Man dragged from plane for refusing to voluntarily give up his seat.

[Deuce]

What you're getting for the lower price is less leg room and no peanuts. Nowhere is it written when I buy a cattle class ticket that I'm first up when somebody needs to get booted off.

Really? You think in the thousands of pages of company policies and federal regulation there's nothing written about prioritization in oversell conditions?

 

[Helix]

**** this overbooking ****. if you buy a ticket, your seat should be guaranteed. flying on a plane is a miserable enough experience without getting screwed out of your seat by the airline. if somebody buys a ticket and doesn't show up, tough ****. i'd tentatively support legislation that bans this practice entirely.

 

[SMTA]

No, they really don't.

If the crew doesn't move, two hundred people get canceled instead of four. That's the decision you want made?


They tried to do it the civilized way. What else should they do? Oh, this guy refuses to go. Fine let's grab someone else off the plane because he's a dick who thinks he's more important than everyone else.


Easy to proclaim when you aren't the one in the logistics center.


The passenger deserves to go to prison for refusal to leave an aircraft when ordered to by flight crew.

Yet another blindly ignorant post devoid of logic and common sense.

 

[Hawkeye10]

It is there own rules, and it about boarding. I think those rules would not apply after boarding.
The flight crew has a lot of latitude to remove unruly passengers, but that also does not apply.

Look at the Airline Passengers Bill Of Rights:

DOT requires each airline to give all passengers who are bumped involuntarily a written statement describing their rights and explaining how the carrier decides who gets on an oversold flight and who doesn't. Those travelers who don't get to fly are frequently entitled to denied boarding compensation in the form of a check or cash. The amount depends on the price of their ticket and the length of the delay:

https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights

There is no anticipation that airliines would board folks that they were not going to allow to fly due to space, likely because this is something that airlines had managed to avoid doing for something like 80 years, who knew that they would get so bad at their jobs.....

 

[Deuce]

**** this overbooking ****. if you buy a ticket, your seat should be guaranteed. flying on a plane is a miserable enough experience without getting screwed out of your seat by the airline. if somebody buys a ticket and doesn't show up, tough ****. i'd tentatively support legislation that bans this practice entirely.

Cancellations then mean empty seats which mean lost revenue.

The unfortunate reality is that an airliner needs to be mostly full to be profitable. If it's not a profitable service, we're not going to have it any more.

 

[Deuce]

Look at the Airline Passengers Bill Of Rights:

https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights

There is no anticipation that airliines would board folks that they were not going to allow to fly due to space, likely because this is something that airlines had managed to avoid doing for something like 80 years, who knew that they would get so bad at their jobs.....

He was going to get that compensation but then he decided to commit a crime.

 

[Spartacus FPV]

1) I'm pretty sure United has zero control over Reddit

2) There are like a dozen threads on Reddit about this

Exactly my points, do you even know what the Streisand effect is?

 

[Helix]

Cancellations then mean empty seats which mean lost revenue.

The unfortunate reality is that an airliner needs to be mostly full to be profitable. If it's not a profitable service, we're not going to have it any more.

ok. let them go out of business, then. if you buy a seat, that seat should be guaranteed.

 

[SMTA]

What you're getting for the lower price is less leg room and no peanuts. Nowhere is it written when I buy a cattle class ticket that I'm first up when somebody needs to get booted off.

It is a always fascinating when people clueless about how businesses operate render opinions that drip ignorance.

Any company constantly flexing its muscles and kicking their customers in the teeth will be short for this world.

 

[nota bene]

United are idiots.

Were I CEO of United - and I was faced with this choice - I would have said just forget it, rent a plane if you have to, quietly offer a passenger 2 grand to vacate their seat, anything - but find another way to get the crew to their destination. And if that makes their next flight late....so be it.
No amount of late flights is worth the horrible publicity this stunt will cost them.
Dragging a guy from his seat kicking and screaming? How stupid can United get?

Jeez...when will all companies learn, you cannot pull this kind of **** anymore and just wait til it goes away. This will NEVER go away completely. Almost EVERYONE has a phone with a camera on it. Anything controversial you do with others around WILL be on YouTube in a matter of hours...guaranteed.

You're right; the public relations damage is incalculable.

 

[DA60]

**** this overbooking ****. if you buy a ticket, your seat should be guaranteed. flying on a plane is a miserable enough experience without getting screwed out of your seat by the airline. if somebody buys a ticket and doesn't show up, tough ****. i'd tentatively support legislation that bans this practice entirely.

