The Real Reason a Man Was Dragged Off That United Flight, and How to Stop It From Happening Again

Sunday’s incident where a man was dragged off a United Express plane and bloodied was terrible. It’s excruciating to watch the video of the incident unfolding, and later of the disoriented man mumbling “just kill me.”

United is taking the bulk of the blame here, and that’s probably their own fault. Their PR response has been disastrous, with United CEO Oscar Munoz apologizing for having to re-accommodate passengers. As Jimmy Kimmel said last night,

“It’s like how we ‘re-accommodated’ El Chapo out of Mexico,” Kimmel said. “That is such sanitized, say-nothing, take-no-responsibility, corporate B.S. speak. I don’t know how the guy who sent that tweet didn’t vomit when he typed it out.”

This was a tough situation all-around for which there were no good solutions. And things turned from bad to worse when a passenger refused to get off the plane when told to do so by the airline and by police. And it became the source of worldwide outrage when the police overreacted, dragged him off, and bloodied him.

There are a lot of myths about the situation, and it’s leading people to some bad conclusions.

  • This didn’t happen because United sold too many tickets. United Express (Republic Airlines) had to send four crew members to work a flight the next morning. The weekend was operationally challenging, this was a replacement crew, if the employees didn’t get to Louisville a whole plane load of passengers were going to be ‘bumped’ when that flight was cancelled, and likely other passengers on other flights using that aircraft would have their own important travel plans screwed up as well.

  • United couldn’t have just sent another plane to take their crew even if they had such a plane it’s not clear they had the crew to operate it legally, or that they could have gotten the plane back to Chicago in time legally so prevent ‘bumping’ via cancellation the whole plane load of passengers it was supposed to carry next.

  • If the passenger could have just taken Uber, why not the crew? because United doesn’t get to transport its crew any way it wishes whenever it wishes, they’re bound by union contracts and in any case they were following standard established procedures. We can debate those procedures, that’s productive, but United didn’t do anything out of the ordinary.

  • United should have just kept increasing the denied boarding offer passengers didn’t willingly get off at $800, they should have gone to $1000 (would that have made a difference?) or $5000 or $100,000 — it’s not the passengers’ fault United didn’t have enough seats. Though the time this would have taken might have lost a takeoff window or taken time where the crew went illegal (and the whole flight had to cancel) or the replacement crew wouldn’t get the legally required rest.

    More importantly, United didn’t do it because Department of Transportation regulations set maximum required compensation for involuntary denied boarding (in this case 4 times the passenger’s fare paid up to a maximum of $1350). So they’re not going to offer more than that for voluntary denied boardings, especially since the violent outcome here wasn’t expected and the United Express gate agent had no authority to do more.

I’m being called very terrible things in the comments that I won’t reprint here in this post. What happened to the man was terrible but it was a difficult situation all around, he should have complied when ordered off the plan by United and then by Chicago Aviation Police. It was a terrible situation for him, but one that at that point could foreseeably have gotten worse. I’m just glad he wasn’t accused of disrupting the flight as part of a terrorist plot that sort of thing can happen in confrontations like this.

The Chicago Aviation Police overreacted and appear to have used way too much force. One officer is already on leave because of the incident, the Aviation Police recognize some fault is likely there — and that’s a pretty high hurdle to climb considering the Chicago Police Department immediately stood up for an officer by claiming horribly that he had simply ‘fallen on his face’.

Is it possible that if circumstances were different — if different things had been done before Sunday — then the outcome would have been different? Sure. Although what those things are, what the consequences of those things would be, are debatable — and most people doing the debating don’t have much or even any information on which to base their judgments.

Fault here lies with:

  • United for not having as many seats as they sold, although it wasn’t because they sold more seats than the plane held, it was because their operation became a mess and they needed to salvage that to inconvenience the fewest passengers overall. It wasn’t “to maximize their profits” although they certainly wanted to limit their losses by limiting passenger inconvenience.

  • The passenger who should have gotten off the plane when ordered to do so. It sucked for him and wasn’t his fault, but refusing airline and police instructions unless designed to provoke a violent response for media attention to promote a civil rights cause is a bad idea.

  • The Chicago Aviation Police shouldn’t have responded with the force they did. They’re the most to blame. If they hadn’t used as much force this whole thing would never even have been a story.

United’s statements backing their employee, refusing to name the victim, or acknowledge that the police really did hurt him are deplorable.

But the situation itself lands mostly at the feet of the police, who appear to recognize this based on actions thus far.

So what do we do to prevent this in the future? The truth is there’s not very much. Running an airline is hard. Weather and mechanical problems and back luck and IT problems cancel and delay flights, so they work hard to recover.

Maybe the maximum denied board compensation should be even higher, though that’s not clearly an issue. When the Department of Transportation began regulating denied boarding in the 1970s, there were about 150,000 involuntary denied boardings in the U.S. per year — and now with many more passengers the number there are in the 40,000s. As flights have gotten more full, the percentage of passengers denied boarding has gone down.

The real solution here is to change the culture of law enforcement in aviation. As soon as there’s even a misunderstanding between passengers and crew, that can trigger law enforcement. The assumption is that the passenger is always wrong, the airline backs its crew, and there’s tremendous risk to the public. Not every customer service situation is a crime.

This is in no way limited to being a United issue, it’s endemic to American society and aviation as a whole. It’s a function of the growth of the security state in response to 9/11. We’ve come to accept it, and indeed we get it from the TSA day in and day out. Until that changes, incidents like these are likely to repeat themselves.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. […] United Express (Republic Airlines) had to send four crew members to work a flight the next morning. The weekend was operationally challenging, this was a replacement crew, if the employees didn’t get to Louisville a whole plane load of passengers were going to be ‘bumped’ when that flight was cancelled, and likely other passengers on other flights using that aircraft would have their own important travel plans screwed up as well. http://viewfromthewing.com/2017/04/11/real-reason-man-dragged-off-united-flight-stop-ha… […]

Comments

  1. I agree. The guy apparently reacted strongly(can’t say if it was overreacting) and should have complied with the order to deplane. Perhaps he should have stated his case(Is it verified that he is a doctor?) and appealed to the other passengers to “volunteer”

    That said, this appeared to be more than necessary force. On the bright side, if he were Middle Eastern he might well have been shot.

  2. From what I heard/ read, United DID NOT offer the max compensation of $1350. They didn’t even get as high as $1000. If not him, maybe somebody else would’ve grabbed the offer.

  3. Just to confirm, is the “maximum” truly a limit on how much the airline can reimburse the passenger? If United provided more than $1350 to end the situation amicably, would the government actually stop them?

  4. “This is in no way limited to being a United issue…”

    Looks like Delta figured out how to handle similar situations:
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2017/04/09/why-delta-air-lines-paid-me-11000-not-to-fly-to-florida-this-weekend

    Based on that, I think this is in every way a United issue.

    What’s more interesting is the number of travel bloggers being United apologists. It would seem being called terrible names in comments would be an indicator that it might be better to take the other side, if only for the health of your analytics.

  5. @Miles Junkie – they offered $800 for voluntary, and apparently the involuntary was $1000 at least per United’s last statement yesterday (the calculation is 4x the passenger’s fare UP TO $1350 for an involuntary)

  6. the use of the word maximum distracts from the reality of the situation, as you acknowledge here in the comments.

  7. Why do you keep on saying denied boarding? He was already in his seat. How can that be denied boarding? United refused to transport and that is covered under Rule 21 of United’s Contract of Carriage. It spells out very specific terms for the removal of a passenger from an aircraft. Getting a crew to a location is not a valid reason in their contract for the removal of a passenger.

  8. I completely understand how someone could not know all the airplane law that we know. This type of situation doesn’t make sense and its unreasonable to assume that a lay person would know that they have zero rights when they enter an airplane (or maybe the airport).

    (Dupe of comment made on pizzainmotion)

  9. Well, Wall Street is the king here. United shares are melting like chocolate in the desert. Increasing their stupid voucher price would have been a much cheaper solution. Mr. Munoz must be polishing his resume right now.

  10. @Gary 8:17 comment, no the calculation is 4x UP TO as much as gets the job done, legally required minimums are not relevant to the discussion of a passenger who will not get off the plane

  11. Gary, I completely disagree with this one part: “The passenger who should have gotten off the plane when ordered to do so.”

    NO! I am so glad that finally a passenger refused to leave a plane when so-called “ordered” even though that passenger had done nothing wrong up to that point. He took the approach of “let’s see what happens if I don’t fall in line with this BS system.”

    And now we know what could happen: a violent reaction by law enforcement. This atrocious result may force change to this rotten system. UA should have kept upping the offer of VDB until they got a couple more takers.

    Instead, UA cheaped out — and now they are getting the PR nightmare that they deserve.

  12. This whole problem started when United decided to remove boarded passengers for its own crew. If the pax was never allowed onto the plane, this would not have occurred. Shame on United for poorly managing the fact that 4 employees needed to be on the flight and only addressing it after the plane boarded. How would you react if you were seated, needed to get somewhere, and were told to leave because they need the seat for someone else?

  13. “United should have just kept increasing the denied boarding offer passengers didn’t willingly get off at $800, they should have gone to $1000 (would that have made a difference?) or $5000 or $100,000 — it’s not the passengers’ fault United didn’t have enough seats. Though the time this would have taken might have lost a takeoff window or taken time where the crew went illegal (and the whole flight had to cancel) or the replacement crew wouldn’t get the legally required rest.”

    “More importantly, United didn’t do it because Department of Transportation regulations set maximum compensation for involuntary denied boarding (in this case 4 times the passenger’s fare paid up to a maximum of $1350). So they’re not going to offer more than that for voluntary denied boardings, especially since the violent outcome here wasn’t expected and the United Express gate agent had no authority to do more.”…

    “So what do we do to prevent this in the future? The truth is there’s not very much.”

    Oh please, Gary. It’s unclear from your analysis whether United could have offered more for a voluntary de-boarding. If they could have, simply let the free market rule (you generally favor that, right?) and keep upping the offer until someone accepts it. If the rules prohibit it, then get United’s and other airlines’ lobbyists to dig into removing the compensation caps they probably helped put into the regulations to begin with, so that compensation can be far higher for both voluntary and involuntary “re-accommodation.”

    And by all means, make the compensation in actual funds the customer can use however s/he wants, rather than some bogus vouchers that they may have no use or desire for, and which at the very least are a hassle to deal with. Many folks would justifiably vow never to fly United again under such circumstances. Limiting the use of the compensation to United adds insult to injury.

    Did the police and/or the passenger act unreasonably? Quite likely. But they were both put in a very difficult position by United’s policies and actions. This case just dramatizes an airline industry problem and attitude that simply doesn’t exist in many other fields: We’ll take away the product we sold you at our convenience.

    Have you ever missed an important meeting or appointment or hotel booking or whatever by virtue of being bumped? Please let us know how that worked out.

    But even if you have, please accept that you (and some of us here) are far more adept at dealing with such matters than the vast majority of passengers. And even if you took it in relative stride, please accept that it doesn’t invalidate the indignation that most folks would feel at being treated that way.

  14. I expect that they did not offer above $800 because the maximum required for IDB in this case was less than $1350. The regulation is that they must pay 4x base fare for the flight. I’m guessing that the base fare for this passenger was not over $200 (.5 RT fare – taxes and fees). In that case, the required IDB compensation would only be around $800.

  15. And another thing which can be done is to restore passenger access to the courts in disputes against airlines. Congress has completely preempted all lawsuits against airlines relating to their fares and services, and has basically left passenger completely without remedies in abusive situations like this. Stuff like this doesn’t happen in places where consumers have legal recourse.

  16. You said

    “If the passenger could have just taken Uber, why not the crew? because United doesn’t get to transport its crew any way it wishes whenever it wishes, they’re bound by union contracts”

    What if the passenger was under an obligation to be somewhere at an exact date and time?
    I can think of so many that would fall under that category that I will not list them.
    I know the rules but I think it is high time some of them are changed.
    How many times have we all had to eat a fare 100% due to something that was out of our control ? If this was a security issue then it is completely different. But we all know it was not.

  17. The man was Asian, perhaps he didn’t understand what was going on. Perhaps he thought it was just another slight that he suffers in the US as a non white. Would his injuries be worse if he were a black man? Sorry, not enough about the selection method used, to conclude that racism hadn’t played a part in the selection and, or, the beating.

    No one should get a pass on this one. Oscar Munoz needs to go pack to hauling freight, he is out of his league.

  18. Gary,
    While I agree with your conclusion that the issue is law enforcement in aviation, (I would add the totally one-sided nature of the contract)…..however I still think you are wrong on the compo part.

    UA offered $800 in vouchers, which is worse than $500 cash. Nobody trusts the airlines, hence the vouchers are discounted as people suspect they will have a hard time using them. If UA offered cash (or Amex GC like DL does), I reckon they would have got takers….certainly at $1k

  19. @steve
    the rules clearly do not “prohibit” any payment whatsoever, the wording of the article simply misstates as fact that there is some arbitrary “maximum” payment that’s allowed. no, 1350 is the highest MINIMUM payment that’s allowed and using the word “maximum” just makes the situation even less clear.

    even if united had offered 1350 (they didn’t), that was THE ABSOLUTE LEGAL MINIMUM, the basest required amount offered to “denied boarding” passengers, which by the way it’s not at all clear that’s what the pax was in the first place.

  20. Gary – So, if United had chosen to pay more than 4x the fare / $1350 – e.g., if they’d decided to offer $5000 or $10,000 to get a willing volunteer – would they have been allowed to do that by the regulations?

  21. That’s pretty easy going on a company one has business dealings with. “Running an airline is hard”, Gary writes. Is that an excuse or what? Puzzling to say the least.

  22. One very key point that people are missing here on the voluntary offers is that that it’s not cash, its voucher bullshit. I’m not saying those vouchers are useless but they definitely are not as flexible as straight up cash. $1000 cash & they would have gotten a taker or 2 I guarantee it.

  23. “4 times the passenger’s fare paid up to a maximum of $1350” seems like the MINIMUM required by the government for IDB. To say that United was unable to provide vouchers at that threshold or above for VDB seems odd. More like unwilling? Also seems like providing vouchers of $1500 would be preferable for United versus cutting a check for​ $1350? Why was that not an option?

  24. @gary You really need to clarify the $1350 max thing. I have a hard time believing that United would be breaking the law for offering $2K

  25. @DaninMCI selecting the passenger clearly wasn’t racism, involuntary denied boarding is done by priority list based on fare paid and status. I have no way to evaluate whether racism played a role in the police (over-)response.

  26. @R.Dave the regulations do not forbid that, the gate agent isn’t empowered to do it, hence I write in the post that we can have a discussion about changing norms around involuntary denied boarding although it’s hardly clear that’s needed considering the decline in IDBs over the years.

  27. I think your current assessment is a good one, Gary. It’s also apparent that a good percentage of the public won’t understand why it’s accurate. This incident has taken on many of the elements of mob rule (ill-informed people thinking they know more they know, and acting on emotion rather than facts).
    In hindsight, UA could definitely done things better. We don’t know why all the passengers were allowed on the plane before they knew how many seats they needed. Were there late arriving passengers? Did the gate agent think he had enough seats? I’m not sure we’ll ever get that information from UA.
    There’s also the issue of how Munoz reacted when the story exploded on social media. I’m sure Munoz now wishes he was more empathetic, but I’m sure his initial belief was that his employees did nothing wrong, and he wanted to back them up.
    I also agree that this is primarily a law enforcement/use of force issue. We don’t know why so much force was used to remove the passenger. It seems, more likely than not, that the force was excessive. That said, it’s not easy to get an individual off a plane who doesn’t want to get off. Cops aren’t in the business of being overly nice to people who refuse to cooperate with them. That said, I’m sure this will become a training topic for all airport police in the future.

  28. Gary: I have read your blog for many years and I generally enjoy it. I must say that your response to this crisis has been oddly biased toward the airline to a degree that is truly off putting. I will not descend into the nasty and silly language of some of your readers from a related thread. However, you should take a step back and review your statements. You are too caught up in the legalese and not in common sense. You are blaming the victim and not the absurdly idiotic UA system that allowed this to escalate beyond what was needed. We keep discussing “denial of boarding”. The Passenger had already boarded. We keep discussing “over sold”. The crew that wanted to board did so at the last minute and they did not have confirmed seats. This is totally different than if they had been boarded first and then the flight became “oversold” BEFORE the PAX were boarded. Frankly, your apologist attitude toward this situation has lead me to determine that I prefer other Blogs with folks that stand up for the passenger and not the airline. You have as much of a PR problem here as does UA. You are eroding your readership due to your inability to find the correct tone. I sincerely think that you need to take a step back and determine which side that you are on. For now, I am taking a hiatus from your Blog. There are plenty of other places for me to get my fill of reviews and aviation news.

  29. @Five million miles – I get that the passenger was inconvenienced too, I’m looking at the options available to the airline at the time the incident happened. The discussion can center around what policy changes would change those options, but at the gate on Sunday United certainly followed their own rules and standard industry practice given the situation faced.

  30. @Playalaguna: “The man was Asian, perhaps he didn’t understand what was going on.”

    The man practices medicine in the United States. What does his being Asian have to do with his ability to understand what was going on?

    The irony of your statement is amazing, considering that your point is that maybe racism played a part.

  31. @Felix he was not permitted to fly based on the number of seats United had available for customers, that is an involuntary denied boarding (it’s a term of art that has nothing to do with entering the jetway and crossing the plane’s doors)

  32. @USChair – I am not blaming the victim, I am blaming Chicago Airport Police and I am blaming a culture at airlines and law enforcement that treats customer service issues as criminal.

  33. You article is legally right. United employees followed the book and did everything right including calling the police. People saying that United will get sued are wrong, maybe the Chicago aviation police get sued but that is a high bar – probably depends on what court the suit would go to and demo of jury.

    But that said, Delta got good press from going way above and behind what was legally required last weekend in compensation. United got 10X more press and all negative. You say United didn’t raise the offer since why would they go above the amount they would have to pay for IDBing customers? Why, to avoid this sort of PR nightmare. You have to price all externalities and factor in both monetary and non-monetary costs. This might well cost United some booking over the very short term – say until its out of the news cycle tomorrow. Then people forget and happily buy a ticket on United rather than paying 10 bucks more for a refundable ticket on southwest.

  34. @Gary Do you honestly think that an incident where a woman ran past a gate agent without presenting a ticket (and pleaded guilty) is the same as the United issue?

    That hurts your credibility more than standing up for United.

  35. Hi Gary.
    Saw you on BBC News last night about this issue. Sad, but yes, the issue COULD have been handled better…..but while United is “partly” to blame, in my opinion, the passenger should have complied when the company said he had been selected. Not sure if United has a bad rap on the vouchers, but every flight I’ve ever seen people are JUMPING at the chance to give up their seats for cash or future compensation airline tickets. The fault is the passenger who refused to submit to instructions and apparently the officers who got rough with him. I haven’t seen any video of them hitting him though, it is quite possible he hit his face against something while they were dragging him, I didn’t see any direct blows but there may be some. I can’t imagine the officers weren’t on their best behavior with 100 cell phone cameras filming the incident and watching every move.

  36. Regardless of why who deserves to be treated worse than an animal? United s contract blah blah, he refused blah blah.. who made the call to treat this man like an animal and drag him off?

  37. @USChair — “The crew that wanted to board did so at the last minute and they did not have confirmed seats. This is totally different than if they had been boarded first and then the flight became “oversold” BEFORE the PAX were boarded.” This seems to be a common theme among people who are outraged by this incident. Honestly, the “confirmed seat” thing doesn’t matter. People seem to think it matters, but it doesn’t. What matters is that UA had too many people to fly and too few seats. Everyone on that flight could legally have been bumped (and paid the legally mandated compensation). And UA could have simply cancelled that flight, and given absolutely zero compensation to them (except refunding their fare).

  38. I think the comment that this blog has been too focused on the legalese and not on common sense is pretty accurate. Gary, I understand every point you’re making but the bold comes across as completely missing the forest for the trees. United put its interests in front of its passengers. Then they put him in harm’s way. Then he got bloodied. Then United’s response was reprehensible.

    You can keep writing blogs that say “but it’s more complicated than all that,” but many of us are not buying what you’re selling.

  39. Your argument about the maximum compensation for IDB is disingenuous and frankly sleazy.

    The airline can pay whatever it wants. You must know that. My son and I were each given $1500 to get off a flight from EWR to NAS and take an alternate route with only 4 hours delay. The GA said he might get in trouble for it. But he *could* do it.

    You knew the max compensation argument was BS when you wrote it. So why did you write it?

  40. Airlines need to review their policy and just tell employees who are in a situation like this to automatically offer the maximum compensation to the passenger. I would place a bet that someone would have been willing to be bumped for $1300. They could also offer vouchers for food at the airport on top of that. Everyone has their price. Now what is it costing United in loss revenue because of all of thi?. Hope they learn their lesson, but I doubt it.

  41. As others have pointed out you still miss the point that the initial problem was a logistics one on the part if United. They needed to move crew and they didn’t even come close to trying to solve their problem before just calling in the authorities to use force!

    All your arguments apologizing and defending United would make sense IF United had started with a real (cash) offer to get volunteers and had STARTED at how much it would have cost to pay the IDB.

    However instead of giving their gate agent the authority/means to solve their logistics problem United just relied on the authorities to help them fix their logistics problem. This is just WRONG and United is 100% to blame for what happened.

    I am really perplexed and disappointed that so many bloggers just don’t get it and perhaps we have to reevaluate who we take travel advice from.

  42. Everyone appears to not understand the law pertaining to the obeying orders of a flight crew. The law only requires you to comply to orders that are for the safety of the crew, passengers and aircraft. The crew does not have a dictatorship over the passengers. For example, what if you we’re praying and a crew member ordered you to stop. What if a crew member demanded money from you. Or an extreme example what if they ordered you to have sex in the bathroom.

    There was no safety issue here. The only laws that were broken were by the police and United. United used the aviation police thugs to enforce their policies. The police and United are both criminally negligent.

