United Airlines Forces Man off of oversold flight

[JaxDad]

We know at NO point did they make a cash offer of any amount. Only vouchers. We also know from a couple of reddit posters that someone volunteered for $1600, no idea if that was $ or vouchers, but the manager laughed at the guy according to the reddit account.

I'm sorry, but I doubt I can KNOW anything from a couple of Reddit postings.

 

[TropicalDIS]

Do they not have a phone?

Can they not reach their chain of command?

Once on the plane, is it Marshall law? Are they cut off from the chain?

If that's the case, hopefully they re write their rules with some sense. Maybe, this line "instead of resorting to physical means of resolving a dispute, use your brain"

Sure they can. Is it going to take more than 2 minutes? Yes it is.
It's not a throwing out offers game here, these things have to be cleared and shockingly it takes a bit of time.

 

[Albort]

No evidence that he was an herbalist or practiced eastern medicine. He was a licensed MD in Kentucky. That's conventional western medicine. If you read some of the stuff that got him in trouble, it was for prescribing narcotics in exchange for favors.

im just saying there is a possibility this guy might be. I cant find anything on his office or hospital. most of the time, u will find it if he is a western doctors. Then again, the entire google searches are just filled with this United situation.

Looks like the backlashing worked...

Dear Team,

The truly horrific event that occurred on this flight has elicited many responses from all of us: outrage, anger, disappointment. I share all of those sentiments, and one above all: my deepest apologies for what happened. Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard. No one should ever be mistreated this way.

I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right.

It’s never too late to do the right thing. I have committed to our customers and our employees that we are going to fix what’s broken so this never happens again. This will include a thorough review of crew movement, our policies for incentivizing volunteers in these situations, how we handle oversold situations and an examination of how we partner with airport authorities and local law enforcement. We’ll communicate the results of our review by April 30th.

I promise you we will do better.

Sincerely,

Oscar

Source: https://twitter.com/united/status/851875102769721344

 

[piccolopat]

I wouldn't want a voucher. It would have to be cash for me to consider being bumped. If the airline thinks so little of me as a passenger to bump me, why would I want to let them have a chance to do it again?

As for people cancelling at the last minute, have a cancellation fee on all tickets. Many tickets can't be cancelled at any time. Change business and first class so there is a cancellation fee if you don't cancel the day before or even a few hours and you will have much less of a problem. If the airline wants space for their crew, they should block out seats before they are assigned at check in or at the time of purchase.

 

[bcla]

There's absolutely no chance the police would tell United to deal with themselves, nor would i want them to. This is air travel we are talking about and there is too much pressure around it since 9/11, law enforcement can't take the risk of saying "Na you got this"

Absolutely. When an airline requests that an unwilling passenger be removed, they do it without question. That's simply their job. They're not the flight crew that makes such decisions. The only thing they need to worry about is if there's a question about whether or not a passenger might get violent.

 

[dlavender]

Sure they can. Is it going to take more than 2 minutes? Yes it is.
It's not a throwing out offers game here, these things have to be cleared and shockingly it takes a bit of time.

Hopefully next time they take that time.

It'll be well worth the effort.

 

[Babs Johnson]

An eyewitness on CNN (someone upthread loaded it) said the highest voluntary offer made by United was $800 in vouchers. No cash offers. What the IDB passengers received wasn't part of what I was thinking of, but I hope they got cash. I was thinking about how quickly this whole thing could have been handled by simply putting the offer in cash.

I don't doubt $800 was the highest voluntary offer. $3200 was probably close to the maximum United would be required to pay to get rid of 4 passengers. No wonder they didn't offer any higher. Apparently they were only willing to do the bare minimum necessary and hope for the best.

 

[TropicalDIS]

Yes, but according to United's own documents it appears they had authorization to go up to $1000, but stopped at $800.

And I htink many of us would have thought it advisable to takethe time to seek corporate authorization for more if necessary. It may not have been over in "minutes" but I bet it would have been over faster than this debacle took. And cheaper

If they had authorization to go to $1000, then that should have happened since there were no volunteers, agreed.

and I don't disagree with you on that one, they probably should have.

 

[piccolopat]

...and now I just read that the "must fly" crew that was causing this man to be removed was needed for another flight the next day. It only takes 5 hours to drive from Chicago to St. Louis. United should have sent them via minivan and left the paying customers alone.

 

[amberpi]

Is anyone else just more annoyed every time United's CEO releases info? And to think I would have said they were my third favorite on Saturday.

As I said earlier....I've seen gate agents literally ask on the overhead intercom "I need 3 people to step off this flight, What's is going to take to get 3 volunteers!"
People broke their necks trying to get up to the GA desk....Some people took cash...Some took free flight tixs....but they got it done in about 5 minutes! That's what they should have done in this instance!