I hear you...but I actually like it (overbooking, that is).

It means that people can get to fly for free or even make money on their trip...I have.

United apparently offer $800 bucks plus a free ticket to one last person to give up their seat...I am surprised no one took it - I would have.


But, again, I hear you.

Bumping is something you agree to when you buy the ticket. But I would be up for a law that says once you are seated in your legally purchased seat, the airline cannot - unless it is literally a matter of life and death OR safety - forcibly remove your from that seat.
Sorry, it should not be legal for a company to legally drag you - kicking and screaming - from your legally purchased seat ONLY because they overbooked and no one else will give up their seat (again, assuming safety and/or a life or death situation is not going on).

 

[Deuce]

I hear you...but I actually like it.

It means that people can get to fly for free or even make money on their trip.

United apparently offer $800 bucks plus a free ticket to one last person to give up their seat...I am surprised no one took it - I would have.


But, again, I hear you.

Bumping is something you agree to when you buy the ticket.

But I would be up for a law that says once you are seated in your legally purchased seat, the airline cannot - unless it is literally a matter of life and death OR safety - forcibly remove your from that seat.
Sorry, it should not be legal for a company to legally drag you - kicking and screaming - from your legally purchased seat ONLY because they overbooked and no one else will give up their seat (again, assuming safety and/or a life or death situation is not going on).

Everyone loves small government until a business dares inconvenience them personally

 

[natsb]

Why...oh why did the gate agents stop the buyout offer at $800? I'm sure they would have had 4 takers in the $1500 range.

Hell, the whole point with buying out people is to give them the option to hand over their seats on overbooked flights. You're not supposed to remove essential travelers. This guy was a doctor who had to be in Louisville, perhaps even more so than the damned flight crew for whom they bumped those passengers.

On a recent overbooked flight, the magic number was $1200. People ran to the counter like a herd of cattle.

 

[JasperL]

And if the crew they needed the seats for weren't able to get on... what about the other 200 people on the next flight that wouldn't be taking off? United has responsibility here for sure.. but so does the guy for not just getting off the flight.

Given the circumstances, the random draw seemed the most fair.

I just don't agree. From what I understand the process isn't in fact random at all (I'd be willing to bet their treasured frequent fliers aren't going to EVER be kicked off like that) and even if it was 'random' that's no way to do that. Obviously some people will really need to get home, others won't. That's why the volunteer system works. Too f'ing bad no one took $800 - keep raising the reward until someone does take it who CAN afford to wait a day or two to get home.

 

[Absentglare]

Really? You think in the thousands of pages of company policies and federal regulation there's nothing written about prioritization in oversell conditions?

Once you're lawfully seated and you've done nothing wrong? Yeah i am skeptical that they have CYA small print for this.

Cancellations then mean empty seats which mean lost revenue.

The unfortunate reality is that an airliner needs to be mostly full to be profitable. If it's not a profitable service, we're not going to have it any more.

Their behavior is a far greater threat to their profitability than accommodating paid, boarded, and seated customers.

He was going to get that compensation but then he decided to commit a crime.

It's a crime to refuse to comply with unjust demands? If they had told him to take his pants off and prepare to receive a baton, it would be a felony for him to refuse in your eyes?

 

[cpwill]

1. United acted like idiots. They should have kept raising the price. They will pay far more in negative publicity than had they eventually shelled out $2K for four people, or paid a bonus to four employees on the other end of the line to come in early / work late.

2. This guy also acted like an idiot. If you want to resist and force them to punish themselves, then you don't scream like they've lit you on fire unless they are actually lighting you on fire. Sit there, hold your seat belt, and force them to use violence on you, which you accept on video, which, since everyone has a cell phone, you know will make it out.

United deserves to lose everything they are going to lose from this. This guy deserves every bit of mockery he's going to get. No winners.

 

[cpwill]

It's a crime to refuse to comply with unjust demands?

Sometimes, yea. "The Law" =/= "What Is Just". If you want to refuse to comply on the basis that you find The Law to be Unjust, then you accept on yourself the consequences of your actions :shrug:

 

[RogueWarrior]

I see a man guilty of a felony when he failed to comply with flight crew instructions to depart an aircraft.

Cite the law please.

 

[calamity]

1. United acted like idiots. They should have kept raising the price. They will pay far more in negative publicity than had they eventually shelled out $2K for four people, or paid a bonus to four employees on the other end of the line to come in early / work late.