  43. I respect your writing and stature a lot but on this issue I think I’ve never seen someone so eloquently write about all of the facts of the situation and then completely miss the point. United was in control of this entire situation, from the overbooking to the crew issue to the selection of passengers to bump to the amount offered to compensate volunteers to the decision to call airport police to the jaw droppingly astounding public relations responses afterward. That the man was beaten was not exactly done at United’s hand but the police would never have been involved if United had not called them to remove the man who rightfully paid for his seat. To defend this situation as saying well, hey, they followed their procedures is just laughably absurd. The procedures are BS and resulted in this. Don’t hide behind procedure like a bureaucrat. No airport encounter with a paying non-terrorist customer should end like this. This is 100% on United and I’m really surprised you’re letting them skate on this to the degree you are.

  44. Gary: There is plenty of blame to go around. The airport “Police” are definitely part of the problem. But so is UA. The responses from Munoz have been so tone deaf it is insane, and they keep doubling down. Unfortunately, so do you. You can present the “facts” of this situation and the laws/regs that cover the airline world while still being an advocate for passengers. You are failing on that front. I am sorry, but this is the case. You are too tilted toward the airlines and their rules and not enough toward your customers. Good luck to you. I am logging off this blog for now. As a flyer with well over 5,000,000 flown miles I know the system. I am not naive. However, I know that PAX have handed over too much power to the airlines. Airlines hold all of the cards. Enough is enough. This is the reason for the explosion of emotion over this event. We all see ourselves in that poor, disoriented man. He was not drunk. He was not angry (until attacked). He wanted to go home. We have all been there in one way or another.

  45. Saying that “refusing airline and police instructions unless designed to provoke a violent response for media attention to promote a civil rights cause is a bad idea” is very much blaming the victim IMO.

  46. This is extremely disturbing and creating a huge response because anyone who buys a ticket, boards the airplane, and sits in their assigned seat would reasonably assume that they have a right to sit there. It is very difficult to try to come up with a legal basis to remove a non disruptive person from his seat in this position and most people would doubt anyone’s “right” to remove them.

    It seems unclear that united followed DOT guidelines by giving him written information about his rights where he was “involuntarily denied boarding” -the basis United used to remove him. It also seems very questionable that IDB would even apply in this situation- he has boarded! Most likely it would fall under contract of carriage rules. It even seems unclear if IDB can be used to bump a confirmed paying passenger for an employee.

    It also is disturbing that we live in a police state where cops would escalate situations into violent confrontations and side with airline employees without hearing the whole situation as well as attempting to blame the victim and LIE by saying the passenger fell on his face when he was clearly seen in the video assaulted by a police officer.

    Gary you are getting called names because the situation was COMPLETELY avoidable and could have been handled much better from well before the plane ever boarded. The real reason this man was dragged off the plane is United policies and employees are awful.

    It’s basic customer service to treat people with respect and (it shouldn’t need to be said) humanity.

  47. Gary: I hope that you can see that many of your readers agree that you are missing the point. Learn from this and maybe you can regain our confidence. Good luck.

  48. @Conway – I discuss what you call the “initial logistics problem” in the post. Operational meltdown, need to get replacement crew out. Sure, if United positioned and paid for extra crew at all stations this wouldn’t happen. That’s not industry practice and it would mean higher fares for everyone, I’m not sure it’s a good solution considering how rarely things like this happen (although they happen equally across airlines, see Delta passenger being dragged off a flight in December).

    The old saying of course is that one bad anecdote makes a regulation and two makes a law…

  49. @jkh_gs I am NOT saying and did NOT say that United isn’t permitted to have a policy of offering higher compensation, but the DOT set the industry standard and no United gate agent can deviate from that.

  50. Shame on United and the CEO. Blaming the victim in this matter, a ticketed passenger, in his assigned seat, minding his own business is unbelievable.

    I wonder about the “computer” that selected this passenger over others. Imagine if the passenger who had been selected and dragged off was African American?

    I think DOT needs to look into this matter and the contract of carriage that the airlines use.

  51. Gary why are you whitewashing the crime that was committed. IDB rules apply prior to boarding. Once boarded the only reason to offload someone is they are a security threat or they stink. Moving a crew is not a valid reason. And the flight crew did not go illegal with 3 hr delay so they had ample time to do a auction and get 4 volunteers or have the crew fly on the American airline flight leaving in 30 mins. heck if they had offered the doctor a flight 30 min later on AA he would have taken it but they wanted to put him on a flight 20 hrs later. This was airline employees breaking the law to help out buddies and the sad fact is noone from United has been arrested yet. Gary your post almost makes you an accomplice after the fact

  52. @Larry the passenger didn’t merely ‘get’ bloodied (passive voice) he was bloodied BY LAW ENFORCEMENT and there’s not enough outrage directed there.

  53. @gary
    I expect at some point soon one or more courts will weigh in and we’ll know who was and was not right.

  54. @USChair has it exactly right IMHO. I cancelled my email subscription to your blog because I want to read a blog focused on the needs of frequent flyers, not an apologist blog focused on taking the airline’s side in disputes with paying passengers. There are plenty of other blogs out there, and I will be trying them for a while instead of yours.

  55. Sorry, Gary, but I’m disappointed in you for still providing excuses for what United did. If it’s not safety related, I don’t understand why we have to do whatever the airline says. Did we give up all our rights when we boarded their planes? How about stepping away from policies and rules, and think about what’s right and sensible?

  56. And this TSA overreach is exactly why I fly less and bought a Tesla for my retirement trips.

  57. Gary – I don’t live in a police state. Maybe you do – that’s why you are not getting what folks are saying.

    Which company treats its customers like this? You are condoning disgraceful shameful behaviour.

    Aviation bloggers need the airlines – you cannot afford to be impartial.
    Nothing more to be said.

  58. @TOM – my argument is PRECISELY that we’re at a state where “we give up all our rights when we boarded their planes”

    That’s more or less the place where at, which is why the customer service problem escalated to this. And that’s what we need to change!

  59. Of course law enforcement deserves plenty of blame here, but they were ostensibly acting at United’s request, so let’s not pretend like United didn’t have any control over the amount and type of force exerted here.

  60. Gary, I think you hit the nail on the head with most of your bullet points. UA wasn’t legally wrong to remove whoever they wish from a plane, and it seems the employees did everything by their regs. The conversation should be about UA’s monumentally sucky PR response and the tendency for any customer service confrontation with the aviation industry to quickly escalate to an inappropriate use of force against the passenger.

    UA staff almost certainly have no authority to offer cash until officially running out of volunteers. What I think should be emphasized is the difference between cash compensation (required by DOT) and the vouchers offered to volunteers. I’m sure an offer of $800 cash would have been much more successful, saving time and ultimately money. Heck, on a relatively short flight like this, $500 cash + a car rental would likely have enticed at least one other passenger to deplane.

  61. Nothing about this causes me to “lose confidence” in the blog. That might happen if I thought he was in the airline’s pocket. I think this is his genuine opinion and take. I don’t lose confidence in the blog — to the extent I even care about having confidence — just because I disagree.

    I doubt Gary will change his opinion here. His response is that of an industry insider who is versed in the technical workings of scheduling and conditions of carriage and legalese ideas like “boarding” does not really mean merely boarding the plane. Plus, he tends to get entrenched when disagreed with on this blog, and, really, whoever gets persuaded by others’ opinions on the Internet these days anyway.

    His take is no more or less valid than mine or anyone else’s’ for that matter. It’s just that his is wrong. 🙂

  62. @USChair my role is not to pander to what readers want to hear. I do not mind staking out an argument that people disagree with, I’m just sad that so much of that disagreement uses incorrect facts or poorly thought-through suggestions. I relish a good, strong argument.

  63. This story has legs because most people feel abused by the airlines or see people being abused. In the meantime, the airlines are becoming less accommodating. It used to be they would try to help people get to their destination. Now, they just cancel the plane at the last minute Then they claim it is due to the weather. No compensation. Absurd. There is always a weather event somewhere in the country.

  64. @Gray In this case, everyone is at fault, but I find the passenger should be the least blamed.

    1. United — the gate agents should have know well in advance that 4 crew members need to be on the flight. They should have picked volunteers (and involuntary bump offs) before any boarding activities. Their customer service is so indifferent too. Although the max comp required is only 4x one way fare, they should allow gate agent to bump up the offer further more to look for volunteers especially passengers need to be deplaned.

    2. Passenger — he should just follow the rules and complain later. We should all be better familiar with the rights and obligations. On the other hand, I understand his frustration too as United operation performance is …

    3. Police/Aviation security — watch the clip and comment yourself.

    Anyway, the shareholders have already made their vote on confindence in United management. More than 4% drop in stock price so far today…

  65. @jon let’s take apart the pieces of what you blame united for (“United was in control of this entire situation”):

    * “the overbooking” — the issue was not overbooking of passengers

    * “to the crew issue” — this is the issue. Yes they needed to move crew. It wasn’t a known issue in advance, a replacement crew had to be put in place. If they didn’t do this an entire planeload of people AT LEAST would have been inconvenienced, maybe even more people who would have used that aircraft downline, so they decided to move crew into place and bump 4 passengers to do it. Given the situation faced, that’s not unreasonable.

    * “to the selection of passengers to bump” – yes, they have a procedure for deciding whom to bump, based on fare paid and elite status with a disability carveout. Are you suggesting it was foreseeable that they would run into the one passenger who would be most resistant and so they should have chosen someone else? Are you suggesting that once an airline faces resistance they should choose someone else, so that everyone should simply resist who wants to travel? Or that United should interview each passenger to find out their needs and figure out whose travel need is either most frivolous and least urgent? What do you propose here?

    * “to the amount offered to compensate volunteers” the industry standard practice here is set by DOT, maybe that should be revisited and compensation across the board raised, but considering that airlines used to involuntarily deny boarding to more than 150k passengers a year and now its in the 40s… that as planes have gotten MORE full denied boarding rates have gone DOWN, and that less overbooking would mean more passengers inconvenienced and higher fares.. it’s at least debateable whether this is necessary or positive.

    * “to the decision to call airport police” THIS — but it’s not a unique united issue, my point with this post is that everything in aviation has become a hair-trigger law enforcement issue. United followed its procedures, which match the procedures of other airlines, but the security and law enforcement culture needs to change, that’s PRECISELY the argument I’m making here.

    * “to the jaw droppingly astounding public relations responses afterward” yes, as I note in the post.

  66. @bob – once law enforcement was called they had no control over the level of force used. that was entirely up to chicago aviation police. united gate agents can’t call back law enforcement and tell them to be nicer.

  67. You can’t always blame law enforcement for doing their job. Passive resistence is active resistence at a point. A grown man through a temper tantrum because he didn’t get his way and forced police to literally drag him. It was an immature reaction to a terrible situation he was put into by United. For whatever reason he was in the wrong once law enforcement had to go hands on. That’s his choice as an adult, not a law enforcement issue. Don’t blame police for his immaturity blame United for calling the police instead of handling customer service.

  68. Gary, I don’t really like you all that much. We’ve had some bad online interactions that have left a bad taste in my mouth. That being said, this is one of the best, reasonable, accurate write-ups I have seen on this incident, so putting all the bullshit aside, kudos, and thanks, to you. Keep up the good work.

  69. I want to clarify one little detail. IDB compensation is 4x of ONE WAY fare the customer paid. So if the customer was on a $400 roundtrip ticket where both ways were the same price then take out taxes/fees then divide by 2 then multiply by 4.

    In this case the maximum IDB would only be around $640.

    Also where UA failed miserably is they did not inquire the customers that the computer auto-generated whether they have a “MUST”, not a need, to be at the destination. Medical, death, court orders, military orders and a few other reasons should be the last to be IDB.

    This is why UA still has gate agents – to include human rationalization in the decision making process.

    Also UA doesn’t have to send their own plane – they can charter a small fixed wing biz jet for less than $5K to fly one way ORD-SDF (assuming they give the maximum $1300 to each customer).

    Now I am not defending the doctor – he should have gotten off when asked to and discuss further with the gate agent (he was eventually put back on the same flight for a reason which is almost unheard of when police gets involved). So yes the customer was a small part of the problem that led to this escalation of events.

  70. It’s a bigger issue than the legalisms being debated, Gary. Ask yourself why it’s resonating literally all around the world.

    No, I would never have done what this passenger did, but here we are.

    I’m a free market kind of guy myself, and maybe this incident will lead to a “discussion” of the current oligopoly that airlines enjoy.

    Speaking as an embittered UA Million Mike Flyer and “lifetime” UA Silver Wings member, I’d welcome that development.

    http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/united-airlines-flunks-economics-101/

  71. Flyer Fun is spot-on. There’s nothing that prevents from United exploiting its legal rights to what’s fully permissible, but they have to be prepared for the negative PR (and business consequences) that comes with such narrow priorities. The smart companies in this country, whether airline/transportation-affiliated or otherwise, know how to balance making a profit/serving their shareholders and understanding when to make sacrifices on that front in the name of customer service and fostering loyalty.

    Many (and likely most) of us in the comments section think that United failed miserably on that front. And defending them for exploiting their rights or following fundamentally flawed procedures doesn’t help.

  72. Gary, have you actually cited the legal right United had to bump the man *after* he was boarded? I’ve read the relevant sections and it says nothing about the airlines right to remove you from a plane due to the need to add a flight crew for a future flight.

    Go look at it and tell me EXACTLY what clause the FA had to ask him to leave.

    You can be a United apologist all you want but you haven’t taken the step to show where they had a legally right to remove him after he boarded. United was SOL at that point once he boarded and was sitting quietly.

  73. Can we stop pretending the “victim” is not to blame at all. If you are told to get up by and airline employee and police you GET UP. People are reacting with their emotions and moral sense of what is right.

  74. @Graham: Thanks for the very useful clarification you provided. This incident simply could have been avoided by offering more compensation to passengers to de-board. Looking toward the future regarding denied boarding more generally (and I agree, this went beyond a denied boarding situation), and as many here have pointed out, it would be both more effective and more equitable to make the payments in cash (well, really, checks any passengers could use as they wish). If any good comes of this mess, it’s raising public awareness of the games airlines are playing and the special rules they follow that are contrary to how most other business operate.

    “@steve
    the rules clearly do not “prohibit” any payment whatsoever, the wording of the article simply misstates as fact that there is some arbitrary “maximum” payment that’s allowed. no, 1350 is the highest MINIMUM payment that’s allowed and using the word “maximum” just makes the situation even less clear.”

    “even if united had offered 1350 (they didn’t), that was THE ABSOLUTE LEGAL MINIMUM, the basest required amount offered to “denied boarding” passengers, which by the way it’s not at all clear that’s what the pax was in the first place.”

  75. I’m unsubscribing from your blog.

    By pretending to be “objective” in covering this blog, you seemed to be putting the similar weight of blame on the customer who was gratuitously attacked. It reminds me of those people who defended police shooting victims who “disobeyed” police but posed no threat.

    This wasn’t even a regular overbooking situation. They had to shift their own crew member and the passengers were already booked. The onus should be on United not on the customers. And the doctor had to see a patient tomorrow. He had his own valid reasons to deny and resist authority. If you believe one should always obey to authority, I strongly disagree with you. That’s being a mindless sheep, and authority is there to serve and defend us not to subjugate us.

    And btw, don’t try to put the majority of blame on police. If the crew members have absolute authority in their plane as you are implying, they should take responsibility for things happening in their plane. You can’t have power and deny responsibility.

    I’m simply sick and tired of American people’s mentality that justifies police brutality because of disobedience that poses no life or security threat. Just arrest him and fine him. Not brutally knock him out. As soon as the police used brutal force for mere disobedience and United not preventing and/or stopping such brutality once it started, they lost their moral ground.

    Lastly, you seem to forget the power dynamic. Police and flight crew after 9/11 have inordinate amount of power. And customers are usually left powerless. And this time, both airline and police abused it. Although I’m terrified by the doctor’s injury, I’m glad this story became as big as this, because it just shows how much power we are giving up and how much subjugation we are willing to justify.

    Defend your neighbor’s right if you don’t want to lose yours.

  76. Gary,

    You write: “but the DOT set the industry standard and no United gate agent can deviate from that” That’s simply NOT true. I have seen it happen many times. As I noted before, my son and I received well over that amount ($1500) for a smaller delay. I’m not sure why the comment was not put into the blog.

    The GA can do practically anything. With a quick phone call, they can do anything.

  77. This does not appear to be correct:

    “More importantly, United didn’t do it because Department of Transportation regulations set maximum required compensation for involuntary denied boarding (in this case 4 times the passenger’s fare paid up to a maximum of $1350).”

    That is a minimum legal obligation of the airline. There is nothing that prevents the airline from offering compersation above and beyond that.

    As the Department of Transporation notes (https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights):

    DOT’s denied boarding regulation spells out the airlines’ minimum obligation to people they bump involuntarily.

  78. Blah blah blah. United has been difficult for some time and this was simply the next level. As horrid as it is, the surprise is that it hasn’t happened before. United is simply out of control and has ridiculous policies that allow it to fly humans as livestock.

    To suggest that a man who was 69 years old and didn’t rise upon request and should’ve done so is now irrelevant. It’s like smacking and child across the face and then discussing why. There is no why. The outcome and the response is now so inhumane that unless he was taken off due to his own violence, there is no need to discuss anything this man did prior to the assault.

    To justify that United was actually acting on the behalf of yet more passengers by simply removing one passenger in this violent manner, is ridiculous. The machine of United was broken. They did not line up spaces for their employees properly and what then ensued was to treat customers as the fault of the situation and to use aggressive measures that led to blood and a plane of people screaming for the act to stop. It was done with premeditation, forcefully so and with the directive of United to remove him.

    I don’t wish to hear about policies and procedures. I am a city employee and also a union employee. If somehow I am asked to forcefully address another human in the name of my job or union, um….it won’t happen. And I believe for most of us, we would never act so inhumanely to another person in the name of our job.

    I don’t care who needed the seat. I don’t care what the consequences were if that sear were not made available. I do care that we are now actually discussing whether or not the force was justified. That is in and unto itself, disgusting. The apology from United should simply be a huge apology of remorse and full acknowledgement of aggressive wrong-doing with a promise to fully review and revamp the way it sells its flights and the way it treats its customers.

    Shame on anyone seeking any explanation for this treatment. If this were your brother, your father or grandfather you wouldn’t care about United’s “reasons” that led to this. He’s not my relative and I don’t know him but as a human, I don’t care about any justification for this horror.

  79. @Gary No non-violent customer service situation should end with bloodshed, or even police being called.

  80. BTW,
    When I saw the travel blogs’ coverage, TPG was the worst, while you and DOC seem to show very little compassion and empathy towards the customers.

    You guys really need to look at how OMAAT covered this incident. They didn’t neglect the fact that the passenger resisted the order, but they properly showed compassion when it’s due and also properly placed the blame on where it’s just.

  81. @Daniel you’re unsubscribing from this blog, it seems, because you and I are pretty much in 90% agreement. The whole point of this post is, as you say, “I’m simply sick and tired of American people’s mentality that justifies police brutality because of disobedience that poses no life or security threat.”

  82. @Mjs the physical act of a gate agent scanning a ticket and a passenger entering a jetway is not relevant, involuntary denied boarding is what happens when an airline has fewer seats available for customers than there are passengers with confirmed travel on the flight. That’s what happened here. And it happens every day.

    For instance, when an airline boards exactly the number of people as seats but they find that there’s a broken seat that cannot be fixed prior to departure, they involuntarily deny boarding to a passenger even though the passenger has already entered the aircraft. That’s not a ‘refusal to transport’ it’s IDB.

  83. I am sorry Gary – you have marked yourself as a United apologies in your coverage of this VILE incident. I for one won’t be returning to your blog – a long time reader. I have observed United trying to remove people from an oversold flight – how they did it shocked me, although that occasion did not lead to violence. I was a 1K at the time and decided next day to switch to AA.

  84. Thank you, Gary, for your logical explanation and insight. Unfortunately, a ton of people are so emotional over this they can’t think straight. The internet lynch mob is strong right now.

  85. Wrong: United could have put them on ANOTHER airlines flight. Airlines trade tickets all the time. They could have gotten the crew there without doing what they did. You miss the most obvious way United could have avoided this situation.

  86. @Gary The lawyers are going to have a field day picking that illogical IDB claim apart in civil court.

  87. Ruth Arnold summarizes it brilliantly. At worst, the passenger was guilty of passive resistance. You know, like Rosa Parks or Gandhi. United was the Bull Connor in this instance.

    You do not forfeit all your human rights when you enter an aircraft. The government, acting on a private company’s behest, is not entitled to physically hurt you for passive resistance.

    All of this could have been avoided if United had better logistical planning and a modicum of redundancy in their system. Instead, they plan for perfect weather and perfect everything else — 25 minute turnarounds for 200 passenger airplanes. And when it goes wrong, they plan “factors beyond our control.”

  88. Everyone is ignoring the true reason behind this and most other UAL PR disasters (i.e.: The Legging Incident)- the lack of Awareness and Support for the company’s front line employees. United has neglected it’s front line employees (Gate Agents, Flight Attendants, Pilots, support staff, etc) for decades and the culture of neglect and indifference will ensure that incidents like this continue. Imagine if the Gate Agents had denied the 4 passengers at the gate instead of having them removed from the seats… no story! It comes down to having the proper people in the proper positions with proper support (autonomy). I am not bashing these agents themselves, but perhaps they weren’t given the necessary information prior to boarding (again- company error). Even so, they could have handled it much differently and could have utilized other resources first. I have been on such flights before where the Captain stepped into the aisle to explain the flight would not leave unless he had “xx volunteers who would be compensated”. The urgency and the assurance that the plane would not depart until then, enticed a few unwilling souls to delay their plans “for the greater good”. Again, this is just an example but one nonetheless of how empowerment and not authoritarianism is the way to run a business… UAL will never understand that concept.

  89. What a lame and shameful excuse: That a mighty corporation such as UA is somehow powerless to compensate passengers at a level where someone actually takes up the offer to use a later flight. It is UAs money, for goodness sake. The whole situation was UAs fault, and attempts to blame the customer are shameful indeed.

    And since when has an aviation corporation been unable to find a way to fly four people from A to B? You can order a business jet just as you can a cab. It costs more, but then again, should a large corporation be responsible of fixing its own operational issues without having its customers beaten to pulp? Many would argue it should.

    This article completely ignores that the fundamental issue was NOT police behaviour, however outrageous that was. The police should never have been called in in the first place: it is up to UA to sort out its internal operational issues, not shift the burden and blame to their customers and then call in the police when these protest against their mistreatment.

    I fly well over 200 000 miles per year. United I have managed to avoid for 7 years now. Because.

