor will still deliver your baby.

as someone who is chinese, my curiosity is of what kind of doctor he is. He does have a limited license to practice, what kind of hospital would hire? So this leads me to believe he could be an eastern styled doctor. These doctors are usually run solo. Time is in the essence because medication are given by xx number of days, someone missing one could throw off the whole rotation. (not your typical medication but full of herbs and such). Im only speculating at this point.

Then why wouldn't they have said those things to him or to all of the passengers when they were trying to get volunteers? If they had been willing to work with the passengers to find a solution then this would have never happened! But they didn't, and it did! So I really don't understand what theoretical situation you are trying to present here but it does not reflect the reality of what happened. They didn't attempt to work with any of the passengers. They reached $800 voucher and a hotel stay and had no takers so they resorted to the random pick method. That's it.

If they had upped their offer they'd have easily had takers within 5 minutes and been on their way and it would have cost them a sum of probably oh maybe $2.000. $5000 or so at the outside most. Instead what resulted was a delay of over two hours, probably 6 figures in a lawsuit and a 6 figure drop (It was over half a billion at one point) in market cap due to their stock falling all caused by a lack of even basic human decency on full display for everyone to see.

I was reading on some redditors on the plane that someone did offer to give up their seats for $1600. The manager ended up laughing at his face. Also, i think a possible reason why he was picked was that he did originally volunteered to take a later flight, but when he finds out that he would get home too late, he refused it. idk how accurate these statements are but both are from redditors who were on the flight.

 

[Gracie09]

Because we live in a civilized society with rules & regulations? And, hopefully, not all of us have "it's all about me" attitudes.

If I had been on the plane & it had been my name, I would have been beyond annoyed, but I would have gotten up. I wouldn't just sit there & refuse to move. And there's no way I'm going to be dragged down the aisle of a plane. Would anyone here have refused to get up?

Of course, they could have done a million different things. But they didn't.

Good customer service? No. But that's a completely different topic. I think it's awful how good customer service has declined, & I think airlines are some of the worst when it comes to good customer service. Obviously, things need to change, & better policies should be in place.

But, regardless, they informed him that his name had come up & regrettably he'd have to deboard. He refused & wouldn't budge from his seat.

What a stubborn, entitled attitude! (And I don't think his screaming sounded panicked. It sounded crazy.) I'm sorry. I'm not a fan of people who think rules don't apply to them & think that causing scenes will get them their way.

And, yes, United has lost millions over this. I'm not surprised. We live in social media viral world w/ lots of social justice warriors.

And, again, I'm not saying United shouldn't have handled it a million different ways. I'm not saying the employees don't need training on how to handle situations like this.

I'm not saying they were necessarily right. There were probably better solutions. United was crazy & had to know how this whole thing would blow up.

I just don't understand what United was supposed to do once he refused. Just continue to hold the plane up? "Okay, sir, you won't do it for $800. How about $1,000? Not $1,000? How's $1,500? Not that either. Well, okay then. Let's just sit here for a while."

Yes, they might have been wrong for allowing the situation to get to that point, but, for whatever reason, it did get to the point they were randomly bumping people off a loaded plane.

United may have been wrong in allowing the situation to get the point it did, but the passenger was wrong too.

We do have rules and regulations and the contract of carriages says once you are on board, they cannot not involuntarily deny you boarding for this.
What United could have done is talk to him and say, yeah this is the situation - we have to fly these people and yeah is really sucks that we are in this situation, but there is a flight on Delta leaving in an hour. We can get you a seat on that one. We will reimburse you for your ticket and give you an extra $500 for the problem. We're sorry about this.

No they choose - and yes it was a choice made by the humans at United, to physically remove him from the plane and in the process injure him and drag him down the aisle bloody. I work at a place with SOP and there are times we say screw them because they are stupid in this situation.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

He refused to leave and threw himself about landing on the floor and being dragged. That definitely fits my definition of unruly, maybe not quite belligerent. This is not behavior I find acceptable in an adult and would probably feel unsafe flying with him. Once he was selected, he needed to go.