2. This guy also acted like an idiot. If you want to resist and force them to punish themselves, then you don't scream like they've lit you on fire unless they are actually lighting you on fire. Sit there, hold your seat belt, and force them to use violence on you, which you accept on video, which, since everyone has a cell phone, you know will make it out.

United deserves to lose everything they are going to lose from this. This guy deserves every bit of mockery he's going to get. No winners.

1. I'm guessing this was a flight crew replacement for a plane on the ground. They had to get those four people there, post haste. You cannot fly a plane after X hours. So, working the crew already in Louisville overtime was not an option. However, in those situations, offering $2K per seat to get four open slots was an option...and a good one. Of course, you must also know that the gate agent does not have that authority. She just does as she or he is told by corporate.

2. Guy on plane was 69, according to my wife. So...I can see why he made a fuss instead of taking the beating like a man.

 

[calamity]

I see a man guilty of a felony when he failed to comply with flight crew instructions to depart an aircraft.

lol...he should have followed orders. :roll:

 

[BillRM]

The legal issue is almost beside the point here the bad PR of doing something of this kind to a paying customer and one with the standing of a MD who was claiming he need to made the flight is the issue and the problem here.

The legal department along with their PR department should be cutting a big big check to this man and and issuing a apology from the CEO.

The one thing that they do not wish to do is to go into court over this matter.

 

[calamity]

On a recent overbooked flight, the magic number was $1200. People ran to the counter like a herd of cattle.

If I was on vacation, I'd take $1200. If I was on business, I doubt I would, especially if the trip was to attend a morning meeting.

 

[cpwill]

1. I'm guessing this was a flight crew replacement for a plane on the ground. They had to get those four people there, post haste. You cannot fly a plane after X hours. So, working the crew already in Louisville overtime was not an option. However, in those situations, offering $2K per seat to get four open slots was an option...and a good one. Of course, you must also know that the gate agent does not have that authority. She just does as she or he is told by corporate.

I would agree that the gate agent is supposed to follow procedure - at some point, however, a call up before saying "hey, we are about to start physically dragging people off the plane in an age of cellphone video" would have been a wise decision. If that happened and an executive made the call, then United may want to no longer employ that particularly bad judgment.

United had other options. They chose not to take them.

2. Guy on plane was 69, according to my wife. So...I can see why he made a fuss instead of taking the beating like a man.

72-Year-Old Retired Marine Runs Down, Kills Armed Man Who Robbed His Business


Yeah, no. Taking something like a man is age-agnostic. 69 is pretty old to be screaming like a 3 year old that unless you are actually being tortured. Had he been older and suffering from Dementia it would have been understandable. Not an able-bodied adult.

 

[Absentglare]

Sometimes, yea. "The Law" =/= "What Is Just". If you want to refuse to comply on the basis that you find The Law to be Unjust, then you accept on yourself the consequences of your actions :shrug:

Well let's be specific here. I'm well aware that a cop would feel justified in such a scenario, but would a judge and jury really agree? I doubt it.

If some cop pulled over an 18 year old girl and tried to have his way with her, it would hardly be criminal for her to refuse to comply, no?

 

[Helix]

I hear you...but I actually like it (overbooking, that is).

It means that people can get to fly for free or even make money on their trip...I have.

United apparently offer $800 bucks plus a free ticket to one last person to give up their seat...I am surprised no one took it - I would have.

a lot of times, you just can't. i saw some of this **** when i flew in 2015. a whole line of folks who bought tickets and then couldn't get on the plane for one reason or another. having not flown since 2001, i was surprised at how much more the experience sucked. they screwed me out of my connecting flight on the way to my job orientation because my employer didn't check some box or something and the airline resold the seat. had to rent a car and drive the rest of the way, and i'm lucky i didn't get thrown out of the airport for the stink i had to raise to get my luggage off of the flight that i wouldn't be on. what a ****show.

But, again, I hear you.

Bumping is something you agree to when you buy the ticket. But I would be up for a law that says once you are seated in your legally purchased seat, the airline cannot - unless it is literally a matter of life and death OR safety - forcibly remove your from that seat.
Sorry, it should not be legal for a company to legally drag you - kicking and screaming - from your legally purchased seat ONLY because they overbooked and no one else will give up their seat (again, assuming safety and/or a life or death situation is not going on).

yeah, that compromise seems pretty reasonable.