  90. Exactly right. There’s a big difference between truly “exigent” circumstances, and faux-exigencies of the airlines’ and industry’s own creation. I have little to no sympathy for the latter.

  91. United bears 100% of the blame. This is inarguable.

    1) United stopped at $800 and never got to $1350. Personally I believe that @$1350 they could have gotten volunteers.

    2) If United had no volunteers at $1350, and cannot follow their contractual obligations with their union(s), then whatever disruptions follow from United not having proper personnel in Louisville is literally what CDB–Cost of Doing Business–means. Clearly this situation is an “edge” condition as it hasn’t happened previously. So if United wants to guarantee against this kind of edge condition happening again, United has present choices (only selling Capacity – N seats), and future choices (negotiating better with their unions by inserting clauses for “emergency” situations such as this.

    But all this misses the larger picture–that the United States is turning into a Corporatocracy with taxpayer-funded law enforcement doing Corporation’s bidding and not working for the taxpayers.

  92. There is an easy way to prevent this from happening. Make the minimum compensation for IDB twice the last minute walk up fare payable in cash as well as a refund. Anyone IDBed would be able to take the cash and walk over to the competing airline and buy a walkup fare and be on their way.
    Airlines would make a genuine effort to get a VDB as twice of a walk up fare is going to be pretty high. Also the airline should have to provide the person alternate transport ont he next available flight from the airport rather than on one which is convenient to the airline. In this case United had a flight the same night and in the morning but tried to put the passengers on one 20 hours later.

  93. @Gary

    You’re doubling down, that’s for sure. You claim that the IDB compensation rules set the maximum compensation permitted by law, and that’s just flat out incorrect.

    Second, you disclaim rather strongly a lawyer’s opinion on which section of an adhesion contract applies to the case at hand. No offense or anything, but I’m trusting a lawyer’s opinion on legal matters, not yours. Your expertise is in frequent flyer programs, not contracts of carriage.

    You state that “denied boarding” is a term of art, but Banzhof’s commentary makes a rather clear case that United’s Rule 21 (Removal from aircraft) is a separate matter from Rule 25 (Denied boarding compensation.)

    If you ask me, this is a civil issue; United overreached (and the Chicago PD was complicit in this) by involving the police in something that is strictly civil. Contract violations (which this is) are not criminal matters.

  94. @Truth – $800 + hotel was for voluntary denied boarding offers, $1350 was the maximum they’d legally be obligated to pay based on the one way fare of the passenger.

  95. There seems to be momentum building behind the argument that United may have acted illegally. See OMAAT. I think you should at least consider acknowledging that you may be in the wrong here.

  96. Never mind that folks are right — $800 is funny money of dubious value. I may or may not have taken it. $1000 in cold hard cash? Yeah, I’ll spend the night at the Motel 6 and tell my boss to pound sand.

    I have far more uses for $1k in cash than I do airline funny money.

  97. @tom — at the point this happened no other airline had a flight (american has a flight shortly after the scheduled departure time of this one, unclear if that was sold out though likely, and united had one more flight which was sold out)

  98. @ jkh_gs — Like many passengers, you don’t appreciate the redundancy that UA DOES have. They don’t plan for “perfect weather and perfect everything else.” One of the redundancies is doing exactly what they did on this flight — and it would have been an adequate response 99.99% of the time!

    Sure, UA could have spare flight crews — and airplanes — sitting around at all their airports just waiting for an unforeseeable problem to develop. But they’d have to pay for this. And YOU would have to pay for this when you fly. But you’d probably choose an airline that had a lower fare and less redundancies. I could name a couple of such airlines: Spirit and Frontier. And people are willing to trade back-up reliability (which they don’t appreciate) for lower fare much of the time. If UA were to adopt the strategies you’re advocating, I’m pretty sure they’d eventually go out of business and we’d all have suckier airline service.

  99. People who says emotions and all that, i hope that you have to fly to meet your patents on the death bed. It is very important to you and paid for the ticket, but you missed the last words of your parents just becauze an airline decided to remove you for the sake of their interest.

  100. @Dan

    Gary is continuing to rely on a confusion between the “maximum compensation required by law” ($1350) and the “maximum allowed by law” (infinite). There is absolutely no limit on what the airline can pay. But Gary glosses over that for reasons you all can speculate about.

    I will re-iterate, because Gary and others clearly don’t get it: United gate agents, can and sometimes do, offer a lot more than $1350.

  101. The one major point you missed is that the “de-accomodating” of the passenger(s) should have happened at the gate, before boarding. That was United’s biggest fail.

  102. And, comment section really tells how little you know about the law, Gary. Just admit it and stop the nonsense like you know severything about aviation law.

  103. I have to disagree, at least in part. The key failure was in United’s not having the seats for the four employees properly set aside before boarding started, so the entire process of looking for volunteers and then, if necessary, selecting passengers for IDB, could have occurred at the gate rather than on the plane. It still would have been unpleasant, and the one passenger could have still caused an altercation, but it wouldn’t have become the PR nightmare it did.

  104. “More importantly, United didn’t do it because Department of Transportation regulations set maximum required compensation for involuntary denied boarding (in this case 4 times the passenger’s fare paid up to a maximum of $1350). So they’re not going to offer more than that for voluntary denied boardings”

    I’m sorry, this just doesn’t follow. Airlines (at least the good ones) go above and beyond the bare minimum required by the law all the time in order to give good service. Virgin gave me a $50 credit just for switching seats to keep a family together for instance. Considering United’s market cap has lost like $200 million since the incident, its hard to argue that a few hundred dollars more would not have been a fantastic tradeoff

  105. If the airline had just upped their offer to $1,350, and waited a few minutes, this would not have happened. But they are used to bullying passengers with threats of physical removal if passengers do not comply. They didn’t want to pay more, and decided to call in some muscle. Well, no more. This incident will change things. (Turns out this passenger has a shady history, but that’s irrelevant. It could have been just a guy with some emotional problems… no reason to call in thugs to beat him up.)

  106. Oh Gary….. for a “thought leader” it seems that most of your leadership is devoid of EQ and communication savvy.

    No matter where the blame is, right after someone gets the crap beat out of them and dragged off the plane is not the time to point out what the person did wrong.

    When you’ve taken a stance and tone that lacks empathy and compassion that people react emotionally to, that is not the time to hammer them with rational arguments and try to educate them. You’re never going to get through.

    Right now you’re doing what exactly what United and Oscar Munoz are doing: trying to shroud and dissipate customer/audience emotions with rational arguments that make you seem like a robot. This is not the time to do that and in turn you’re getting taken to the cleaners in the comments.

    You and United are getting exactly what you deserve for the way you’re handling this situation.

  107. Gary thanks for the background and deep dive on this. Now, can you educate us on what happens at a real world class airline when this happens? Let’s take Lufthansa or Singapore airlines and compare their policies vs the United policy of calling 9-1-1.

  108. Wow, it is amazing how you can spin a story when you want to.
    United had a moral obligation to transport the passengers who bought tickets.
    United makes more money by over booking its flights.
    There is a cost of an empty seat and there is a cost for bumping a passenger.

    You are correct that the video made this such a disaster. Without the video nobody would be talking about it now.

    All airlines need to stop randomly taking passengers off of planes. They need to be able to bribe the customers to volunteer to get off the plane. Video or no video, preventing people from flying when they paid for the tickets is wrong.

  109. This is a genuine question which I can’t find an answer for. Why did they board all the passengers if they knew they didn’t have seats for their crew? I get you might have to “deny boarding” to certain passengers when you are unable to convince anyone to volunteer their seats. But why did United end up in a situation where they had to remove people from the plane? This just seems like a huge screw up on their part — for which they have not acknowledged responsibility. You board a 1/2 hour before the flight time, did they really not know a 1/2 hr before the flight they needed those seats? If that’s the case, I have much deeper questions about United operations.

  110. My question is why couldn’t this have been resolved at the gate? Why issue a boarding pass and then effectively pull it by offloading a paying customer?

    Don’t board anyone until the issue is resolved, even if that means the flight is delayed. If you are going to deny boarding, deny it in the lounge and provide max cash compensation. And no incident ensues. Even if someone vocalizes their unhappiness in front of witnesses, it won’t rise to the same level of someone dragged off an aircraft.

  111. “especially since the violent outcome here wasn’t expected and the United Express gate agent had no authority to do more”

    Wrong. It’s expected by the half of America that doesn’t have a good relationship with the police (i.e. the half that isn’t white and/or well-off and/or suburban). Don’t call the police. Don’t talk to the police.

  112. @jkh_gs

    That’s exactly right. United could have paid any amount they needed to in order to free up those four seats. They CHOSE to not keep increasing their offered compensation and instead went to the involuntary bumping option and eventually escalated this to law enforcement. That is 100% United’s fault.
    That the law enforcement personnel escalated even further is a different situation.

  113. Gary, please read http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/the-corporation-does-not-always-have-to-win-1794181209.

    “You are not the corporation. You are the human. It is okay for the corporation to lose a small portion of what it has in terrifying overabundance (money, time, efficiency) in order to preserve what a human has that cannot ever be replaced (dignity, humanity, conscience, life). It is okay for you to prioritize your affinity with your fellow humans over your subservience to the corporation, and to imagine and broker outcomes based on this ordering of things. It is okay for the corporation to lose. It will return to its work of churning the living world into dead sand presently.”

  114. ‘The whole point of this post is, as you say, “I’m simply sick and tired of American people’s mentality that justifies police brutality because of disobedience that poses no life or security threat.”’

    And yet in every one of your revenue-generating posts on this issue, you’ve slipped in a remark saying that the passenger shares blame.

  115. I blame one entity, and one entity only: United.

    They could have offered more than $800, and they could have authorized their agents to offer more than $1300. They didn’t, because they figured that whatever ill-will they generated with a single customer would be outweighed by the total dollar amount that they would save by not offering more. Their only problem is that instead of just having a single distraught customer, they’ve broadcast their lack of empathy to the entire world.

  116. You wrote…

    “United didn’t do it because Department of Transportation regulations set maximum required compensation for involuntary denied boarding (in this case 4 times the passenger’s fare paid up to a maximum of $1350)”

    This is simply not correct. Nothing prevents an airline from offering more than these amounts. They just have to over at least this much before involuntarily denying anyone boarding.

    Let’s repeat that. This is the maximum an airline has to pay before invoking IDB. That is the meaning of maximum. The airline breaks no law, nor any regulations if they offer more.

    Gary, if you believe otherwise could you please provide substantiation for your position.

  117. I want to echo these two sentiments:

    1. thanks for the deep dive on this issue. Whatever our opinions, the fact is United has not committed to doing anything to avoid a repeat of this issue.

    2. there is too much victim blaming in this post. The correct amount is zero. There’s an unsettling insinuation that the victim was acting the part of a civil rights martyr. Maybe he just really wanted/needed to go home to his patients? To dismiss this by saying everybody has a reason to travel is disingenuous. The blind compliance advocated in this article is at odds with the libertarian overtones of this blog. SURELY the airline could have moved on to the next person down the IDB list and called it a day.

    And I want to add one of my own:

    3. can we please get a post exploring the racial/cultural factors at play here. I concede the victim could have been anybody, and there is zero evidence of racial foul play; however, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I concede UA’s IDB algorithm has no explicit racial bias*, but I will not be so quick to dismiss that the way in which the victim was treated (by airline personnel or by police) was affected by his identity. Was the victim stereotyped as someone whose culture and language barriers made him an easy target? Did police believe that an Asian would not make a scene or complain about police brutality? Given the strained relation between blacks and LEOs, would police have been more gentle on a black passenger, ceteris paribus?

    * although, by favoring high fare class and elite status, which are disproportionately held by rich white men, UA is complicit in entrenching their privilege and superiority — this could be a dissertation-worthy discussion.

  118. This is a pretty grotesque apologetic.
    First: yes, the airline could have offered more than $1350. In fact, there’s an image on Twitter showing that they DID have a volunteer, but she was asking for $1600, which means that this whole mess happened because an agent of the airline was afraid of calling someone higher up and asking if they could kick in an extra $250.
    (or, more likely, she was afraid of asking.)

    Second: don’t quote procedure at us. That’s also grotesque. “They were only following orders” is not a line you should ever, ever deploy in a situation like this. Besides, all of these procedures are tied to being denied boarding; that isn’t what happened here. This man was deplaned because United employees couldn’t sort out these issues beforehand, and because of a business model (overbooking) that people have always found distasteful and now looks plainly dystopian.

    (How on earth did they not have this flight crew’s issues sorted out long beforehand? Who the hell handles staff scheduling at United, exactly?)

    “Term of art”. Good grief. I hope you’re getting paid for this.

    Third: there’s way too many shoulds and maybes and other conditionals here. Could they have taken Uber, a cab, or a bus? Was there personnel available? Could they have come to an agreement with another airline to transport the crew? WAS “no ground transport” part of the union contract? What on earth happens if they need to get a crew somewhere and they DON’T have a flight to empty out?

    And finally…why him? This is a physician, for God’s sake. He had an extremely good reason for wanting to stay on that plane. Why didn’t the staff on board find someone else?

    It’s highly suspect that they chose an elderly visible minority to be forcibly removed. Were they motivated by prejudice to believe that he’d be compliant, and reacted with fury when he contradicted those prejudices?

    No, dude, it’s not all on the cops.

  119. Can you please clarify how the term Denied Boarding can be used when the man is already bucked in?

    Also, you have an it’s typo in the last paragraph.

    Thanks.

  120. “Gary is continuing to rely on a confusion between the “maximum compensation required by law” ($1350) and the “maximum allowed by law” (infinite). There is absolutely no limit on what the airline can pay. But Gary glosses over that for reasons you all can speculate about.”

    “I will re-iterate, because Gary and others clearly don’t get it: United gate agents, can and sometimes do, offer a lot more than $1350.”

    Thanks for this, @jkh_gs. It’s a point many others have made, but it bears repeating.

    I respect Gary and his right to offer an opinion I disagree with. But I too am troubled by this and many other assertions he’s made in this discussion.

    I’d add that, even if Gary were right about this matter, he should be lobbying for United, the airlines and the U.S. Government to change the rule as he (apparently incorrectly) interprets it, rather than defending United.

    And I’ll again ask Gary: Have you ever been bumped in ways that caused serious problems for you in terms of work or other matters? And if so, how serious were the consequences?

  121. @Gary —> Yes, you have been “called very terrible things in the comments,” and — in the cool light of day — some of the reactions (though not the words themselves) have been justified, and some not. And I *appreciate* your post today — THIS post — trying to pour oil on the turbulent waters. I, too, have tried to keep my reactions calm and on point, to avoid the emotional, knee-jerk reaction and the slippery slope of name-calling, racial slurs, and worse. However, I wish to add some comments of my own and hope you take these in the spirit they are intended.

    Yes, the flight was NOT oversold. Ergo, this was not a case — as most comments seem to indicate — of too many seats sold for too few seats. United had X number of available seats and sold X number of tickets, not X+4. The tickets were sold by United Airlines. Meanwhile — for whatever reason — the actual operator of the United Express flight in question — Republic Airlines — needed to move a flight crew (I am presuming this was a pilot, co-pilot, and two FA’s) to Louisville to operate a flight the following morning. Therefore, United/United Express/Republic needed to COMMANDEER four of those seats from paying passengers for their crew.

    It is *probably* not the fault of United that Republic needed to move their flight crew. It is certainly not the fault of Republic that United sold all available seats onboard the aircraft. And there is NO WAY that ANY of this is the fault of the paying passengers that *expected* an uneventful flight.

    However, what your post above fails to address is the old, “what did they know, and when did they know it” question. When did Republic know they needed to move their crew? I mean, they know their plane needs a crew. They know the plane needs to depart at ________ time, and that the crew needs to there for pre-flight and all the rest, so they have to arrive _____ hours prior to departure. And since 3411 was scheduled to land at 8:04 pm, and the crew needed to depart the next morning, we can presume there was some issue of required sleep . . . I still don’t know why this wasn’t handled PRIOR to boarding.

    You mentioned this was a “replacement crew.” Why? Where was the original crew? Why couldn’t they make it as scheduled? Did all four suddenly come down with food poisoning, or something else — what prevented the original crew from performing their jobs as scheduled? Clearly, there are still a number of unanswered questions . . .

    You have repeatedly stated that UA has the least blame here, and — sorry — I do disagree. It is the passengers who are blameless here¹. And while you are quite right that an officer or officers of the Chicago Aviation Police overreacted and *appear* (from a legal definition) to be guilty of using excessive force, causing injuries to the victim that would result in (at a minimum) charges of battery if it were not a LEO that caused it, UA/Republic *does* bare their fair share of responsibility for the situation. Again, at some point, they knew that their employees needed to get to Louisville — why was this not taken care of PRIOR to boarding?

    Besides, UA is the public face of this incident. Not UA Express, not Republic Airways, and — for better or worse — not the CPA.

    Again, United is at fault in that, while the limit of compensation is capped by regulation, you say that limit is the maximum *required* — but nothing prevented UA from going higher, from offering more.

    Finally, there is the matter of Oscar Muñoz, who has only made matters worse — indeed, couldn’t have made things worse if he wanted to!

    There is NEVER any excuse for insults, name-calling, or racist speech — online, or elsewhere.

    _______________
    ¹ This is NOT a case of blaming the victim here, but the passenger in question does bear some responsibility (though less than UA, and certainly less that the CPA!) in that he refused to obey an order from law enforcement. No one knows how they will react in a certain situation, and I think certainly most people would always say that you do what a police officer says to do, and yet hundreds if not thousands do it every single day.

  122. @Gary As you try to defend the dubious legal grounds United used to justify their actions and policies, the court of opinion is already making a judgment- outrage on blogs, twitter, late night TV, Chinese media, and most painfully to United: the stock market. Would have cost a lot less than a half a billion dollars to cancel the next days flight, compensate the passengers more, or charter a private jet to fly 4 employees.

  123. Wasn’t there an American Airlines flight that left only one hour later or even later that evening? In any case, is United “too cheap” to put that crew or other passengers on that flight, or is that not allowed by some contract.

  124. To quote: “More importantly, United didn’t do it because Department of Transportation regulations set maximum required compensation for involuntary denied boarding (in this case 4 times the passenger’s fare paid up to a maximum of $1350). So they’re not going to offer more than that for voluntary denied boardings, especially since the violent outcome here wasn’t expected and the United Express gate agent had no authority to do more.”

    I’m a United 1K (for 7 years running now), and have always been mystified that the airline doesn’t do more to empower its staff. Certainly the airline has some of the blame here for not allowing their employees to do more to help passengers and negotiate their way out of a tough spot.

    Also, to reiterate other commenters, the maximum required amount is not the maximum amount allowed (which is infinite). Moreover, airline vouchers are useless to most passangers (including me). Cash, on the other hand, makes it worth your while.

  125. This is a silly defense of United’s position. The real problem is United’s (and Continental’s) longstanding indifference to their customers.

    There is a difference between what they are obligated to pay and what they are willing to pay and, in this case, they were unwilling to pay even the obligated maximum. You are a frequent flier (as I was for many years). Airlines will go well above and beyond their legal obligations to keep key customers happy. But United has long failed to empower gate staff to make these types of low cost customer satisfaction decisions. This is what they get for it. It’s why I stopped flying both partners to this merger long ago.

    And the Chicago police? The watch commander has discretion here. As long as the passenger was non-violent he did not need to get his folks involved in what is effectively a civil matter. I suspect he will be the next to be put on leave.

  126. I believe an error you make is to continue to treat this as an IDB situation. Those can only occur with an oversell (https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights).

    UA COC defines an oversell as “Oversold Flight means a flight where there are more Passengers holding valid confirmed Tickets that check-in for the flight within the prescribed check-in time than there are available seats” (https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx?Mobile=1#sec1).

    Since this was not an oversell, UA had no right to involuntarily force anyone off the plane. The crew for Louisville clearly did not have confirmed Tickets, and they cannot post hoc say the seats for the Louisville crew were “unavailable.” This also means that the DOT limits have no relevance. If they needed the seats for the next day’s operations to function, they HAD to do enough to get people to volunteer, however costly or inconvenient this may have been for them.

  127. @jason – I’ve said elsewhere, we agree, that (1) United’s IDB priority is not explicitly racist. The gate agent following that priority isn’t being racist. I’m not sure that Asian men are on average less affluent or buy lower fare classes, although elite status is held disproportionately by men vs women.

    There may have been an element of racial animus in the reaction by aviation police, but I have no way to know this so don’t feel I’m in a position to speak confidently about it. It wouldn’t just be speculation, but speculation without any basis.

  128. @Mike I believe it was a mistake for the passenger to refuse to get off the aircraft when the airline instructed him to do so, before the police were called.

  129. Obviously I’m missing something and it’s something I haven’t seen anyone state. If they had put the crew in an Uber, it would be a 4.5 hour drive. The crew would have gotten there long before the flights the next morning. Instead………

  130. Oh, and saying “denial of boarding is by a formula!” raises more questions than answers. Is this an actual list of priority involving each passenger, or are their “tiers” within which passengers sit? Maybe this passenger was on the bottom tier—I’d love to know how that was determined—but if he was at the lowest tier, who else was there with him?

    And, yes, it’s possible that others might resist. But, Gary, you’re a goddamned American. Your whole country is founded on Resisting Lawful Authority, and its most grotesque mistakes have been when it tells groups of people to sit down and obey their betters. That’s only exacerbated by the fact that the man’s a racialized minority!

    You’re presenting an American asset as a weakness, and it’s truly bizarre.

  131. @Fred —> Thank you for contributing such insightful comments to the discussion.

  132. @neil wilson – but the issue here WASN’T united selling more seats than they had available, it’s that they needed to then transport replacement crew for a flight the next morning so they didn’t cancel a whole flight on a plane full of other passengers

  133. Lots of interesting things I did not know, the unions and required sleep, the fact that they had not actually over-booked, etc. I think they first of all should have known how much they could offer and at least gone to that level, which they didn’t. Someone likely would have gotten off for $1,350. but they didn’t even try that before calling in physical force. And, yes, way too much force.

  134. @professorM – there were more passengers with confirmed reservations than seats available for customers. hence involuntary denied boarding.