Yeah. That thug passenger threw his head into that armrest and assaulted United's Chair too. Those nice young cops tried to stop his head going forward by putting their hands on the back of it. But ultimately the heroic attempt to save the armrest failed because the 60 year old thug was just to strong for them and they dropped him. Then he threw himself on the ground and mind melded them into dragging him out. All Victims of this belligerant, unruly, and near riotous thug.

 

[Albort]

Maybe. Or maybe not. They didn't have any takers at $800 was it? That's a pretty generous offer, and no one was budging. Every time I've been on a flight, the offers have been for less than that. United probably felt they were between a rock and a hard place, so they went with the involuntary bump which is their next course of action, probably hoping to move this process along. Of course United should have acted more professionally with the guy, but the guy should have acted more like a civilized human being.

They could have, for sure. But he was acting irrationally. You can't reason with someone when they act like that.

honest $800 for UA, expires within a year, with restrictions turn a lot of ppl away from it. offer cash, i bet someone would take it.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

Maybe. Or maybe not. They didn't have any takers at $800 was it? That's a pretty generous offer, and no one was budging. Every time I've been on a flight, the offers have been for less than that. United probably felt they were between a rock and a hard place, so they went with the involuntary bump which is their next course of action, probably hoping to move this process along. Of course United should have acted more professionally with the guy, but the guy should have acted more like a civilized human being.

This makes no sense.

"$800... do I hear $900... do I hear $1,000, do I hear $1,100..."

Had they done this, NONE OF US WOULD EVEN KNOW ABOUT THIS.

Easy.

 

[pryncess527]

They could have, for sure. But he was acting irrationally. You can't reason with someone when they act like that.

Sure you can. Police and mental health professionals are trained to de-escalate situations involving irrational people every day.

 

[Gracie09]

Maybe. Or maybe not. They didn't have any takers at $800 was it? That's a pretty generous offer, and no one was budging. Every time I've been on a flight, the offers have been for less than that. United probably felt they were between a rock and a hard place, so they went with the involuntary bump which is their next course of action, probably hoping to move this process along. Of course United should have acted more professionally with the guy, but the guy should have acted more like a civilized human being.



They could have, for sure. But he was acting irrationally. You can't reason with someone when they act like that.

of course you can. They have training for it. And it was $800 in vouchers that are usually good for a set amount of time. Not $800 cash. The value of the vouchers is really up to the person. If you don't fly much they are not worth much at all.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

I was reading on some redditors on the plane that someone did offer to give up their seats for $1600. The manager ended up laughing at his face.

Wonder if that manager is laughing now?? Moronic. Goodness.

 

[amberpi]

Where is that written though? No one has put that anywhere in this thread. I'm willing to believe they broke the rules, I just haven't seen anything indicating that. (Judging by my last few flights, they have a LOT of leeway when it comes to RoC.)

They have tons of leeway before boarding, from United's own Contract of Carriage, passengers can be denied boarding in an oversell, the airline has no right to deplane a passenger after that in an oversell situation. The oversell situation and a number of variations are addressed. The guy was on the plane.

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx#sec25

 

[amberpi]

of course you can. They have training for it. And it was $800 in vouchers that are usually good for a set amount of time. Not $800 cash. The value of the vouchers is really up to the person. If you don't fly much they are not worth much at all.

And if you fly a ton they are useless.

 

[amberpi]

From personal experience, I've seen some ugly situations involving the standby list and literally the person who "dings" in first is in, even if other people where higher on the wait list, they won't deny the boarded passenger. The legality is clearly in the boarding/denial of boarding.

 

[amberpi]

This makes no sense.

"$800... do I hear $900... do I hear $1,000, do I hear $1,100..."

Had they done this, NONE OF US WOULD EVEN KNOW ABOUT THIS.

Easy.

They never went to cash! OMG, so stupid!