After that incredibly STUPID memo the CEO put out after this saying in effect "the passenger was belligerent AND I stand behind all my employees" and them losing $450million in stock value today alone! I'd say the CEO is fired before the end of the week if not sooner!

I have seen and even participated in the same, a LOT.

 

[bcla]

im just saying there is a possibility this guy might be. I cant find anything on his office or hospital. most of the time, u will find it if he is a western doctors. Then again, the entire google searches are just filled with this United situation.

He's licensed to practice conventional western medicine. I guess we can speculate if he adds eastern medical practices to his work, but the evidence is that he's what most people would think of as a western-trained medical doctor.

 

[Albort]

...and now I just read that the "must fly" crew that was causing this man to be removed was needed for another flight the next day. It only takes 5 hours to drive from Chicago to St. Louis. United should have sent them via minivan and left the paying customers alone.

its got something to do with their rest time. and such. if that happens, they probably would have to be relieved by another set of crew.

 

[amberpi]

People need to stop saying this would have been over in a couple of minutes if theyd offered more cash.

They didn't try and I assure you, it would have been. As has been stated many times above, vouchers are worthless to a huge amount of the people that would have been on that flight.

 

[Albort]

He's licensed to practice conventional western medicine. I guess we can speculate if he adds eastern medical practices to his work, but the evidence is that he's what most people would think of as a western-trained medical doctor.

thats the thing though, if he is an actual western doctors, i should be able to google him and find his profile... which is what leads me to believe he isnt. im just speculating though.

 

[amberpi]

I'm sorry, but I doubt I can KNOW anything from a couple of Reddit postings.

Sorry - we know no cash offer was made according to eyewitness on CNN. That was good enough for me, but I'll give you that might not be enough for others. The reddit thing is more suspect to me. I expect CNN to vet their testimonies.

 

[piccolopat]

its got something to do with their rest time. and such. if that happens, they probably would have to be relieved by another set of crew.

They obviously didn't plan for their needs. They also could have offered a limo home to any of the displaced customers who really needed to get home that day, like this man, or they could have paid for a ticket on another airline so the person could still fly home that same day.

 

[pryncess527]

thats the thing though, if he is an actual western doctors, i should be able to google him and find his profile... which is what leads me to believe he isnt. im just speculating though.

I pulled up a profile on Google with no problem.

 

[amberpi]

I wouldn't want a voucher. It would have to be cash for me to consider being bumped. If the airline thinks so little of me as a passenger to bump me, why would I want to let them have a chance to do it again?

As for people cancelling at the last minute, have a cancellation fee on all tickets. Many tickets can't be cancelled at any time. Change business and first class so there is a cancellation fee if you don't cancel the day before or even a few hours and you will have much less of a problem. If the airline wants space for their crew, they should block out seats before they are assigned at check in or at the time of purchase.

When you're flying full freight you're paying multiples of discount fares to have the right to cancel. Usually the airline wins by a huge margin because you don't change your flight and when you do, the airline still wins because they're keeping frequent flyers/spendy ticket buyers happy. The airlines aren't going to want to endanger their highest profit segment.

 

[Westcoastwild]

I highly doubt anyone on board had authority to "up the ante". This needs to be cleared with someone in a higher position of authority.

People need to stop saying this would have been over in a couple of minutes if theyd offered more cash.

There's a chain of command here folks, this isn't a game show.

Lol. Love this comment. That's exactly what I was thinking. Every customer service job I've worked in, I was authorised a certain amount to give for compensation. And if the customer requested an unreasonable amount, it's not like I could just fold- I could refer them to a supervisor but I'd probably point out first that it was unlikely the supervisor would give in to them either. Either because it was against company policy, or because it didn't make sense. Customers always try to game the system.

Maybe the staff handled it poorly, but seriously, they aren't free agents. Passengers can be so unreasonable. I've seen people say the nastiest, most horrible things to gate agents simply because they announced a weather related delay. Which they certainly have no control over. And they aren't the ones who would make that call. I get that flying is stressful but people are crazy.

Every time I read a news story like this , or a post here complaining about a cast member not supplying enough pixie dust, I'm just immediately imagining what that staff member tells their spouse/parents/cat when they go home at night. "Man, you wouldn't believe what this crazy person said to me today..."

 

[dlavender]

Maybe the staff handled it poorly

Understatement of the day.......

Passenger ends up with bloody face, Company faces losses and PR backlash, "maybe" it was handled poorly?

I think we can say it was certainly handled poorly at this point.