  135. If this guy hadn’t refused and gone limp, as various Internet Warriors are asserting gives him the blame for all this, we never would have known that United was nickel-and-diming people with unacceptably low voluntary offers inevitably resulting into orcing IDB for a flight almost 24 hours later. Whether he meant to or not, this guy did everybody a service.

  136. I think it’s the victim-mentality coupled with a lynch-mob-mentality fostered by social-media. The feigned “OMG what a horror” and the internet’s ability to give anyone & everyone a soap-box to vent their self-perceived slights & injustices without having to know the truth or the detail.

  137. @ I don’t agree with you all the times but I am totally with you this time. You summerize what I want to say. It didn’t change the fact that United is a terrible airline.

  138. As a United 1K (for 7 years running now), I’ve always been amazed at how little United does to empower its employees. Certainly, they share some of the blame for not giving their staff the tools they need to de-escalate these sorts of situations.

    Also, as other posters have pointed out, implying that because the maximum required amount of compensation was some number, that United wouldn’t be expected to do more is false. It is on them what they decide, and the maximum required amount is irrelevant to that calculation. Finally, it is worth considering that the “compensation” in the form of airline vouchers may have a much lower value to passengers even than the cost to the airline, and therefore using cash in certain situations may be a much better way to get volunteers.

  139. So I’m a mere 100k/year guy, but I follow issues with policing fairly closely (friends with and train with a number of police officers), and for my day job I look at improving organizational outcomes and behaviors.

    I’ll flatly disagree with you on a number of levels.

    First, and most obviously, the $1350 payment is the maximum _required_ not the maximum _allowed_. Delta was just in the news for paying substantially more to a pax who was forced to miss several flights and then cancel out of a vacation trip.

    Next, if the issue is a potential time-out for crew over a 15 minute auction – it’s United’s (or their sub carrier’s) fault for cutting things so closely.

    Next, if United needs to move crew, I’d imagine that with some small effort they’d know that _before_ boarding the craft they needed to move the crew on.

    Finally, the airport police are either incompetent or wildly undertrained. Moving uncompliant people without throwing them around is a core officer competency, and while doing this in the confines of coach is tough (imagine if he’d been in a window seat), it’s certainly possible – and it starts by de-escalating the situation and working for voluntary compliance.

    This was a horrible miss by United Express’ team, and the Chicago LEO’s; your commentary on it is a miss as well.

  140. @Gary You don’t need hindsight to see that calling police to forcibly remove a paying customer from his seat for convoluted business bottom-line reasons won’t end well. Proper customer service would have found a way to make a solution with some passenger agreeable to both parties.

  141. United could’ve provided a car to the employees. It’s a 4.5 hour drive from Chicago – Louisville.

  142. Not sure I’m buying a number of points here.

    Point 3 – union contracts, if an airline were to offer staff a bucket load of money to be transported I’d a different way what is the union going to do? Complain that in an emergency situation United paid staff extra. Perhaps they would ask for a new “emergency clause” so future staff got healthy pay outs? Private contracts can be varied it just costs. Perhaps there was a regulation issue around journey/turnaround timing but you relied in “contract” for some reason.

    As for “United didn’t do anything out of the ordinary” that is a terrible argument. In other industries staff have done things they and colleagues didn’t consider “out of the ordinary” and staff go to jail and employers get massive fines. Normal practice is a very weak defence.

    Added to this the response of the firm (and the “convenient” arrival of negative irrelevant stories about the passenger) suggests the $1bn kicking the stock is getting may not be enough.

  143. It’s the passenger’s fault? Nope. Public opinion rules when it comes to matters like this. Poor planning and bad management is to blame. The proof will be in the loss of revenue. Inhumane treatment, a lack of passenger rights, and terrible PR are the main culprits. Finding excuses for terrible customer service is the norm these days.

  144. Someone could have made an “executive ” decision to raise the bounty. Even if it went against the rule book the consequences for rule breaking would have been a lot less than the mess United is now facing.

  145. Whilst it’s interesting to get an industry perspective on this, the article seems to ignore some of the fundamental issues:

    1. Why did United board passengers when they knew they would have to remove four. That action, taken after the crew became aware that there were no willing volunteers, created a situation where there was a good chance passengers might have to be removed by force.

    2. At what stage did United become aware that they would need a replacement crew on the flight and why was it needed?
    Was it due to a logistical error or a last minute emergency? Could pre-emptive steps have been taken? For example, why not try and contact passengers (via phone and email) to try and identify volunteers before they reached the airport.

  146. There have been times I’ve been on a plane when missing that flight would have had very serious consequences for me. Most of us have. Arriving a few hours before your father dies is one. Making a connection – plane, ship or land connection – that is totally time sensitive. Returning to caregiving responsibilities. Work – at home or away. Yes, somebody else could have gotten off instead of the guy for whom this was extreme hardship. Giving him a HEAD INJURY is simply inexplicable. But the kicker is Oscar saying this is all SOP at his airline – never again, United.

  147. I do not think it’s a good idea to let United staff come before customers. You create image that United’s own workers are more important than customers.
    Further, do not tell people to go off the plane, but prevent them from boarding altogether. Much simpler.

  148. This is yet another example in America of no one being empowered to override the policy manual. We see it all the time, particularly in retail situations or on the phone where the consumer is just flat out told “no” at a certain point instead of saying, Let’s see, how could we solve this problem? The policy manual here says 4 times the fare or $1350 and yet for some unknown reason they don’t even go past $800. Maybe that’s what the United policy manual says. The pilot could have stepped in and gotten creative but he/she didn’t. I blame United. As Trump has found in the health care debacle, it’s hard to take away something the consumer already has (in this case, a seat on board). You’ve got to make it worth somebody’s while. And a doc who knows if he’s not at work tomorrow he will at the very least inconvenience 25 patients who are maybe taking time off work to see him is not going to be tempted by.even $800. But go past that, and even on a weekend when a lot of people’s travel plans were probably already screwed up, somebody is going to take the money.

  149. I’ve been on flights that were overbooked and they asked ALL of the passengers if there was anyone willing to give up their seat for whatever amount they are offering. I have never been on a flight where they singled out a person as in this instance.

  150. Fu**k you Gary. Let that happen to you & your family then we will see how “Neutral” the views are. Your livelihood depends on airlines & related banks.
    #Never United.
    The Crew can go & fu**k themselves too.

  151. I haven’t read all the comments, but the regulation states the maximum *required* compensation and doesn’t (I think) bar an airline from voluntarily offering more than $1350. i suspect that the real problem with “offer them more” is that the gate agents (and probably their immediate superiors) didn’t have authority to go above the regulatory maximum, and that — under the pressure of time — they didn’t figure out who they should go to to get authorization.

  152. Putting the late-arriving United crew on an alternate flight with another carrier to the destination is of course the right answer: you simply DON’T force seated passengers to get off the plane if you can avoid it. Any combination of persuasion and money could have been tried (only United itself could possibly have limited the gate supervisor’s authority here—- what a penny-wise PR mistake). On another blog, someone said there was an AA flight available in an hour. In any case, Cincinatti airport is a short drive away, as are several other destinations; a union contract provides for a grievance to be filed, but does not stop management from ordering employees to take a given positioning flight and be prepared to work their schedule. Nobody at UA’s hub apparently has the authority or gives a damn enough to figure out the best solution, the one that doesn’t screw up 30 years of paying millions to message “Fly The Friendly Skies”.

  153. Probably the most balanced story yet on the issue. Regardless of any other problems, you never win by resisting the police and refusing to follow their orders. As to United, terrible airline, but not because of this story.

  154. One alternative I have not seen discussed–am I to believe no other airline was flying from Chicago to wherever the United crew had to go? This speaks mainly to the issue of why anyone needed to be bounced.

  155. I can think of one reason it is in the airline’s interest to offer more money than the amount required by law. When someone chooses to take the voucher, they’re usually pretty happy. They get thanked a lot, did a solid, and get a chunk of change. Plus maybe an upgrade on the replacement flight if they ask. At worst, they’re content and they won’t complain on social media or to their friends. At best they’ll praise the airline and come back. When you IDB someone, even if they get $1000, they’re going to be pissed. There’s some good reason they didn’t take the offered money. My guess is the PR cost is more than zero for the airline, especially when there’s a tiny chance something like this happens.

    I also don’t get why they couldn’t put the crew or passengers on another flight from a different airline (I guess Louisville doesn’t have a lot of evening flights to it?).

    Also, are the rules for compensation different if a passenger hasn’t been denied boarding but is thrown off after already being boarded? This doesn’t seem like “denied boarding”.

  156. United should keep four empty seats available on every flight in case they mess up again. Passengers are being screwed enough by the airlines to take this kind of abuse on top.

  157. No, just no! That article has so many flaws… this is not another side of the medal, it’s a poor attempt to justify their faults.

    1. Only in the US they can overbook flights (bump passengers for staff). Here it’s not allowed. If Airlines want to frequently move staff around free seats need to constantly be reserved for staff. This is the most customer unfriendly thing imaginable.
    2. The selection system is discriminating. Ppl who have paid the least for their tickets are told first to leave. Frequent flyers and business class will never be told to vacate their seat.
    3. When a flight is overbooked, passengers will be asked to volunteer to vacate their seat before boarding. It is highly unusual to ask a boarded passenger to leave. This shows very poor planning.

  158. the United Express gate agent had no authority to do more.

    That’s the root of the problem, in my opinion. When it’s a question of ejecting a customer or getting a volunteer, ops agents and gate agents should have the company’s blessing to go as high as they need to go. If nobody volunteers, cancel the flight and eat the loss. Tolerating passengers’ refusal to be ejected would ensure many repetitions of this scenario.

    Look for exactly these changes to policy.

  159. The voucher problem isn’t how much they offered, its that airlines have made vouchers all but worthless. They are nearly impossible to use, and are treated like frequent flyer miles rather than money, which is why no one takes up the offer. I’ve received vouchers from airlines in the past, and the process of using it is terrible. Giving a passenger a voucher is closer to offering them free frequent flyer miles than it is reimbursement/compensation.

    I get that there are technical issues to running an airline, but the fact that United keeps calling him a “volunteer”, when he didn’t volunteer for anything, but was rather being kicked off the plain for doing nothing wrong, is also a problem. Between the increased hassle with security and the worst treatment of customers by airlines over the years, flying is already stressful. Is it any surprise when it boils over once you start kicking customers off the plane?

  160. I’m a business owner. I lay out the rules for my people. I explain that if the rules aren’t followed, then they’re not rules at all, but guidelines, which is next to worthless. That said, I CLEARLY state that if someone sees a reason for an exception, just ask a manager, since managers are empowered to do what’s needed to stop or fix problems. That’s what any manager does. This ain’t rocket science, but apparently the concept is a little too complicated for United.
    As to Munoz’s “apology”, surprisingly enough, it’s a good bit more insulting than saying nothing. For someone who claims to want to improve the wretched United culture, he needs to own up, say that United screwed up horribly in many ways, apologize to the guy publicly, and actually try to fix the problem rather than point fingers.

  161. United knows it needs crews to operate its flights. It knows how many people its planes can hold. United filled a flight that it needed to transport a crew, thus, the plane was over-sold. This is an avoidable logistical mistake made by United.

    And then there are those violent cops acting as hired muscle for United, which was disgusting.

  162. Stop victim shaming,
    United was totally wrong
    In the future they should up the price until people deplain

  163. Gary – you continue to miss the point. Good lord.

    STOP with the technicals and regurgitating what “defines” overbooking. Here, let’s do some simple math: Total seats available on a plane = 150. Total seats sold: 150. 150=150 so not “overbooked” by the letter of your definition. Oh but wait, Total available seats suddenly is 150-4 = 146. You can do the math from here.

    Here is where you start making excuses:

    “United couldn’t have just sent another plane to take their crew”

    BS. You, me or anyone could call up a private jet in 15 minutes. It only takes money. STOP MAKING EXCUSES AND THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. You sound like the CEO – constantly spouting the “rules and regulations” and what could and couldn’t be done. Why couldn’t they book them on another airline? I’m sure you have a reason – but where there is a will, there is a way.

    “More importantly, United didn’t do it because Department of Transportation regulations set maximum required compensation for involuntary denied boarding (in this case 4 times the passenger’s fare paid up to a maximum of $1350). So they’re not going to offer more than that for voluntary denied boardings, especially since the violent outcome here wasn’t expected and the United Express gate agent had no authority to do more.”

    YEAH, this is the point – they did NOT go up to the max $1350. And you said yourself in a previous post that United could compensate above and beyond the legal max. Why do you think they didn’t do this? Why didn’t the gate agent have the authority to do more? Who sets the rules for what is allowed and not allowed? Uh, management. STOP MAKING EXCUSES.

    “The passenger who should have gotten off the plane when ordered to do so. It sucked for him and wasn’t his fault, but refusing airline and police instructions unless designed to provoke a violent response for media attention to promote a civil rights cause is a bad idea.”

    MY LORD – I AM GLAD YOU WERE NOT SITTING NEXT TO ROSA PARKS. HAVE YOU HEARD OF HER? THIS IS WRONG – THE MAN SHOULD NOT HAVE TO GIVE UP HIS SEAT TO ANYBODY.

    “But the situation itself lands mostly at the feet of the police, who appear to recognize this based on actions thus far.”

    You are missing the forest for the trees – and not focusing on the real SOURCE of the problem. You keep spouting off what should of happened given current rules and regulations – WHAT EVERYONE IS OUTRAGED ABOUT AND QUESTIONING IS – THE RULES THEMSELVES.

  164. Just another case of DYKWIA. It is being reported that he had anger-management issues and almost had his medical license revoked due to a drug related felony.

  165. Certainly United was to blame in many, many ways. But a greater share of blame rests with the law enforcement officer(s) who beat this passenger. We are in real danger of toppling completely into a police state…and this is just another example of authoritarian abusiveness.

  166. @nsx

    I agree – the real problem here is the culture at United. For many years now, through their actions and operating procedures (such as what is allowed and not allowed), United has prioritized money and profits and their employees, over customers. It’s very clear – read the letter from munoz – “employees followed established procedures” (who set those?) and “emphatically stands behind his employees”. The only mention of customers was calling the passenger “disruptive and belligerent”.

    The reason why the gate agent wasn’t empowered to do anything is because management set very strict rules that are financially driven and will produce the financial results they desire. The CEO is ultimately responsible for setting these procedures, which indirectly define the culture of the firm. You see this all the time in Wall Street banks – and companies like Enron. Do you think the big banks and Enron were done in by a couple rogue employees? No, it’s the CEO and management that sets the tone and it filters down.

  167. Gary – to all of the people criticizing you and saying they are going to quit going to your blog, I wouldn’t take it too hard.

    It’s commendable that you aren’t jumping on the emotional bandwagon of self-righteous victimhood, anti-corporate venom.

    As Andy said, “I think it’s the victim-mentality coupled with a lynch-mob-mentality fostered by social-media. The feigned “OMG what a horror” and the internet’s ability to give anyone & everyone a soap-box to vent their self-perceived slights & injustices without having to know the truth or the detail.”

    I come to your blog to understand the nuances of travel and airline management whether I agree with all of it or not. I value your blog because you don’t simply adjust your viewpoint to reflect the pervasive emotional sentiment that we can find everywhere else.

    Just one part of your post I don’t totally agree with:

    “United’s statements backing their employee, refusing to name the victim, or acknowledge that the police really did hurt him are deplorable.”

    Why shouldn’t United back its employees? The gate agents probably followed the book on this whether we agree with “the book” or not. They need to get the flight out as close to on time as possible. Change the policy if necessary but don’t throw your employee(s) under the bus.

    Why should United name the victim? Is it really anyone’s business? Did the victim ask for the world to know his identity? Did the victim as for the people who filmed him to blast his humiliating circumstances for the world to see?

    On a final note, it’s a shame that the people at United will suffer from this. It’s easy to see United as an evil faceless corporation. However, United employs over 80K people. The policies for dealing with too few seats for too many passengers is the same at all of the major airlines. One could argue that one (or two or three) gate agents could have done more, but one could also argue that the blame should be on the police officer for using excessive force. Also, there is no denying the fact the guy in question chose not to get off the plane when advised by the officer (and several other people earlier) that he needed to leave the plane.

  168. Yes, whenever the police ask you to do something, you should just do it. Agree. But why was the man seated in the first place if United knew it would have to kick off 4 people? That’s the main sticking point for me. Once passengers are seated, it just gets exponentially more difficult to get them off – which should translate to more and more money. I’m blown away by the fact that no one would take $1,000 (our news is reporting this was offered) for a one hour flight. My ass would have been off that flight so fast I would have left skid marks.

  169. @Gary

    You actually have one important thing wrong. DOT establishes maximum payout you are legally entitled to at $1350, but there is no law that says they can’t offer whatever amount they want to offer.
    United could keep raising the payout until someone was willing to take it. Not to mention, there are reports suggesting someone asked for $1600 and the GA just laughed at them. I think $1600 is little less than the 1 billion stock value United is estimated to lose today.

  170. Oh, so the guy should have obeyed orders? Screw that. A free country doesnt use the local police to attack people on an airplane. United screwed up and doesnt have the grace to apologise to the guy. They are arrogant scumbags, no one cares about their scheduling problems. Hope they are boycotted.

  171. Gary, it seems you’ve misrepresented yourself and your blog with this post. As ‘one of the foremost experts…’ and a ‘thought leader in travel’, you completely missed the mark here. However, that said, you came very close to getting it with this statement:

    “This is in no way limited to being a United issue, it’s endemic to American society and aviation as a whole. It’s a function of the growth of the security state in response to 9/11. We’ve come to accept it, and indeed we get it from the TSA day in and day out. Until that changes, incidents like these are likely to repeat themselves.”

    However, while being a security state played a role, the chief reason is that what is endemic to American society is capitalistic greed. American society is driven by the pursuit of wealth. Most companies and individuals sell their integrity to the devil for the sake of money. It determines motivation and behavior both of individuals and entire organizations. It’s a culture mindset. As a result, this passenger was forcibly removed and bloodied.

    UA, like every other corporation (and frankly all of us as human beings) need to some serious soul searching. We are in this TOGETHER. While you would waste time arguing ‘by law, UA has the right to…’, it entirely eliminates the fundamental business case of serving the customer in the best way so they will do repeat business with you. UA has abandoned these fundamentals in a disgustingly dramatic way, and you know that it is not defensible. The customers are saying ‘enough’ and you say, ‘but wait – legally you…’.

    Be a thought leader and think outside the box and look at things from a 60,000′ level – above where you typically fly. Indeed, we all should and if we want to change it, we all have to employ that change within ourselves and how we treat fellow human beings every day.

  172. @Gary: Why didn’t they just follow Pakistan Airlines and let the people stand in the aisle?
    How about offering their PetSafe animal hold?

    I don’t see anyone complaining about the couple that was bumped and got off the plane.

    @Craig Bamford: This isn’t the Revolutionary War. The inability to distinguish one point from another seems to run through the threads on this site and Lucky’s.

    The FAA should double down on this by fining the passenger the $25,000 maximum and seeking the potential year in jail. That would divert attention from United.

  173. Why did they suddenly not know they needed to transport 4 crew members until after the plane was boarded??????? It is completely unacceptable to do business this way. Now everyone is distracted by the victim’s sordid history rather than the fact that this is 100% a result of United’s poor planning and execution.
    Had they had their act together they would have bumped the 4 poor unfortunate passengers prior to boarding. The Aviation police would not have been called in to beat the hell out this guy. Yes… this is United’s fault. Had they done a better job of planning their resources and how to transport them where needed, this situation would not be a news item.

  174. Simply solution would be for a credentialed, licensed physician should be “opted-out” of an IDB list. Such information would have to be part of his passenger profile.

  175. the poor man was chinese… what if he were not fluent and did not understand why these officials were upset with him? and why this guy? could the officers not have moved on and chosen someone else with a better grasp of quixotic airline rules. i have no idea how long this man has lived in this couyntry, or indeed, was born here, but to someone new and with limited fluency, and coming from a different background – the posturing and verbal assault by police would ingender fright and paranoia. unless this is the desired outcome. well CEO oscar munoz certainly gets to earn his big fat exec bonus for this one.
    i’d avoid this airline completely until they “get” the message.

  176. @kelly

    Well said – spot on.

    Also interesting facts – these are from another “flight expert”:

    This wasn’t a denied boarding. The passenger already boarded and was in a seat that he paid for. United’s Contract of Carriage dictates when a passenger can be refused transport, and nowhere does it state that United can de-board you because it wants to fly its own employees. I bet United will try to say that the passenger didn’t comply with crew member instructions, but that is bogus — why even have rules if a flight attendant can decide, without cause, to kick anyone off the plane? I can see this passenger’s mindset that he had to get home and did not violate the Contract of Carriage, so he shouldn’t have to get off

    This wasn’t a traditional overbooking situation. According to the information we have, the flight was not oversold — United wanted to get its employees to Louisville to staff another flight. While it was in United’s best business interest to get them there, passengers should not be held accountable for the airline’s lack of planning. Frankly, Chicago is a United hub, and if it really needed to get employees to Louisville, it could have flown an extra plane to get them there.

    *I had completely forgotten that Chicago is not only United’s headquarters, but also a United HUB. THEY MUST have had another plane in the vicinity. GOOD LORD.

  177. Gary, I appreciate your perspective. However, in the time it took to summon the police and have the man dragged off after a confrontation, they most certainly could have run an auction for people to voluntarily disembark. Time wasn’t really a factor here.
    Moreover, citing maximum *required* offers for passengers only means that they don’t *have* to offer more. But in such a situation, surely airline policy should be for their staff to be *able* to offer whatever it takes to resolve the situation without violence and reputational disaster for the airline. There is a price at which they could have gotten *every* passenger to disembark, and certainly one at which they could have gotten one more passenger to volunteer. Instead, they resorted to violence and threats of arrest for non-compliance with an arbitrary choice.
    If it is not every airline’s policy to negotiate rather than brutalize or threaten with arrest, I hope this incident will teach them that an extra $10,000or free tickets anywhere is better value than a worldwide PR disaster costing the company a billion dollars in market cap and perhaps millions more in flights booked elsewhere.
    In addition, United’s tone-deaf response that it was the passenger’s fault that he was bloodied on their orders does nothing to help them. Attacking the passenger’s reputation and his biography when a flightful of other passengers can attest that he was brutalized merely for not getting out of his legally purchased seat, with some crying out for the officers to stop what they were doing, adds oil to the fire: “Fly United where brutality is followed by character assassination!”

    If, as you say, the crew was an emergency replacement, then it is clear they had to be on that flight. We have no disagreement there. But that is just more reason for United to have found a volunteer with the right offer. The fact that they didn’t *want* to pay more than *required* is irrelevant. They couldn’t get a volunteer at rate, so basic economics says, raise the rate. The further fact that their agents are not authorized to offer more is a fault of airline policy and rests entirely at United’s feet in this absolutely foreseeable situation.

    Thank you for taking the time to give us another perspective on this awful event. The bottom line seems to be that the airline was unwilling to do what it needed to do to keep its paying customers happy and decided that brute force was better. Their cheapskate attitude deserves every bit of ridicule they are getting, and every financial punishment the market can dish out, IMHO.

  178. Whatever reasons, explanations, or excuses you come up with, the fact remains that the optics on this are terrible for United and rightly should cause them a lot of damage. The passenger seems to not have the slightest understanding of what was going on. Most of us would be extremely upset to be dragged out of our seat and down the floor of an airplane to be tossed out. Despite what you write, Gary, people everywhere are going to see the videos and remember what a giant corporation did to a passenger who paid for his seat and expected, reasonably enough, to be taken to his destination without injury and humiliation.

  179. Odd that you say there’s no reason why an airline would go over the required IDB amount. My wife and I have received vouchers for $1,500 each for giving up seats. That is above the amount and we ended up being quite happy about the outcome.

  180. Wow-What about the lost productivity in this country with everybody and their boss following these blogs and social media coverage of this issue! Got to be in the $$$Billions.

    I am intrigued by the IDB vs Rule 21. I don’t know the answer, but I am not rooting for your ‘view’ on this Gary. Seems logical to me that Rule 21 would apply, but the law is frequently not logical.

    I too am on the side of, “Where’s your outrage, Gary?” Two further points:

    1. Police have hostage negotiators to minimize harm to even criminals in situations where they are not willing to give up. They try to talk them down off the ledge before storming in with laser sights. We ALL need to fight aggression by the police, they ALL need to be retrained to do no harm when no threat is present. The next victim could..rather will be us. (Sidebar: I am not involved in police protest politics and I voted for the Donald)

    2. You are not required to follow an order that is “wrong”. It doesn’t matter how much “You need me on that wall” (A Few Good Men, best scene in movie history), you are not required to follow an illegal order. This is a teaching moment, Gary, don’t let that slip by. “You damn right I ordered him off that plane”, doesn’t matter. He didn’t have to go. If it was IDB they never disclosed it to him in writing. If it was Rule 21 there were no grounds.

    Gary, please listen to the majority here, take a step back, what if it was your mother on that plane. They have no right to conduct themselves in that manner. It is a time for real change.

    If not, then I am sorry you may go from Thought Leader to Thought Loser.

  181. This is such a heartless and self-removed article.

    There are so many ways to make this situation better after what happened. Simply saying “well it sucks for him” doesn’t do anything or explain the situation further.

    For a white privileged man sitting at his desk and writing down “the real reason man get dragged off the plane” is quite astonishing.

    Imagine if this happened to your father, family or friends, would you able to sit there and write this article?

    Could really use some sympathy here.

  182. It is absolutely false to say “This was a tough situation all-around for which there were no good solutions.”

    It’s my understanding that the offer was an $800 *voucher* (good only for full-fare United flights), not $800 in cash. That, to be blunt, is ridiculous. Make an offer of $800 cash and the main problem would have been a stampede of volunteers… there were certainly at least four students/retirees onboard with enough flexibility to wait an extra day.

  183. The “logic” on this $1350 cap does not remotely exist.

    Just because some other system was going to limit the cap doesn’t mean you can’t exceed it on your own. Maximum “required” compensation isn’t some legal system that says, “You can’t bid people off the plane at a level above that.”

    I don’t even understand why you keep making this false point.

    There is obviously, on the other hand, truth that being empowered to exceed some level didn’t seem to be possible.

    Now ask yourself why.

    This wasn’t a “denied boarding” either, so again the comp stuff shouldn’t apply either legally or with respect to United. Instead, in this >extraordinary< circumstance of needing to remove people from the flight — which was 100% United's fault for selling seats they could not offer as they somehow failed to realize this was the only way to get a needed crew somewhere (Jesus, how can anyone even defend that?!?!).

    This was a "remove butts from seats" case, which essentially does not happen. And with one call to an empowered supervisor there was an easy, easy fix: Offer $1500 per seat to get folks off the plane. Do it quietly if you want, front to back. Do it over the PA if you think you can safely (I'm skeptical that's a good idea). Once you have the seats, ask the pax to quietly disembark, voucher them off the plane, say thanks and be done with it. Make sure you can go to $2,500 if needed.

    This takes so much time it will cost a slot? Well, um, FORCING people off the plane is not going to be faster even if you can skip the call to LE, the guarantee of angry people, etc.

    United owns this 100%. They own that LE went overboard too (yes, the police own that too, doesn't absolve United.)

    Rules here are not a defense for United. "Maximum compensation" drivel is not a defense for United. The passenger's non-compliance doesn't absolve United for a horrendous set of policies and operational incompetence errors.

    The good news? United will lose millions from this. Maybe more.

    And you know what? They deserve it.

  184. Wow, another apologist masquerading as a reasoned analysis. You really don’t get it.

    The reason that this video is so powerful is that everyone who has ever flown – be it once or 1000 times – can see themselves in the same position as the unfortunate passenger who was assaulted by Chicago PD on instruction by UA personnel. The passenger did nothing wrong, except for refusing to give up his seat due to airline incompetence. The airline did everything wrong. To pretend there are shades of grey here and equal fault is just ludicrous, as UA is now finding out.

    This situation reminds me of the outcry over the tarmac delay rule, which was the result of similar abuse of customers by airline executives who just didn’t get it. So I would not be surprised if we see new DOT rules on IDB or passenger removal. Once again the airlines will rant about how they need flexibility to deal with safety issues, but that dog don’t hunt.

    And you are 100% wrong about civil rights protests. Maybe you need to retake history to learn how Gandhi and MLK used non-violent protest to bring attention and action to their causes – a method that continues to this day. Certainly this passenger was well within his rights to resist being ejected from his seats, and I for one am grateful for his sacrifice.

  185. @Gary

    You keep saying this “didn’t happen because United sold too many tickets”

    Yet United’s own COC clearly states that Denied Boarding Compensation only applies in situations “when there is an Oversold UA flight”, with the definition of “Oversold” being:

    “a flight where there are more Passengers holding valid confirmed Tickets that check-in for the flight within the prescribed check-in time than there are available seats.”

    So please, continue to spout this did not happen due to overbooking….

  186. @Jon
    Thoughtful comments. Yes I am glad Oscar stood up for his people. They were not the ones dragging the man down the aisle. In fact the gate agents may not even known what was happening. To those United haters I understand United has a ways to go to prove itself but of the 80,000 employees a large majority want to do the right thing and I am sure this incident was painful to watch. To those who insist on calling the crew “United Employees” miss the point. They were crew and as such mission critical. Ask the 70 people waiting in Louisville for the crew to show up. Mistakes were made and yes blame to go around. At the end of the day regardless the victim should have complied. When a police officer stops me for even a minor traffic infraction whether my fault or nobody’s fault I still comply. I realize to do anything else will end badly. Go on and hate United for whatever they “did’ to you 20 years ago but the reality is that they are trying hard to correct the past. They really do care about the customer..

  187. this could have happened with any airline. unfortunately it didn’t. All of the airlines use the same protocol. Protocols are developed over time. It’s time to modify the protocol.

    When the problem arose, rather than call the police (who acted like gestapo, much like our current ICE offcers today), they should have simply deplaned the entire plane and worked it out in the gate area.

    Additional passengers could have been injured for no good reason.

    of course Gary defines the problem directly as well. The police go straight to full blown escalation when their ‘victim’ is a person of color. In this case their victim was Asian.

  188. I agree with your analysis, and now that we know that the flyer was a convicted drug dealer who plied patients with narcotics for sexual favors, I am likely to believe his behavior was erratic and most responsible for the incident.

  189. Bottom line–when asked to get off the plane…he should have gotten off the plane….just like when the police pull you over and ask you to do something—-just do it!

  190. Doh! There are other carriers that fly to wherever this crew needed to go.
    Airlines do that frequently for each other. Why not this time?

  191. Gary Leff, if you don’t already work for United, you should receive compensation for this post.

  192. @FFlyer – while JetBlue doesn’t oversell their cabins, their rate of involuntary denied boardings skyrocketed last year BECAUSE OF EQUIPMENT SWAPS that meant they had fewer seats on flights than planned.

  193. Really? This whole article is bull! Stop defending the poor airline for the allowed abuse against a senior citizen! Greedy!

  194. Gary–

    I’m seeing a lot of talking past each other. People are saying the situation should have been resolved before boarding, and you keep saying back that the gate agent found out about the situation after boarding, so they did what they had to do, right?

    There’s some point at which one can learn about a situation like this after which it’s just too late and the airline (and the crew, and the passengers on the flight from Louisville, etc.) would have had to just suck it up and deal with the fact that the crew couldn’t get from Chicago to Louisville that day. Presumably if the plane had actually taken off, they wouldn’t have turned it around, right? I imagine once it had actually pulled away from the gate would also have been too late.

    This week, we learned that United Airlines thinks that after a passenger has physically boarded the airplane and taken their seat is not too late to involuntarily deny boarding to that passenger. The absurd phrasing and apparent inability to recognize that the emotional impact of that on the passenger is going to be much greater in such cases (I have a very hard time imagining that this man would have resisted to the point of police involvement before boarding the plane) is what people are finding so outrageous about the statements from various hapless United execs.

  195. The required IDB compensation shouldn’t cap what United offers volunteers. No IDB is a good situation. Going forward, this will really be the case–United and all airlines are going to be under a microscope–for awhile at least.. They should offer what “United funny money” it takes to get volunteers. Especially with United, peaceful, happy volunteers will be ‘priceless’—ignore the accountants because they don’t want more problems like this. Similar problems will cost more in the longrun.

  196. So anyone, at any time, can be ordered off a plane they have boarded–with a valid ticket and seat assignment–at the whim of the staff, and can be violently expelled if they don’t comply? This is the case regardless of whether they have done anything to violate the terms of service and even if no illegal activity has occurred? The staffing needs of the airline come first, per airline policy–not by any law– and government agencies can be called in to enforce private corporate policy with the full force and and authority of the police, up to and including violence?* Is this about right? Somehow this is supposed to make us more sympathetic to United?

    Yeah–it’s not working and, frankly, apologists for this obscenity should really consider getting a moral compass check up.

  197. The story is inaccurate and misleading. United does not have the right or standing to remove passengers once they have boarded. The doctor did not warrant removal under rule 21, nor did he need to follow the order of the flight attendant. I predict he will settle out of court but I will not fly United again unless the CEO is fired and they change their practices.

  198. The less-than-gentle gentleman was reported to be Vietnamese, not Chinese. Also, reports, if accurate, say his license to practice was under suspension so his claim / calling out he had to see patients the next day was BS… unless he was seeing them illegally. Most certainly, the police were not ‘gentle’ … way too much force was used. Most certainly United screwed up on many fronts. A total lose, lose, lose situation all around.

  199. Gary Leff is obviously an expert on mileage points, per his bio. His attitude towards the passenger’s rights, or lack of them, shows he knows nothing about humanity or compassion, only corporate policy.

    Leff: “I’m just glad he wasn’t accused of disrupting the flight as part of a terrorist plot that sort of thing can happen in confrontations like this.” WTF? This sounds like a threat of future airline positioning.

    Wanker.

  200. If police tell you to get the fuck off the plane, you know what you should do? Get the fuck off the plane. Tired of the whole pity me victim bullshit.

  201. I hope much-needed changes to the system are being formulated now based on the situation. Had the man not been bloodied and the video gone viral, the event would have not had enough momentum to effect change, to wit, United would have gotten away with the event until something like this happened. Sometimes civil disobedience is required to effect change. We have a long, unfortiunate history of that here in America.

  202. First and foremost the United gate agents could have diffused the problem without calling security. Escalating a problem without trying all options is dumb, lazy and unpredictable. If you have to officially bump passengers for $1350 should have asked for volunteers. There’s a big difference between the last $800 offer and $1350. The real undercurrent here are gate agents with little respect for passengers and an Us vs. Them attitude from the CEO on down.

  203. I find your analysis misleading. Just because United can not be forced to pay more than the maximum statutory compensation does not mean they can not do so voluntarily. If they cared about actually providing decent customer service, they would up the compensation till they got volunteers. The whole it ‘takes too long’ to offer compensation is a red herring as it also takes to time to forcibly remove a passenger.

    The operational incompetence that led to United having to deny service to 4 paying passengers is 100% United’s fault. The tone deaf response of the CEO is 100% United’s fault.

    As for the union contracts, as I customer, I don’t care what your labor issues are as the vendor. That’s your problem as the vendor. Perhaps United shouldn’t have agreed to the contracts. Again 100% their problem.

    The denied boarding compensation limits should be abolished. Airlines shouldn’t be allowed to deny boarding at all. If they oversell seats, they should be forced to buy them back from passengers at market rate which is the rate needed to convince a passenger to give up their seat which might be $10,000. In other industries, we avoid this problem by not selling things we don’t have.

  204. That doctor was a fool. There was no reason for him to be so belligerent. All that screaming and fighting, for what? Just because he was going to have to take a later flight? I fly for work all the time and flight delays, etc are just part of the deal.
    Its a shame it got violent, though. I personally would have announced that the flight could take off as soon as the passenger left the plane. The other passengers would have eventually turned on him, and he would have deserved it.

  205. Three reasonable, rational people got off the plane when asked—-the fact that this one individual created a problem for himself is his fault alone! There were other ways he could have handled himself and expressed his issues without resorting to defiance and childishness.

  206. You may be well informed but are completely missing the point of what people expect when you buy a ticket on an airline and then are allowed to BOARD THE PLANE. Expecting that gentleman to go quietly when the airline sold him the seat THAT HE IS SITTING IN is ridiculous.

  207. Love the fact that so many Americans would not dare to talk back / question a cop or even a private security guard. Seems the land of the free is actually full of scared pussys.

  208. limiting losses is in fact “maximizing profits” – it’s all one figure in the end – they were thinking bottom line and not customer care. Period. Having said that I’m glad you at least addressed the overall rise of the security state – that’s at the heart of the problem.

  209. Three others took the offer and walked off the plane. $800 plus hotel. He brought this upon himself. A real loon!

  210. Wow…well, I am going to comment on the initial, now deleted, posting you wrote which was mainly based on victim shaming and attacking that poor man. I learned all I needed to know about Mr. Leff’s moral compass when I read that piece. The fact that you deleted it…shows a small glimmer of hope that you can still separate good & bad.

    Now after deleting that one you put together this weird “can’t we all get along” kind of apology tour for United. Seriously, we all saw that the handling of the situation was wrong on multiple fronts, the most obvious and low-hanging fruit is blaming the police…it should have never gotten to that point. I am curious why the flight crew was not more empathetic, trying to work with people, regardless of the dollar amounts offered. Some people can fly another day, some can’t/won’t…force is never right. The human thing to do would have been to LISTEN to the person and work with him or at least understand where he is coming from and what his needs are. Kicking him out under these circumstances was horrible and I hope everybody down from the Captain (who is responsible for his flight crew) and Police (they at least took immediate action) will be reprimanded. Special shout-out to the moron who prepared United CEO’s public statement…time to look for a new job in PR….re-accomodate..what?

    Your whole thing of being glad he didn’t get a terrorist charge for interfering with the flight crew…wow…I mean…wow….good job introducing a non-related tangent.

    I think you have revealed yourself as an Airline man…through-and-through…which used to be something I actually looked up to with my Dad working 40 years in the Airline business…you however, have no ethical compass (or it is being severely messed with by your personal interests) and are just another privileged person looking down on problems the plebs are having.

    What I still don’t quite get is why they just didn’t simply went down one more row and asked somebody else…why pick on somebody who obviously feels extremely strongly about his right of transport.

    Anyway, you used to be part of my homepage tabs…that’s it…I don’t need your kind of “analysis” or questionable reasoning anymore.

    Reflect and re-consider…perhaps by putting yourself in other people’s skin & experiences for a bit….

  211. This article perfectly describes everything. I wish that everyone who said “they’re not flying united anymore” would just read this article.

  212. For poster Aj, he was in violation of the policy he agreed to when he bought the ticket. It wasn’t security that kicked him off the plane. It was actual police. He was disobeying a lawful order. I have a brother thats a cop and he talks about this attitude all the time. This is the same ridiculous stuff you see everywhere on Facebook. You see the last half of a video where somebody is getting pounded, but not the first half where they’re given ample opportunity to comply with a lawful order.

  213. I understand that this so called “Doctor” has previously lost his license for trading drugs for sexual favors. I doubt he needs to rush home to tend to his patients’ needs anymore as he won’t have many patients now wanting his services.
    But I do enjoy all the rush to judgement pundents who love to blame the capitalist pig companies for putting profits over customers. He is not a victim, just a perpetrator who put his needs above all others.
    Need to now go book my next United flight…

  214. Well then United’s operations must be a mess pretty regularly. I flew back from Belize in Feb. There were no less than four pilots in the passenger section.

  215. The law states the maximum that the airline is *REQUIRED* to provide, but does not forbid them from making an offer that exceeds the $1350 amount. Given that their stubbornness cost the shareholders over $1 BILLION this morning, the smart business decision would have been to he offered a significantly higher amount. IMIR, the highest offer they made that I have seen was $800, which is not even the maximum *REQUIRED,* so the airline can hardly be said to made a serious effort. On top of that, after the legging lap a few weeks ago, how could management have been so blind to image – from the gate supervisor through the incompetent CEO?

  216. “He should have just got off?” He paid for a ticket and was on the plane. His part of the contract had been met, paid his fare, got through security without incident, not told he might not be able to fly prior to boarding, and was on the plane as instructed ready to go! Just because United had a poor organizational setup where the crew wasn’t on a plane they should have been, is no reason to pull this man off. I hope he sues the shorts off United, and gets millions for his injuries and insulting disgraceful abuse by United and the Airport police. It is not his fault that other passengers might be disrupted if a crew could not board, that’s United’s problem and they handled it horribly! The lack of remorse by the CEO is inexcusable and he should be fired. This airline relies on customers for its success, and it should also be judged by its behavior to customers. AWFUL!

  217. This incident informs the general public, but folks that write or blog about the industry, or who travel frequently, are not surprised. Its a natural consequence of the way this industry operates.

    Readers of this blog may not be lawyers, but have seen many examples of airline excesses in the management of airport operations and marketing programs. Significant frequent flyer program changes that dramatically reduce the value of one’s earned points are highlighted on these blogs, but ultimately we must surrender to the airlines.

    Efforts by a collection of attorney generals in the 1990’s to establish meaningful policies for airlines to follow, such as sufficient notice of changes, but the airlines consistently defeated such attempts by falling back on the federal government’s sole an unique role as the only legal regulator of the industry.

    The feds essentially relinquished its regulatory role after the dissolution of the Civil Aeronautics board during the Carter administration, which set in motion a chain of upstart airlines, bankruptcies and mergers that resulted in the today’s airline industry.

    In a political environment where new regulations tended to be looked upon with disfavor, the status quo is maintained. Yes courts have ruled that the lack of federal interest in these matters does not mean that other governments can pick up the slack.

    Almost 40 years have passed since the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. It may be time for a bi-partisan review of the airline industry’s practices.

  218. He had trouble follow medical laws also, and lost his license for a while,

    This guy is going to be trouble for everyone..

  219. It isn’t a matter of being a “scared pussy,” it is having an educated and rationale mind. The day we start ignoring direction from police, fighting back and resisting is the day we meet our maker—oh, I forgot, that is happening a lot these days and is so easily avoidable. Idiots!

  220. @Michael @Bill

    That is irrelevant. It could of been you, or me. So your opinion on what is “right” depends on who the person is? Next you’re gonna say he deserved it because ______? Hmmm, that line of thinking doesn’t sound right, does it? Sounds more like prejudice to me…

    Either way, United was in the wrong.

  221. It’s simple ask someone else to get the fuck off the plane you guys have no logic at all.

  222. Let’s get to the real point here people. NO ONE GENUINELY CARES ABOUT THIS WHOLE THING. People just want a reason to fight a big corporation. Know what’s gonna happen? It’s gonna end up being made fun of on late night shows and talked about on the news. United is gonna make tickets cheap and people are going to fly united because it’s gonna be cheap only ones that are actively gonna “protest” them are this man’s direct family and network of friends.

  223. A good legal analysis: http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/united-cites-wrong-rule-for-illegally-de-boarding-passenger/

    “it appears that United is seeking to blame the passenger, claiming that when asked to give up his seat, he acted belligerently – and citing a rule which requires that passengers obey the orders of the flight crew. But, such a requirement applies only to orders which are lawful. If, for example, the flight crew had ordered two passengers to fight each other for the amusement of the other passengers, or to take off all their clothing, the passengers would not be required to comply, and their forceful removal could not be based upon refusing to follow unlawful orders.”

  224. Sally Smith: Not resisting unjustifiable demands of police: You mean like the national hero, Rosa Parks?
    Also, Jayse Anspach, a passenger on UA 3411 (and the videographer) was an eye-witness to the incident. He says the couple originally accepted the offer UNTIL they learned the flight on which they would be rebooked did not depart until [approx] 3.00 p.m. the following day. That seems important information to me in assessing the entire incident.

  225. If it was your Mum or Dad you wouldn’t even have contemplated writing this tripe. I think you need to come clean and tell us your real relationship with United……

  226. For those complaining about denied compensation perhaps people should not be allowed to double book flights or no show and not cancel. Overselling flights is a response to the irresponsible practices of many consumers. Airlines still offer a tremendous bargain for transportation and if you don’t believe me next time take Amtrak or Greyhound. people in general love to complain about airlines, hospitals, automobile manufactures, the government and other industries and institutions but seldom do they actually think for example about what it takes to get an airplane up in the air, run a hospital, or make a car . There are a lot of moving pieces and when they don’t always work properly we complain. I get that. Many times poor management, unhappy workers, ill designed processes and other factors rightfully put the blame at the feet of the company in question. Most modern day airlines get this and work hard to improve issues that are cause for customer complaints. This however seems to be a case where the agent was left with decision that would undoubtedly leave some customers unhappy. Since this is time sensitive process they couldn’t run it up the chain of management to get a completely error free solution. The truth is just because you pay $200, $300 or even $1,000 to fly from point A to point B you aren’t guaranteed to get there exactly as booked. Even more if the airlines cannot deliver they are not legally obliged to do anything other than refund your ticket. You don’t own the airline, airplane or the seat. When you rent a car or book a hotel room likewise they may well tell you that the room or the car is no longer available. Regardless if you have paid in advance. That said the airline does not want to create ill will and will try to go out of their way to ensure they don’t. For those that side strictly with the traveler you should ask yourself is his response/behavior consistent with an adult (a doctor no less). Also please remember those dragging the man down the aisle were airport police not United employees. They are trained to handle noncompliant airline passengers. Everyone should take a step back get the emotions out of the mix and seriously thank the airlines in general for making modern travel easy, quick and reasonable. We can argue about comfort perhaps but todays flights are loaded with entertainment, wifi and other perks. Also think about how you would respond if the police asked you to comply regardless of the situation. If you say I will fight them then I feel sorry for you.

  227. I will personally be sure to never fly on United Airlines again. That is the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen.

  228. I am not aware of any law that restrict UA to offer more compensation in this case. They are asking someone to come off the plane, spend a night at an airport hotel and delay arrival for 24 hours. They need to pay more.

    UA has no incentive to negotiate fair compensation in good faith, as long as it can hide behind IDB rules. To stop this from happening, IDB rules in this country should be brought in line with Europe.

  229. Maximum required compensation is not the same thing as maximum allowable compensation. Implying that it’s so is poor analysis. It is also a poor excuse for not escalating incentives.

    Worst of all, this article deflects attention from the fundamental problem. A man was assaulted and injured over a civil dispute. An airline had a guy roughed up for not wanting to give up his seat. And, before pubic reactions, the airline thought that this was ok.

    It is not ok.

  230. To those who insist that somehow this was a racially charged event or that somehow this guy is on par with Rosa Parks (for the love of Pete!) I say you are simply silly and really part of the problem. I am sure that United is working hard to ensure this doesn’t happen again. However to make this guy out to be akin to the next civil right martyr is a bridge too far. Like I said it is absurd. He bought a ticket not the airplane or airline. Yes he was going to be inconvenienced and for that the airline was willing to pay $800 a ticket, plus hotel, plus meals to compensate him. Of course they were still going to get him to his final destination. My god, does he want? Yes I admit it appears that the incident could have been handled better but since no one on this blog were there to witness it I doubt we know exactly what led up to this guy getting a little crazy about missing his flight. Since we do know that he has a criminal past related to drugs and was recommended to receive psychological counseling isn’t possible that he over reacted to the situation and may well be partially to blame for some rathe4r bizarre behavior?

  231. Why not replace the crew that was operating the flight? Then buy sme time for another crew to get to where they need to go? If this were the last flight out, overnight the new crew and have them deal with the reworked schedules somewhere else along the line?

  232. “Not every customer service situation is a crime.” That is the most significant take-away from this post. Well stated Gary. The airline business seems to have spiraled down to the level where every customer service situation can be considered a crime.

  233. Gary – I don’t mean to pile on here – you obviously straddle the line for a living – and do a very good, useful and entertaining job of that. If I were you I wouldn’t try to carry United’s water on this one. Hell, they’re not even trying to do that for themselves at this point. Technicalities aside, there is no excuse for what happened, much less for their handling of it

  234. “The real solution here is to change the culture of law enforcement in aviation. As soon as there’s even a misunderstanding between passengers and crew, that can trigger law enforcement. The assumption is that the passenger is always wrong, the airline backs its crew, and there’s tremendous risk to the public. Not every customer service situation is a crime.”
    Good point, however the culture at United, Delta, and American Airlines is unprecedented in how poor they are compared to any other airline in the world.
    They just plain suck. Air travel just became alot riper for competition from a company who know how to treat its customers.
    And here’s a thought. How about picking someone other than a doctor who had a hospital call the next day.

  235. It seems if United had approximately $5,400 to spend (on its employees’ travel) –based on the amount it could have offered the passengers to de-plane (based on a maximum of $1,350 per de-planing passenger) United could have found its employees a private plane to fly in (one -way) to Louisville and alleviated the whole scenario on the plane with the violent removal of a passenger.

    The fact that the “law allows” United to do what they did, is debatable. What they really did was to commit an assault and battery, with perhaps some false imprisonment thrown in for good measure, by forcibly removing the passenger they way they did it. The airport security personnel were certainly United’s “agents” in the matter.

    Most of the rest of us (consumers) do not do and would not do everything the “law allows” us to do –especially when it would inconvenience another human being in a very tangible way, so the fact that United has some “legal right” to ask passengers to de-plane because of its over-booking and scheduling conflicts, leaves me with a very dissatisfied feeling particularly since many of us (including myself) have enough anxiety already about airports and airplanes in general and our
    specific flight and seating arrangement in particular.

    This was simply bad form on United’s part and a poorly executed re-shuffling of passengers. It should have also been handled in full prior to the boarding of the plane —-not after everyone was seated. How much education (from non-airline professionals) does United need to do things in a humane fashion?

  236. Gary, your attempts at whitewashing this behavior is disgusting. Beating up a passenger it absolutely out of the ordinary. And you clearly seem to value union contracts way more than “fly me to my destination contracts” for which the passengers paid for in full.

    The passenger had an assigned and paid-for seat and he should correctly NOT have left it. The other 3 who have left their seats should not have done so either. If United made the mistake of boarding to many people they should own their mistake. The gate agent could have used his phone to ask his supervisor for permission to offer more money. The term “maximum required compensation” states explicitly that MORE could be offered, just not that more is required by law.

    The only reason I can think of why you are so staunchly defending this behavior is that you know that you will never be ejected yourself because of your frequent flyer miles or business contacts. Which makes your whole post even more reprehensible.

  237. You are aware that this guy was 69 years old and is still hospitalized as a result of this right?

  238. passengers purchase an expiring commodity, a ticket for a specific flight. If they don’t show up for that flight the ticket should expire but instead the airlines make arrangements for other flights. If passengers showed up for the flight they purchased a ticket for the airlines wouldn’t have to oversell seats.

  239. I talked to many people who said they absolutely would have taken the $800 voucher, so I find it hard to believe that those were offered to everyone – I suspect a breakdown in communication on that issue. Secondly, I read that the airline could have chartered a flight for their crew for $20,000. That seems a steep price, but not as pricey as this backlash will be.

  240. United stock lost 240 million today and will lose a lot more in the coming days. I’m sure the doctor is planning his retirement with the lawsuit he’s about to win.

  241. @Carolyn Actually he is Vietnamese not Chinese and has been here for decades and works as a doctor, so yes the asian guy speaks english. He has a checkered past that the media has been digging into, but that seems totally inappropriate of the media since it has nothing to do with what happened on that United flight.

  242. Sally Smith: “Three reasonable, rational people got off the plane when asked..” Good God, this is the most ridiculous comment here. What choice did they have? It was walk off or be beaten and dragged off. We know for a fact that they didn’t think a crappy voucher was sufficient compensation for leaving the plane, otherwise they would have taken the offer before it was forced on them.

    The closet authoritarians (or United shills) are crawling out of the woodwork here. “Do what you’re told”, even if the only reason they’re forcing you to do it is that the airline is too cheap to come up with a couple grand in real cash compensation.

  243. The entire way that situation was handled was brutal and the tactics used were like those of Hitler’s Gestapo. What the hell is this world coming to? I hope that doctor sues for millions. I’m sure the top personal injury lawyers in the country are already circling for a big payday.

  244. @Bill –

    “That is irrelevant. It could of been you, or me.”

    It would NOT have been Gary. He has status with United. Would they have ordered a first-class passenger off? Of course not. Does anyone believe this was random in the sense of a lottery among *all* passengers? Of course not. As in all aspects of the aviation industry, we all know the lucky entrants in this “random” lottery were the people who United doesn’t mind inconveniencing. The people who wait longer in the security line, board last, and the airline does everything in its power at every turn to communicate “you’re not important.” Even if you tell me that some independent auditor was there checking the lottery and even the first-class passengers had an equal chance of being bumped, the fact is that the whole airport experience creates a haves and have-nots feeling, and people are sick of just being shafted and gouged. You would not see something like this on Southwest, where there is a culture of communicating with people and trying to treat people basically about the same. Sure, you can status or buy your way to a higher boarding position, but even if the person who bought the cheapest seat can log in 24 hours before departure and get a pretty good place in the queue, and even for that lowest-priced passenger in, there’s no change fees, no checked-bag fees, and the same smile and “can I help you approach.” When I want help at United or Delta their first question is “what is your status?” At Southwest, people don’t enter a transaction with the sense “this airline is trying to gouge me for everything they can get.” You’re damn right United should have kept upping the ante until somebody said “sold.”

  245. So you are stating that the airline had more need to have the 4 crew on the flight to fly other flights in the morning so that countless others wouldnt have their travel plans postponed. This man is a doctor who stated he had patients to see in the morning and could not have his travel postponed til the morning. To me the lives of other is greater than the travel plans of people. He is a pulmonary doctor which deals with the heart for those who dont know, I think that trumps getting people to their vacations on time, after hearing his valid concerns for missing the flight perhaps the manager should have taken that logic to attention and excluded him from the process. So much back tracking on this its unbelieveable, first the chief of chicago police releasing a statement that the man was treated for injuries to his face after falling down while being escorted off the flight by police then remaining silent once video evidence is released that shows this forced removal of the passenger. I wish there was video of the supposed belligerence of the passenger before the authorities were called, which im surprised there wasn’t when the world documents everything these days.

  246. Another shill post on behalf of the multimillionaire dictators that run the airlines.

    A while back, airlines wouldn’t stop imprisoning people on the tarmac voluntarily, it took regulation to make them do. Heck, they even paid shills like you to write pseudo babble articles saying that the world as we knew it would fall if regulation prevented airlines from imprisoning people on the tarmac.

    What we need is to Make America Great Again and give citizens RIGHTS, ban overbooking — which has no business reason to exist, as Southwest, Hawaiian, Virgin America etc. attest — and give citizens some rights.

    Airlines have shown over and over again that they’re abusive without proper citizen protections.

  247. This too shall pass.

    However, it does provide the idea for a winning reality TV show. Each week offer a completely free flight between major destinations. However, the conditions of carriage insist that one passenger will be selected randomly for a videotaped beating to be placed on the airline’s YouTube channel. Lots of good options for a catchy name for the show, too.

    I would be more likely to book United if they PROMISED that all passengers that refused orders to leave the plane would be beaten up.

  248. I understood everything you said about what a difficult situation United was in. IT IS STILL UNITED’s problem, not the passengers. If United has problem managing it’s personnel to be where they should be on a timely manner, that is United’s incompetency in human resource management, not a paying passenger’s fault. Your arguments simply aren’t good enough. Why should anyone in the right need to comply to an unreasonable demand? We resonated because we all can see ourselves defending what we believe is right. Yes, the aviation police’s tactics are deplorable but they are acting on United’s behalf. United rightfully deserved every bit of blame it has gotten. The aviation police department will have its comeuppance once United is dealt with. We as consumers do have choices not to be abused by an airline that puts their interests ahead of ours. If United is so bad at managing their human resources so that planes can’t take off without putting someone in the hospital or resorting to tactics like this, I’m sorry to say, many of us will not trust our future travel plans with a company like this.

    I also find your article to be completely contradictory to itself. One one hand you try to justify and defend United’s behavior yet on the other hand you warn that episodes like this will likely to repeat if nothing changes. We are outraged and we demand changes starting with United. We are sending a message that this is not tolerable under any circumstances and we better not see a repeat. We did not come to any wrong conclusions on anything; bottom line, it is United’s responsibility to manage their human resource, not us, so don’t trouble us, the paying customers, with their internal problems and incompetence.

  249. This is all so elementary. When any person pays for a good or service, then he/she has the reasonable expectation to have that good or service. The man paid for his seat and wanted or needed to get to his destination just as urgently as this other crew. To even defend these actions flies in the face of human decency. Perhaps the airline should work on some sort of airline pool they can draw from in such an emergency. Poor planning on their part should never spark an international incident.

  250. It’s not about the fact of the max amount allowed by law for involuntarily removing someone because you need their seats…United (and ALL airlines) should NEVER have to get to the point of involuntarily removing someone from a flight, especially to accommodate employees. They should offer enough money to get VOLUNTEERS to give up their seats. I would imagine when they hit a couple thousand dollars, more than four people would’ve given up their seats. Do the right thing and take care of the paying customers.

  251. If they hadn’t tried offering the maximum amount of money they could have offered to induce a passenger to sell his or her seat, they certainly should have done so before calling in law enforcement. That should have been the very minimum requirement for their behavior. They are guilty not only of causing Chicago police to assault an innocent person, but of using public resources (police officers) as their own private security force in order to save a few hundred dollars.

  252. Allison Palmer: “I talked to many people who said they absolutely would have taken the $800 voucher”. It seems to me a couple of factors are relevant: firstly it was a Sunday night and the next flight was 3:30 the next afternoon(!), and the second is that an $800 flight voucher isn’t the same thing as $800 in cash…. vouchers have restrictions and are a pain in the butt, while cash is not. Everyone values their time differently, but speaking for myself I certainly wouldn’t have accepted the voucher… in Canada the rule is that a voucher is only worth 1/3 its cash equivalent and that seems about right to me.

  253. First of all, it’s airline spin to call this an overbooking. The statutory provision granting them the ability to deny boarding is about ” OVERSALES”, specifically defines as booking more reserved confirmed seats than there are available. This is not what happened. They did not overbook the flight; they had a fully booked flight, and not only did everyone already have a reserved confirmed seat, they were all sitting in them. The law allowing them to denying boarding in the event of an oversale does not apply.
    Even if it did apply, the law is unambiguously clear that airlines have to give preference to everyone with reserved confirmed seats when choosing to involuntarily deny boarding. They have to always choose the solution that will affect the least amount of reserved confirmed seats. This rule is straightforward, and United makes very clear in their own contract of carriage that employees of their own or of other carriers may be denied boarding without compensation because they do not have reserved confirmed seats. On its face, it’s clear that what they did was illegal– they gave preference to their employees over people who had reserved confirmed seats, in violation of 14 CFR 250.2a.
    Furthermore, even if you try and twist this into a legal application of 250.2a and say that United had the right to deny him boarding in the event of an overbooking; they did NOT have the right to kick him off the plane. Their contract of carriage highlights there is a complete difference in rights after you’ve boarded and sat on the plane, and Rule 21 goes over the specific scenarios where you could get kicked off. NONE of them apply here. He did absolutely nothing wrong and shouldn’t have been targeted. He’s going to leave with a hefty settlement after this fiasco.

  254. Seriously?! How much did United pay you to write this stupidity?!! This is the most stupid thing you wrote, “United should have just kept increasing the denied boarding offer passengers didn’t willingly get off at $800, they should have gone to $1000 (would that have made a difference?) or $5000 or $100,000”. $100,000 is going to pennies on the millions United is going to lose in court never mind customers. I pay $10,000 to $20,000 is excess baggage fees for my production company every year and 10 times that amount in plane tickets. Are you suggest United couldn’t afford to go to $1,000. If they went to $1,500 people would have been fighting to give up their seat. This will result, as it should, in Congressional action. You my friend should find another line of work because anyone that trusts you, shouldn’t!

  255. United caused a passenger – a doctor who himself had obligations to patients – to be sent to the hospital because it decided to use force rather than pay for a private flight for its crew. I hope they get sued into financial bankruptcy the same way they have devolved into moral bankruptcy.

  256. Same thing as resisting arrest. Done deal. I’m sorry but where were you folks brought up to not respect Law enforcement like you do. Police told you to do something, do it, or expect some harsh consequences. This guy may be a nice guy, I don’t know. But he defied police orders, sorry but that’s that. Did he deserve to be beaten, probably not, but he was going to be removed either way once the police were there. Doctor smarts should of realized that and gotten the %$@* up. This guy will sue and get a nice hefty settlement to shut him up, probably a free flight card for anytime with United so saying he won’t fly United again is probably false. Are sue happy society and crappy liability laws are just another problem our society faces along with folks not respecting Police orders whether they are wrong or not.

  257. Does anyone know what happened to the other 3 passengers that were kicked off the flight? Did they get the $800 credit and vouchers or was it just tough luck for not volunteering?

  258. Gary is obviously in the airlines pocket. In my experience customers with status or with corporate travel departments behind them never get ‘randomly’ bumped.
    Shame for assaulting an innocent passenger.
    I hope he sues in civil court and would love to be on the jury when it comes up for damages.

  259. Same thing as resisting arrest. Done deal. I’m sorry but where were you folks brought up to not respect Law enforcement like you do. Police told you to do something, do it, or expect some harsh consequences. This guy may be a nice guy, I don’t know. But he defied police orders, sorry but that’s that. Did he deserve to be beaten, probably not, but he was going to be removed either way once the police were there. Doctor smarts should of realized that and gotten off. This guy will sue and get a nice hefty settlement to shut him up, probably a free flight card for anytime with United so saying he won’t fly United again is probably false. Are sue happy society and crappy liability laws are just another problem our society faces along with folks not respecting Police orders whether they are wrong or not.

  260. Gary,

    You STILL have not provided a relevant answer for how this was legal.

    You brought up two straw arguments in your defense:

    1) “broken seat discovered”– Red herring. A broken seat is a SAFETY issue, and a crew member is allowed in that example to have you comply with a safety-related issue. There was no safety issue here– flying a crew for a later flight is an operational issue it’s not a safety issue for purposes of the current flight.

    2) You can’t see the forest for the trees on what “boarding” means. Having a ticket scanned and sitting on a plane is “boarding”. This was not an oversold situation. United tired to add employees after this gentlemen and you have still not cited a situation where they had a legal right to remove him BEFORE he boarded the plane which was AFTER United had the normally long-list of reasons they could have done so in an IDB situation– once he legally boarded there are different and fewer reasons they could kick him off. By your absurd example, the plane could have taken off, turned around, and a passenger be IDB’d. Plain English context is your friend.

  261. I have also worked for a large, international airline (now long bankrupt/gone due to their own idiocy/inefficiencies…and good riddance) and while the author of this article feels compelled to be United’s unappointed apologist (maybe he thinks they will gratefully pad his frequent flier account?) by saying “United didn’t do anything out of the ordinary”, this much is true…because most larger airlines have a seniority-based crew/staff that are very beaten-down, not very vested or even interested in doing their jobs anymore. Had the agents been remotely sympathetic and competent, then a) this ENTIRE issue of the 4 needed seats SHOULD have been resolved before the passengers boarded the plane to avoid such scenes. They could have chosen the 4 unwilling passengers, taken their boarding passes and prevented them from boarding; easier to stop a passenger from boarding than to make them exit. b) the author forgets that both the passengers AND THE CREW could have been “reprotect”ed on COMPETITOR airlines to get them to Louiseville. Why didn’t United do this? Because of course it costs them money, and they are all about their bottom-line. Lastly c) Back to the compensation, yes, carriers are limited to the maximum amount they can offer….BUT THEY DID NOT OFFER THE MAXIMUM! If they did, this entire episode may not have happened. Once again, this comes down to the bottom-line and the lackluster, ineffective attitude of many (most?) airline employees working for larger corporate airlines. And as someone who has been boycotting United since 2008 for an entirely SIMILAR treatment, I can vouch that United is probably the worst airline operating in the US with regard to how they treat their employees AND their passengers.

  262. Except United Airlines didn’t oversell the flight. The crew members came to the gate after the flight was boarded with confirmed passengers, saying they needed to get to Louisville. At that point, United acted beyond their Contract of Carriage by removing passengers involuntarily. The aforementioned contract says that crew are not considered passengers, “an oversold flight is one where there are more confirmed passengers than available seats,” and the CEO of United clearly labeled the four UA individuals as crew members in his letter to the AP. So if it wasn’t an oversold situation, what rationale did they have for removing him from the flight?

  263. I only wonder why this situation was not handled BEFORE the plane was boarded. Before everyone was in the seats they paid for. Why not handle it at the gate? US surely knew ahead of time that they needed to get those employees on that flight.

  264. You are to close to the airline industry. If “aviation”police dragged a rider out of an uber we would be horrified. Who do they think they are. Thugs with a badge. We is the mediation, reasonable communication. United is apsolutly responsible. I will not fly united if there is ANY other airline available to my destination. Ralph

  265. If the airlines officials had offered the allowed $1350 voucher I bet there would have been more takers than they needed! My husband is 69 (the same age as the passenger dragged off the plane) and has a heart pacemaker and other health issues including high blood pressure and a seizure disorder. Dragging someone his age off a plane could have been fatal! It is not only abuse… it could also be considered “elder abuse!” How did they know if the passenger had any medical conditions? Now his name has also been dragged through the media mud with all kinds of allegations which have nothing to do with his being physically assaulted after having purchasing a ticket in good faith expecting to be able to go home! Disgraceful!

  266. Fuck those guys that took him off. He doesn’t deserve to get treated like that. Why did they not choose someone else.

  267. One often wonders, what would Gary do in a situation like this. Then we realise that Gary would never be put in this position. The way he is defending United in this, makes it appear that he is getting some form of compensation from them. Of course, till Gary comes clean, we wont know either way.
    As an ancient Indian sage said “He who flies at the front of the plane is God, he who flies at the back is to be beaten”

  268. Trash of a situation, trash of a corporation, n trash as much seen over the past few decades of power hungry lawless police n politicians. Not all. But there is so much political corruption n police corruption it sickens me. Most stories are kept out of the press. N my mind this man being a physician who may have a life or death situation on his hands to save a life refused to give up his seat. Why not ask another passenger then to violently attack the man to the point of him saying ” just kill me”! Really? This nation which I’m born and raised values is going to shit. Money n corporate power is all it is now. People values yeah whatever. Founding fathers would literally if they could turn over in their Graves. This is not the country that they wanted. Sad so sad.

  269. If he was a white dude nobody would say a thing about this incident. Also, if cops tell you to get off a plane for any reason, you get off the plane. I suppose he could have been targeted for being Asian, but who knows. If that’s the case then folks should get fired. By the way, this bizarrely behaving sociopathic creep was probably high when it all went down. Bottom line, I could care less about his bloody lip or the overreaction to this video. Get over it folks.

  270. I think this man behaved like a child.

    Lets put this into perspective, if someone asked to have dinner at your home and offered to buy the groceries, you say yes, the day of the dinner comes and they arrive with the groceries but something has come up and you cannot cook them dinner, …does that person have the right to refuse to leave your home, become belligerent so that you cannot deal with your issue? Your spouse or whomever else lives there says please leave we are sorry something came up we will cook dinner for you another time, the person refuses to leave and you are forced to call the cops to your own home, the cops ask the person to leave and they refuse the order of the cop and the officer is forced to drag this person out of your home, …. Who’s wrong??? You, for not honoring your deal to cook, your spouse or family member for also asking them to leave, the cop who asked him to leave, …OR is it the person who is being unreasonable behaving as if only their wants and needs matter. People are losing perspective, everyone believes they are the MOST important and life should cater to them. GROW UP!

    This man was fine with everything going on, he didn’t have a problem with the first people being asked to leave who did, he felt superior and had a problem when his name was called. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Get up, force them to make other arrangements even if it means switching carriers (they can do that) and let life go one. He thought nothing of the other passengers, the passengers on the other end, the people connecting. All he cared about was himself, and I am sorry I have never heard of a Dr. not having another physician covering his case load while out of town. This was for attention and I believe at some point he saw dollar signs.

  271. @Al – you made several very good points.

    @Gerald – United didn’t beat up a passenger; a possibly overzealous police officer did. Please research your facts more thoroughly.

    @mjs – Are you a lawyer who specializes in transportation law? If not, then please don’t tell us what constitutes “boarding” from the perspective of an airline. I would trust Gary and his knowledge of how airlines run more than you. He has demonstrated his knowledge on countless occasions. Just because he chooses to be rational doesn’t make him a shill or sell-out.

    @Allison – Were you on the flight or were the people you asked on the flight? If not, what’s the point of telling us what your random sampling of friends/acquaintances said they would or wouldn’t do for $800?

    @DarrenX – What is a “closet authoritarian?” Is that someone who hides his authority for fear of being outed? If so, I find it abhorrent that you would call Gary anything of the kind!

    @Royce – absolutely right, no one does really care. They just want to join in the lynch-mob hysteria because they are jealous of the CEOs and other execs who earn a lot more than they do. Unfortunately, they fail to take into account the almost 100,000 employees of United who are trying to earn a living like the rest of them. They vow not to fly United because a passenger got forced off a flight and was horribly man-handled by a police officer. It’s too bad they aren’t as concerned with multi-nationals that wreak havoc on the environment and harm people all over the world.

    @Robbo – my mum or dad would have listened to a police officer rather than delaying a flight and being forcibly dragged off a plane.

    @Joel – Have you had experience with running an airline and crew scheduling in particular? Perhaps the airlines should just have private planes as part of their fleet to pull out of any hub to facilitate crew movement. I’m sure the $5,400 chartered plane could have been there within the hour.

    @Emily – The airline had the guy roughed up? Seriously, was the gate agent a mafia boss who asked the cops in his precinct to take care of this passenger? I’m sure United really wanted to hurt a passenger, and they also wanted the PR nightmare that has ensued.

  272. This whole thing was avoidable. The guy could have complied with police and airline direction and got off the plane. Bad on United for not having their act together and having enough seats but this guy acted like it was his God-given right to be flown from Chicago to Louisville. That plane was not his and any company can deny you service with a full refund. This guy got screwed but it was he that threw a tantrum and escalated the situation.

  273. Garry,

    Just as Munoz made a judgement error, you made one writing this article too. Your last paragraph correctly summarize the real cause of the incident. Unfortunately in the rest of the article, you seem to come across as apologist for United. United could have easily gone to 1350 and that would have taken 10 seconds. If they could not put crew in uber then at least they could have offered to put IDB pax on uber. But your badly written article did bring out some really idiotic comments and that my friend why police state now exist in US.

  274. You wrote…

    “Department of Transportation regulations set maximum required compensation for involuntary denied boarding”

    This is just plain wrong. An airline can offer whatever compensation they like. There is no legal maximum. You haven’t read the regulations properly.

    What the rules say is that an airline has to offer the maximum before they can IDB a passenger. So an airline can’t force a passenger to give up their seat unless they’ve already offered the maximum to entice a volunteer. Nothing in the regulations prohibit an airline from offering more than than that amount in order to avoid having to IDB.

  275. I COMPLETELY AGREE with everything started in this article, and I have been communicating my agreement to everyone I speak to about this.. And BOY am I getting called all kinds of things for it.

    I AGREE: bottom line- this man should have complied- AS WE ALL HAVE TO DO AT TIMES- and deplaned! I feel he was asking for a scene when he continually refused to get up from his seat.. Even when security came..

    United is great, and I have NEVER EVER SEEN ANYTHING BUT POLITE REQUESTS FROM ALL UNITED CREW!

  276. So what do I do when this happens to me? We’d like to think the marketplace will discipline any outfit that treats people like this, putting them at the mercy of cops trained to deal with violent criminals. But this is not a competitive market. More and more each year, each carrier is an oligopoly in its markets, with a hammerlock on routes, gates, and all of the advantages a smiling DoJ can confer upon mergers that suppress market dynamics. Even the conditions in the standard carriage agreement could be challenged in court as a contract made under duress.

    Not saying there’s an alternative. Only that public policy ought to impose special obligations on a business to the extent that we give it a free pass from competition. Until it does, I’m going to act just like United’s victim when their goons try this.

  277. What about the other three passengers who had to vacate? Did they vacate before or after the incident? What was their compensation?

  278. This is a welcome article, with a level-headed analysis. Thanks for not further hyping the drama.

  279. It’s very simple to book a small plane or rent a private plane to send the replacement crew alternatively, but stupid UA didn’t, their arrogance would ruin their business. Nobody could guarantee not to happen again unless federal government punishes such rampant behavior

  280. The passenger who should have gotten off the plane when ordered to do so. It sucked for him and wasn’t his fault, but refusing airline and police instructions unless designed to provoke a violent response for media attention to promote a civil rights cause is a bad idea.

    Seriously? This is disgusting.

  281. Wow–corporate apologist much? One huge omission. While it may be true that United wasn’t able to offer more than $1350, THEY DIDNT EVEN TRY OFFERING THAT MUCH!!!! They stopped at $800. And some witnesses said the initial offer came attached to a pretty bad attitude. People are less willing to accept “offers” when they sound more like “demands”. United has a HORRIBLE corporate culture that comes from being allowed to be a near-monopoly on some routes. Yes, the police actions were ridiculously disproportionate. But your willingness to basically let United off the hook is similarly ridiculous.

  282. I have to scroll down so far to write this comment but I did anyway. “It sucked for him and wasn’t his fault, but refusing airline and police instructions unless designed to provoke a violent response for media attention to promote a civil rights cause is a bad idea.”????!!!! You seem like someone who likes to provoke a violent response for media attention too so I hope one day this happens to you.

    And wow, such a useless, and poorly researched article you wrote my friend and also so thoughtless when saying that nothing could be done to prevent this to happen in the future. “Running an airline is hard” Tell me about it!

  283. Gary Leff

    Your attempt to appear rational failed. One major flaw on your line of thinking: how do you expect that the passenger would know his rights if the airline never provided him with a written explanation? My guess is that the FEDERAL regulation addressing this exists for a reason. It is very telling how you FAILED to address that point. Needless to mention the countless opportunities where companies take advantage of costumers EVERY DAY. How would David Dao have known that the airline’s agents are acting on good faith? Should we take Gary Leff word for it? That is the EXACT REASON Gary Leff that the rights MUST be provided in writing to the customer by the airline before moving any further. With written proof of the rights the customer can go to the attorney if the customer reads something that doesn’t comply with the provided rights and/or if the rights themselves end-up being fake/bogus etc. The fact that the police is being sent IS NOT PROOF that the airline is acting properly, or you are going to tell us Gary Leff that over the last century we never heard of a situation where the courts have sided with the customer and have even imposed criminal charges on police officers for siding with the corporations that violated consumer rights? There are other flaws on your argument. I strongly suggest to continue your education. Your point of view is clouded possibly by personal bias. That I am not sure, however I am sure that you need to go back to school. It should be obvious to a person with a sound mind that given the circumstances you can fault everyone but the customer. Rational people know that calling police is a recipe for disaster. You only call police if there is an actual violent act or a big crime being committed. In other words Gary Leff you need to understand that there are risks involved when calling police. Police interaction with the public is a wildcard as decades of news and events have demonstrated this many, many times over. It is obvious that you don’t understand that part. Any sensible person is mindful of this. You don’t call police to expedite or facilitate your job.

  284. Do you have a financial gain or support for writing this bullshit. I wish that you or your father or son got beaten up and dragged out the airplane like an animal corpse.

    Fuck you. go to hell with United Airlines..

  285. Maybe I missed it but no one seems to mention or comment on just why the 4 crew had to go on that particular flight. Is it common for airlines to not have enough crew in any particular city? I feel that once passengers BOARD an aircraft, its settled. Their bags are loaded and they fly. To ask anyone to leave once they have boarded is so silly. Bags must be unloaded, the particular bags of the affected passenger(s) must be identified and the flight would be delayed further. I think the problem really started at the crew level. Someone doing the schedules of the crew must have &%$*ed-up and called 4 crew in Chicago and expected 4 innocent passenger to give up their flights for this mistake. It went downhill from there.

  286. Understanding the dumpster fire that this situation is, I am curious about one point. There are FAA rules regarding ensuring the identity the person in each and every seat. Once they begin seat assignments when issuing boarding passes I understood that no further changes were possible or permissible?

  287. @Steve Not only are you correct, the airline had not offered the passenger the amount of money it was required to pay him for bumping him to a next day flight! They were offering him less than they are lawfully obliged to give him, and yes they can bid up the price. This blog is just trying to defend the indefensible.

  288. The gook doctor should have complied with the flight crew. Instead he fought with police and got what he deserved.

  289. I don’t understand why they were allowed on the plane in the first place. They had to have known they needed extra seats for crew before boarding. I would argue that once seated and baggage stowed, that spot is yours. If it was truly a very last minute need, then it is on United to fix. Find another crew that can get to Louisville, use another airline, etc… how did they get to the point that this was the only crew that could go to Louisville at this precise time? And if they did work themselves into this corner, then explain it that simply, offer the full benefit and ask for assistance from the passengers. I think they would have gotten their seats. This incident lies fully with United.

  290. Your article is talking about “Denied boarding”. This man….and everyone else, was ALREADY BOARDED ONTO THE AIRCRAFT!!!!!! The time to take care of oversold flights is BEFORE you board the passengers!!! Did the gate agents NOT KNOW prior to boarding that there were employees that needed to travel…..or did they just come along at the last minute? United….get your shit straight BEFORE you begin boarding the aircraft.

  291. Finally some common sense. The fault lies 90% with the man who is disobeying his contract with the airlines by not getting off the plane. He has inconvenienced everyone else by not following the rules and he is the primary person to blame for the fallout. I disagree they used excessive force. They used necessary force to get this nutter off the plane. Yes, it seems unfair your were boarded and then forced to get off. Grow up and follow the rules like everyone else. I hope the airline sues him.

  292. This incident had many possible outcomes that could have been less traumatic for everyone involved if the airlines has done their due diligence, however they did not and now face a tremendous backlash caused by their own actions and inactions. While the author of the article maybe knowledge about business travel etc.,I did not see anyplace in the article mentioning the options all airlines have to get personnel and equipment, parts etc., from one airport to another without displacing paying passengers. Airlines have always had in place a means of getting pilots, co pilots, mechanics, attendants etc from point a to point b. This includes flying them on their own commercial flights, flying them on corporate jet, flying them on competitors flights, or even ground transport. While each comes with its own set of positives and negatives, bottom line is they usually base the decision on what mode to use on what is most expedient and least costly to the airline. While this on the face of it appears to be sound business basics 1010, if they were truly concerned with customer service they would also consider the impact on the passenger/passengers they displace to accommodate their flight crew. You can’t tell me this was done in this instance. No, this decision was for the convenience of the airline and that flight crew without consideration how it impacts their customers or those who witnessed the removal of the passenger from the flight. You can not tell me that there were no other flights from Chicago, a major hub airport to the destination airport that would have gotten the flight crew to that airport in plenty of time for the flight they needed to operate. I don’t buy it and the public shouldn’t either. As long as there has been commercial airlines there has been working agreements between airlines, yes even competitors airlines to move people and parts etc to help each other out. Of course the decision to utilize these options is usually based on one factor… Cost… Sadly it seems that it’s the flying public that usually end up paying it.

  293. Gary, you are the Wall Street Journal of the travel industry. When something complicated happens, I know I can count on you for a thorough, detailed, well researched, well thought out and well written synopsis of what happened. You met expectations again with this article. Don’t let those that leave negative comments have you believe otherwise.

  294. “More importantly, United didn’t do it because Department of Transportation regulations set maximum required compensation for involuntary denied boarding (in this case 4 times the passenger’s fare paid up to a maximum of $1350).”

    But the incidence clearly took place AFTER boarding. He wasn’t denied boarding. So that does not apply in this case. United should have settled the overbooking issue at check-in.

  295. @Anand Krishnan – they were flying in replacement crew for a flight, so they didn’t have to cancel that other trip (and travel plans for a full load of passengers)

  296. @Bikeguy:
    Well researched? Are you kidding me? Well, except that basically he got all the facts wrong is is probably well researched?
    – Gary claims United could not have offered more – absolutely wrong
    – Gary claims United offered the maximum amount – reports say they did not even do this even though they seem to be required by law to do this
    – Gary claims United had the right to remove the passenger – the lawnewz.com analysis clearly says they did NOT have the right to do so!

    @adam:
    It really is not important if you beat someone up yourself or subcontract this job out to someone else. United did NOT have the right to remove the passenger (because he was already boarded he could not be “refused boarding” for the normal reasons) and used force do illegally do this.

    Gary, it’s really amazing what mental gymnastics are possible when not understanding that beating up a paying customer is wrong is necessary to get your paycheck. Thanks for showing us this amazing feat.

  297. Am i the only person, that thinks not enough info?…..yes we see him being dragged out….but not enough info…? Why…..he may be a Dr but he can still be a normal person having a breakdown?….Im told he wanted to fly because of his duty …something not right….here?
    The footage of him saying kill me might be shock…or something else….i need more info

  298. What I found the most amazing about this post is that A LOT of what was claimed in the post has been disproven and 100% directly contradicted by witnesses. Yet the author does not seem to care to correct his mistakes. Just like corporate culture at United does not admit mistakes and calls it “re-accommodation”.

    I guess this very post and the “re-accommodation” letter were written by the same lawyer. Or the author just subscribes to a post-fact world and therefor is not even feeling guilty about spewing falsehoods…

  299. @Gerald – I do not claim United couldn’t have offered more, just the gate agent couldn’t and that the airline wasn’t legally obligated to offer more. The ‘lawnewz analysis’ is incorrect and one of the author’s colleague’s sides with me on this 😉

  300. The Transportation Department says airlines must “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.” – For those who have been pillorying this man for refusing to give up his seat, how was the decision made? Also please note the rule above says “gets on” not “gets off”

  301. Can united book their crew, or this Dr. Dao, onto an AA/DL/WN flight the same day?

    Also, i think 4x up to $1350 is low, make it 8x and $3000, I am sure there will definitely takers. This will be in FAA’s hand I guess.

    As a physician of any kind, his one-day work will worth anywhere from 1-10k, compensate for $800 will never cut it.

  302. Arms flailing, feet kicking like a child throwing a tantrum. He could have injured himself easily.
    The police were there to remove him, not to debate. The more he fought them off the more
    physical they had to be. Hard to remove someone out into a 18-24″ isle with seats in front and behind. No place to have a officer to hold him by each arm and escort him out when he is being combative. Lets face it, if he was in China he would have left out the window!!
    He should have left the plane and contacted his lawyer, the airlines etc., not hold the rest of the passengers up. Pretty please, pretty please, and the passengers and the plane would still be there today

  303. Dear Gary Leff,

    You yourself wrote an article about the family making $11000 from Delta Airlines when flight to Florida was delayed and now you trying to cover up that United is justified in not offering more than $800? Even if the United Airlines were to raise the compensation to $1350 (they would have enough volunteers, they did not go more than $800)

    Please quit your job if you cannot be honest. Shame on you!

    You make it so obvious that you get paid by United for writing this biased article. And if you have not been paid for writing this then it’s your ego writing this not you! You are probably trying to show us how smart you are!

    Delete this article if you have respect for humanity!

    Please find the link below which exemplifies how Delta Airlines paid $11000 to a family for a delayed-flight compensation.

    http://viewfromthewing.com/2017/04/11/family-made-11000-getting-bumped-delta-watch-a380-spray-storm/

  304. No. I disagree. United does NOT have the “right” to overbook a flight or to “bump” someone from a flight.

    Yes, they can do that “legally” – but that is only because they (and other lobbyists / Airlines) have rigged the “rules” so they favor the industry over the consumer. In any other venture, knowingly selling more than what you have to sell is called, “fraud”. Some airlines, sadly, have made that part of their business model.

    Once someone purchases a ticket – THEY OWN – that space and time.

    They paid for it. They control it.

    You can spout “rules” and “fine print” all you want – but that is what we consumers pay for when they purchase a ticket. People click a button and buy a ticket – they don’t hire an attorney to read through 20 pages of fine print and negotiate a contract. It’s a fairly simply deal – Airlines offer a service and sell a time and space to get somewhere – and when customers buy it, and often plan their lives around that decision.

    Anything in the “fine print” is just corporate legalese designed to rig the system against consumers.

    None of us who ever boarded a plane got a chance to “negotiate” the terms of our contracts – we rely on the government to do that for us and to protect us – but what has happened is that Airlines (and other large corporations in other fields) have manipulated that system to their “legal” advantage.

    Mr. Leff argues that this action was necessary for the airline because not boarding their employees would have caused all sorts of problems down the line; flight cancelations. other consumers being inconvenienced, and perhaps “Union” problems if the employees were driven instead of flown to their destination – blah, blah, blah.

    My question is – so what?

    Failure of a business to plan properly does not constitute a legitimate reason to commit assault, and fraud.

    Using thugs (dressed as police officers) – (and BTW thugs we the tax payer pay for so that Airlines can make more money as opposed to hiring security guards on their own dime) – to enforce their rules should be punished.

    Make no mistake, this is ONLY a “police” situation because Airlines have managed to convince people that they deserve their own police force and we – the taxpayer – should pay for it.

    This customer was not their illegally. He was not violent or disruptive (before they started an altercation. Their is no reason to involve “police” at all.

    Mr. Leff implies (passive-aggressively) by his writing that this was perhaps “designed” by the passenger to be some sort of “civil rights” show. He might believe in corporate authoritarianism, but I am pretty sure this man did not board this plane thinking, “Oh, Gee. I hope I am asked to leave – I won’t do it – and then I will get to be beaten up and be able to make a civil rights point.”

    The mental gymnastics required to follow this train of thought is perhaps worthy of a Gold Metal.

    People make plans and have agenda’s based on their purchasing and paying for a ticket.

    Airlines make money from this service – and they have an obligation to perform this service to a high standard which at the minimum requires they meet their obligations.

    So what if people cancel at the last minute? The seat is already PAID for.

    I own a dental practice – people cancel at the last minute all the time. Sometimes you have empty seats. That’s called “business” – and you can charge people a “cancelation fee” if they know about it up front (My business does not – because it is bad business – but Airlines can and often do). If someone doesn’t show up on time for their flight, then perhaps you can accommodate people who are on standby (and if you do – the person whose seat you resold – SHOULD – get a refund), but you cannot throw one person off a plane who has already purchased a ticket and shown up.

    Of course Airlines and huge corporations have money and power – and they have rigged the rules so they can “honestly” claim they did nothing “illegal”. Mr. Leff claims that the Airlines are CAPPED at offering $1350 per ticket compensation. Really? Who wrote THAT rule?

    What?

    We the consumers woke up one morning and said, “Gee – we need to make sure that airlines don’t ever have to go out of pocket TOO much to pay for their fraudulent behaviors…” (Just in case you think that these rules are “fair” and were written with consumers negotiating for their best interests – this should clear that issue up).

    Airlines wrote the rules. Certainly no one from United will go to jail for their crimes here. The industry has made sure of that.

    This customers only recourse is a civil suit, which he should pursue IMHO – because if I were on a jury and heard this case – United Airlines would be owned by the person they treated this way.

    Every stockholder should lose every penny they invested, every employee should fired. After a few of these types of incidents – corporations and Airlines would learn to respect their bosses – the consumers.

    Sadly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the corporations have laws in place to cap such damages.

    Again, make no mistake – there ARE Airlines – which do not do this type of thing.

    United could have had more employees on stand-by, and other planes available. They could have upped the compensation until someone gave up their seat (They did not even offer the maximum they could have under their own “laws”) – they could have offered their employees compensation to take an “Uber” above and beyond their “Union Contract”.

    United Airlines is not some “mom and pop” operation (which, ironically, would have been completely destroyed by this type of incident) this is a multi-billion dollar corporation which decided to drag out a paying customer – not for a security issue or any other reason – except for it’s bottom line.

    With great power comes great responsibility – and the power to manipulate laws, use the police as private security guards, and commit fraud and deception on a daily basis – should be gravely punished when it does not serve the general public.

  305. I thought there used to be a partnership among airlines, and the crew could have just flown on another airline in the jump seats.

  306. The guy should have complied when asked to de plane. He should have manners especially since he is a doctor. It is said that he already had gotten off and then got back on. If he didbthis, he boarded illegally the 2nd time he got on. I have no sympathy for him. He was stubborn and got what he deserved. He should have been arrested for getting back on.. He trespassed.

  307. Great article. Very objective. I agree fault lies with the police but since when has a police officer or agency ever owned up to the mess they make. Sorry for the heat you took. Again, very good article here

  308. I call attention to your comment “involuntary denied boarding”. That is not what happened. He was boarded and took his seat. Hotels also face overbooked situations and deny customers with reservations from occupying a room. However, consumer protection laws make it illegal for the hotel to evict the guest from a room once it is occupied unless the guest is doing something wrong and inappropriate. Airlines should not be allowed to use their legal muscle given to them to maintain safety and security of passengers to impose arbitrary changes once a seat has been given to a passenger. They should have denied boarding and if they did not, deal with the business consequences of their mistake.

  309. According to a TV report this morning (Wed, Apr 12) United lost $250 million over this in the drop in its stock. Hope they are satisfied with that result. It always pays to plan ahead, which obviously the airline didn’t do, so things got way out of hand. Most businesses fail to plan ahead in a lot of areas because they have feel they have the power and the right to do as they please. In this case, that high-handedness was very obvious in their treatment of this man.

    It seems to me that the airline forgot that some people who travel by air not just for fun or for the hell of it. Some people have business to attend to. The doctor told them he would not leave his seat because he needed to make it to his destination so as to see his patients in the morning. The airline apparently didn’t care what his plans were and didn’t make any kind of judgment as to whether he had a valid reason to stay on the flight. Why was it so important to remove HIM? Couldn’t they have at least attempted to lure another person off the flight????

  310. @Neil Schubert I’ve addressed this elsewhere but that’s a mistaken read of the regs, involuntary denied boarding rules don’t stop when a boarding pass is scanned or a passenger crosses an aircraft threshold, it’s what covers a situation when there are more passengers with confirmed reservations than seats available.

  311. I’ll skip over the parade of authoritarians.

    “They had to have known they needed extra seats for crew before boarding.”

    Nope. I’ve been in situations in ATL where a regional flight has been held on the ground to allow the repositioning of a crew coming in late off another delayed regional flight. There were empty seats, so there wasn’t the need to bump, but there’s no slack at all in regional feeder flights — the part of the industry where the staff aren’t well paid and the service is barebones.

    Anyway: airline bucks aren’t cash-equivalent, so it’s not really a fair comparison to the legal maximum for IDB. It’s just that management is generally not willing to make that offer.

  312. NO.
    United oversold, period. They breached thier contract.
    We have schedules, connections, SURGURIES to make, and United chose greed over common sense. It’s not like we can just “magically” rearrange scheduals, especially flight scheduals (that are usually so close you have seconds to spare to get to your next gate).
    United committed FRAUD. PERIOD. This whole thing reads more like a press statement from the same guy who wrote the tweet than a real examination of the issues at hand; Even a United contracted apologist couldn’t spin this story that well.

  313. No matter how many passengers would have to get bumped by United’s failure to transport a crew to Louisville at a certain time, that problem and the consequences t derived from it, is United’s, not the passenger’s. Whatever impediments United faces in transporting its’ crew because of union contracts, etc., again, its’ not the passenger’s problem. The guy bought a ticket and declined an offer to deboard. If United is only able to transport three, rather than four, crew members, so be it–it is not the customers problem and not a basis to automatically remove a customer. Big business has to learn to treat customers better than this, particularly when the “scheduling crisis” is there own making. I get that the author, Gary Leff, is an expert on transportation, but he seems to be to close to the industry, to obsessed with the challenges management faces, to understand that customers should never be forced to get off a plane that they already boarded already paid for, to redress a problem in the company’s scheduling. If a fourth crew member cannot board because a customer declined an offer to waive the seat that they already paid for, so be it, United can deal with finding a way to get that crew member to Louisville. What the author of this article is missing is that United disrespected a customer and humiliated him because of its own internal needs. United, as is the case with most big business, did not see the human side of this decision to bump passengers and that is the problem. Customers, which without United does not exist, deserve better–fundamental decency, and not to be treated just a line on a computer screen.

  314. United don’t want to loss their business, so pull down a passenger. In the same way, the passengers too don’t want to take off for the next day, so definitely they won’t like to leave the plane. This report is written in favour of United and this company need to be condemned.

  315. It always strikes me as odd when people’s thinking is starkly black and white about these types of situations. Airline, police = 100% evil in contrast to passenger who is 100% benevelont. The author makes valid and logical points that rational people should be able to consider without loosing their minds.

  316. You can justify the legalities all day long – yes, United had the right to throw the guy off the plant to get their crew to the city. Yes, United has the right to throw ME off of a flight to my mother’s funeral, if they want to. And I have the right not to fly United Airlines in the future – that it what I intend to do. Other airlines (notable Delta) have a better system of encouraging volunteers – including up to $1500 in CASH. United only offered $800 in VOUCHERS (although later reports say $1000). That is in exchange for having to wait an ENTIRE DAY or the next flight. All this went down AFTER the plane was boarded. Total cluster. I think most people believe that if United has upped the ante to $1350 in CASH (which may have equaled what they would have had to pay anyway), they might have gotten four volunteers. Perhaps they should have de-planed everyone and put them back through the boarding process without the four people allowed – at least then you would have had an old man shouting at the gate, not being dragged off the plane. Or maybe United gate agent should have worked more diligently to accommodate its passengers by putting them on the next available flight from a competitor. Instead, they tried to get by the cheapest that they could and it backfired. Then add in the stupid comments by the CEO and you have the result. Airlines don’t treat people like customers, they treat them like “revenue-producing units”. How would you like to go to a doctor, only to be told that the doctor scheduled too many patients that morning, and you will have to come back the next day – after you took the day off to go to the doctor?

  317. Sorry, it’s not a “myth” that they sold too many tickets. If they sell all their seats but also plan to use their flights to transport crew members, that IS selling too many tickets. Either you can sell all the seats, or you can hold some of them for your employees. But if you do both, you oversold. That’s not hard to understand.

    The author just assumes that the airline’s needs should take precedence over ours, with the pseudo-populist, pseudo-caring justification that more passengers down the line will be inconvenienced if the crew doesn’t get to work. Well, guess what? A lot of people will be inconvenienced if we don’t show up for work too. If the airline screws up, their customers down the line SHOULD be the ones affected, not the customers of someone who bought a ticket. All the airline is doing is sloughing off the inconvenience on people they don’t have to deal with (their passengers’ customers), so they don’t face the consequences of overselling their flights.

  318. Oh My! Mr. Leff, respectfully, you should stick to commenting and advising on “field of miles, points, and frequent business travel” per your bio above.
    1. “he should have complied when ordered off the plan by United and then by Chicago Aviation Police” It is very easy to say this from afar. How would YOU react when you are told “the computer said we have to deboard (or whatever stupid made up word they used that moment) now”? Would you say “not me, i’m a respected expert on field of miles, points, and frequent business travel; pick another, less important person”? What if they chose you and not your travelling companion? What if you had something important and time sensitive at the destination (as I must assume every passenger had)? No sir, saying what he should or should not have done has no lace in this PR fiasco.
    2. This is you most disappointing conclusion: “The Chicago Aviation Police shouldn’t have responded with the force they did. They’re the most to blame. If they hadn’t used as much force this whole thing would never even have been a story.” No, no and no. While a separate issue is the force used by the PD, and the fact that they used force “because a gate agent told them to”, UNITED AIRLINES turned an administrative/customer service issue into a criminal matter. That someone is not following the rules is a problem, but NOT a crime. When you call the police, it is because of a crime. The police (in a criminal situation; they will 100% be held accountable for getting involved in this non-crime) have 1 process: Increasing use of force, up to deadly force. You say (again, critiquing form afar) if they hadn’t used as much force…. So what do they do: “please leave Mr. paid customer”, and if he says “NO”, leave? The police use force; verbal commands, then come along techniques, then non-lethal force, then lethal force. UA will soon learn that painful lesson that “the police did it” has not been and will not be any defense.
    Would you expect the police to ask him, and when he declined, immediately seat Dr. Phil next to him to talk about it? No, they are POLICE!

    My employer has policies. If one is broken they have a process to address. If I am late is an option available making that a crime? If a customer breaks a policy can we make them a criminal? Because that’s what calling the police is, and there is no grey area.
    What if “the computer” selected your minor child? Maybe you will suggest that your minor child deserved it as he/she did not comply (because all 7 year olds know to comply), I am pretty comfortable how I would react were it my child, or travelling companion.
    It seems others disagree with you based on UA’s stock price……..

  319. By the way, everyone is saying that the attention span of Americans is so short that by next week this incident will be forgotten. Do you remember the 1993 Jack in the Box e. coli deaths? I do, and I have never eaten at a Jack in the Box since.

  320. One thing that seems to be overlooked is United personnel did not drag the passenger down the aisle. They called authorities to assist in removing the passenger. What resulted is on the shoulders of the passenger and authorities. The company memo was for employees only not the public.

  321. One thing that seems to be overlooked is United personnel did not drag the passenger down the aisle. They called authorities to assist in removing the passenger. What resulted is on the shoulders of the passenger and authorities. The company memo was for employees only not the public.

  322. Everyone is all over United for this, but were United personnel really in charge here? The flight was operated by Republic Airlines, and presumably it was their staff (or an outside contractor) that was making decisions on the ground. Does anyone know if under the regional contract between Republic and United, United is the one who makes the calls on compensation, grounding, etc.? Or was United the victim of bad judgment by Republic (which by the way just got their bankruptcy reorganization approved)?

  323. An idiotic response. The man paid for a service and fulfilled his side of the contract. United then, for their convenience, and for no other reason, decided to break the agreement. They then chose to do so by violently assaulting their paying customer.

    To try and excuse their conduct by saying that United had entered into obligations to third parties or had procedures is risible. What agreements United have with their staff, regulators, and even other passengers is of no concern to the passenger they assaulted. They are paid to manage these things and provide the contracted service. That they had procedures is even less of an excuse. All procedures are are rules made up by the company if they are idiotic that is the company and only the company’s problem.

    What is at the heart of this is an utter contempt for the customer. In no other industry would a supplier be allowed to get away with such behaviour (even without the assault) air travel has been given special consideration amd exemptions from normal business behaviour for too long and it needs to stop now and revert to normal contract law like everyone else.

    The fact you seem to have absorbed the ‘we have obligations to others’ and ‘we had procedures’ excuses to pardon what elsewhere would be a serious crime just shows that those in the travel industry need their protections stripped away.

  324. The write’s comment about “maximum required compensation” is ridiculous. Sure, the maximum ‘required’ amount is $1350 but United could, of course, simply have offered more (and enough more) so that a few people took the offer. That would have taken 10 minutes max to get settled (assuming they didn’t have to go through five levels of United management for approval) and the plane would proceed as scheduled, minus four original but now happy (or at least satisfied) passengers. This is entirely United’s fault and I hope they pay, pay and pay in various ways. As for that idiot Munoz, his recent “CEO PR award” should be revoked.

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

    DOT in its Fly Rights brochure says:

    1. Involuntary bumping happens before boarding and when the plane is OVERSOLD . Not applicable.
    2. Voluntary bumping happens before involuntary bumping before boarding and when the plane is OVERSOLD . Not applicable.

    The plane is not oversold. And the passengers have boarded and taken their “confirmed reserved” seat. Therefore bumping of any kind does not apply. In fact the condition to exercise bumping does not exist at all.

    In all of my flying, I have not encountered a passenger being bumped after he has boarded and taken his confirmed seat.

    Whatever business problem United tries to solve, kicking customers off (please don’t use “bumping” anymore because it is not the case and automatically creates confusion) the plane should never happen. They have no right to kick a non-disruptive customer off the plane, civilly or brutally. Even in United’s Contract of Carriage, Rule 25 spells out that bumping applies only in Oversold situations (https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx#sec25).

    So what situation does United have here? A complex situation of its own aviation operations that is entangled with flight crew scheduling and transporting, flight cancellation risks, etc. Whatever it is, United has no right to misrepresent facts and ask the police to forcibly remove a passenger in order to solve it’s own business problem. In this act, United may have breached contract, violated trust, and broken laws.

    An interesting thing is United did not activate Rule 21 of the Contract of Carriage, which describes Refusal of Transport. If the passenger was “disruptive and belligerent” as its CEO first tried to lead the public believe, United could have used this portion of the contract to remove the passenger and give no compensation is return. It is because none of the conditions for refusing to transport was met.

  326. I travel a lot. I don’t worry much about turbulence or maintenance issues or even pilot errors. The system (in the US) has many built in redundancies for these risks and i accept them.

    I worry about 300 of my closest friends (that I have never met from Adam) being stuck in a tin can flying at 35,000 feet at 500 mph with barely enough personal space to blow your nose. In that situation everyone is vulnerable and risk is taken very seriously. I’m sorry, but If they let that guy stay on my plane, I would have left it at my own expense for my own safety.

    Everyone makes (or ought to) a social contract to get along and be safe on a plane. By refusing (that many times and against that many separate and escalating authorities) he failed the basic test … can I trust him? If I asked / told / demanded that he stop doing something on the plane that endangered me, would he? Would I be prepared to use force if he decided that he needed some fresh air and went (to attempt) for the emergency door release? Sounds extreme but my contract with the airline is to insure that they head off risk before it happens and air isn;t the only thing under pressure up there. I can almost guarantee you if you took (an honest) poll the people on that plane that night, most would have wanted him off their plane.

    Follow that damn rules and do what your told I say … you can have your liberties back when you get back on the the ground. Air travel is a team sport!

  327. Okay, I call bullshit.

    A few notable points: Do not claim that the victim was “denied boarding”. This is not only false, but a lie. He had *already boarded the plane and was seated* when this happened. We’d be having very different reactions if he’d been stopped at the gate.

    Do not hide behind the fact that United wasn’t required to go past $1,000. The maximum required compensation here is irrelevant — there’s nothing keeping United from offering more, and they *should have*. If time was the issue, well, they should have raised the price more quickly.

    United is responsible for “their operation becoming a mess”, as you put it. This happened on their watch, and they not only allowed it but encouraged it.

    I’m not going to deny that the culture of law enforcement in aviation needs to change… but it’s not the “real” problem here. What happened here was a systemic failure on multiple levels, and had virtually anyone in a position of authority acted even remotely responsibly, this never could have happened. As the lawyers say, res ipsa loquitur.

  328. @GaryLeff

    As to your pompous, snarky “the stock price has recovered” comment….you apparently aren’t watching the volatility. At this moment UAL shares are trading roughly $1.10 off their morning high – or roughly $625 million in market cap. They have clearly damaged their already diminished brand with this incident – and so, regrettably, have you.

  329. Why the fk extra people got into the plane. If they had to be dropped dont let them board. This analysis is sickening

  330. The guy should have just gotten off the plane and dealt with the issue at the gate. I agree completely with the author. A doctor is no more entitled stay on a flight to get back to work than a clerk at 7-eleven. Yes, united should have offered a larger compensation. Every passenger has a price point. But I expect my fellow customers to comply with cabin crew instructions. I’ve been involuntarily bumped. If sucks. But airlines are required to compensate. He should have just stood up like a grown man and walked himself off the plane and dealt with his anger/frustration at the gate. It was not the time or place for nonviolent resistance.

  331. 1) Yes, United DID oversell. They needed four seats for crew members, so they shouldn’t have sold those four seats.

    2) The federal maximum of $1350 is not only irrelevant, it’s misleading. It’s irrelevant because they didn’t offer it. They offered $800 (as you said). I’d sure as hell be more likely to bump for $1350 than for $800. But that quote-unquote “maximum” isn’t a maximum at all, as you know very well. It’s the maximum REQUIRED. United legally could have offered more than the max. But let me repeat … they didn’t offer the legally REQUIRED max at all. They went straight to brute force.

    3) This should have been handled before boarding.

    4) When the CEO doubled down TWICE about the incident, whatever small defense United might have had vanished. He didn’t really apologize until their stock plummeted by a billion dollars — making it crystal clear what really matters to United (hint: it ain’t the passengers).

    5) … and this is the truly damning point … Have you been reading the conversation about this? Everyone has a story of United treating passengers like crap. Everyone. I have one of my own — and it’s notable that the exact same thing happened on the other end of that trip of mine, but it was with Delta instead of United and they literally took care of it before I even know it was a problem.

    I’ve flown a fair bit. Experienced lots of things: lost luggage, missed and canceled flights, hours on the runway or sitting on the plane at the gate, etc. Things happen, I get that. But with one exception (Alitalia), I have always been treated courteously *except* when I fly United. And from what I’m seeing around the internet as a result of this incident, my experience is at least common if not universal.

    Quit making excuses for an airline that has a pattern of treating passengers like voiceless cattle.

  332. Pompous, snarky and entitled – yes, for sure he has damaged his ‘brand’. Stunningly spineless!

  333. @Steve you can choose whatever you want as the benchmark point of comparison and of course attribute whatever reasons you wish to movements that do not speak for themselves.

    I agree they have damaged their brand. It’s unclear how much or how long lasting at this point.

  334. @RickMoreno – as to “entitled”, Gary is entitled to his opinion and our respect — even when many including myself don’t agree with this particular opinion.

    “Spineless” doesn’t fit either – spineless would have been not addressing this shit show at all.

  335. I would like to see a law that restricts airlines from over booking to begin with. If a ticket is sold, it’s sold. Forget this idea that some people may cancel…that way you at least minimize the cases where this occurs.

  336. I keep reading on this blog that the passenger should have complied, because the crew asked him to get up and leave. There are limits to having to listen to the crew, simply because they are the crew. What if they asked you to hand over all your cash? What if they asked a woman to take off her top? Come on, you have to admit that there are some situations where you wouldn’t comply just because the crew asked you to do something.

    Much of the general public and customers are siding w/the passenger because his actions don’t seem that unreasonable. Great that United needs crew on the ground the next morning and wants 4 seats on a full flight to do this. OK, did this occur to United 1 hr before boarding, 30 min before boarding, even 10 min before boarding? Because then they could have prevented 4 passengers from ever boarding the plane in the first place. Which of course is a much easier situation to handle– denying entrance to the plane at the boarding area. Instead, they insisted on 4 volunteers deplaning, or having to remove 4 people from a flight after they are already seated. So… from a passenger’s point of view… what’s up with that? This lack of planning, lack of foresight, doesn’t seem like United is taking this problem too seriously, so why should the passengers? Also, United obviously didn’t convey much sympathy for the cause– perhaps people would be more willing to volunteer if there was a malfunctioning plane or a medical emergency with the crew or something. Instead, sounded like poor planning on United’s part.

    Some reports say that this man and his wife initially said he would go willingly, but when he found out the time of the next flight, he said he couldn’t, he has work and patients the next day. From everything I read, even with his shady past, he doesn’t seem to be lying about this. So he is probably sitting down, thinking, “pick someone else.”

    People relate to him because they would probably do the same thing and object to being removed involuntarily. They would be sitting there expecting United to solve their own problem with their 4 crew members needing to work the next morning (have a lot of hours to take care of this problem), and besides, if it was such a problem, why wasn’t this problem addressed much earlier, before people boarded the flight? There is something that feels irresponsible about what United is doing, and many people would object too, I believe.

    And that is why the general public is horrified to see how it all went down. Despite his shady past, what people resonate with is this elderly grandfather 69 yrs old being violently removed from the flight. That is unbelievable, and for most people, we never imagined this could happen.

    Context is very important here: of course, please do what it takes to remove people who are drunk & assaultive, committing terrorist acts, etc. If a violent drunk passenger got removed like this, w/bloody nose, a lot of people may not object so much to it.

    However, somebody who bought a ticket, has generally been cooperative, is now seated on a flight, and doesn’t want to leave– seems reasonable to object. Of course the Aviation Police shouldn’t have acted the way they did– if he really refused, get the Chicago Police and arrest a passive resistor like him.

    The United CEO and industry in general are not using common sense when thinking it was fine for him to be bloodied and violently removed on the way out. Just think about it: a homeless man sits in Denny’s for too long. Denny’s wants him to leave, saying it’s private property and they can refuse service. Denny’s certainly doesn’t have a right to push him physically out the door, or have his head slam to the ground or the table on the way out with their ‘removal.’ If a store doesn’t want a customer in it, the employee or even security guard can’t physically push the person through the store and out the door, and cause a head injury along the way.

    I believe another aspect to this that will be closely examined is what did the United Airlines supervisor tell the Chicago Aviation Police? Did he/she misportray the situation and make it sound like he was physically violent or belligerent or dangerous? There is a big difference between this and if he was just yelling back verbally that he wasn’t leaving. That is the only reason I can see for the great use of force used by CAP. Unfortunately, if this was the case, there are ~70 witnesses that can say whether he was physically violent or not. Probably not, as most of the social media accounts do not mention this. Anyway, United holds a lot of responsibility, for asking for the forced physical removal of this passenger.

  337. @Jackie – JetBlue does not oversell flights, but its involuntary denied boardings still shot up last year because of aircraft swaps. Selling more tickets than seats isn’t the only way this happens. And it isn’t the way this happened on Sunday night’s United flight either…

  338. @Gary. I understand things like that…but United and others do this as a practice. I like JetBlue…you cant avoid some things…but lets not buy trouble. Jackie

  339. Great article!

    While United did not handle this situation with much grace, I agree that more attention should be paid to how the aviation police handled this situation.

    The biggest issue people seem to have is about how the man was bloodied and dragged off the plane, which IS a very big issue, but it is important to note that it was not a United employee, but rather the aviation police.

    United is most appropriately getting lambasted by the media, but it should not be faulted for something that it most certainly did not do.

  340. Lesson to passengers: $millions await you if you’re willing to suffer a bloody lip.

    Lesson 1 to airline: forget those worthless vouchers. What are they really? They are an empty seat that was gonna have no revenue for the airline. Voucher cost to airline is zero.

    Lesson 2 to airline: offer a later flight and compensation in $US–nice green bills. Count out those hundreds for all to see. There will be takers.

  341. I fly a lot for work on multiple airlines and I can tell you with all airlines they overbook and have standby issues. United just happened to go to the extreme.

  342. There is now audio of Dao telling the police: “You have to drag me off, I am not leaving.” The officer tells him if that is what your force us to do – we will. Dao again indicates he will have to be dragged off. What do you want the officers to do at that point? Disembark all the other passenger and leave Dao? Because he clearly stated his intention not to leave without physically force.

  343. I wonder if this would be front page news if the passenger was a working class white guy?

  344. NO one heard of small commuter plans for work crews? booking them on a maintenance flight or a small air carrier for hire? cheaper than buying out a bunch of passengers? I used them before to ship band gear around and technical people…SO yeah..i’m not buying it.

  345. Airport abuse is why i stopped flying altogether too,, Too many bad experiences even observable happening to other people and arrogant ignorant security people and employees..

  346. I wouldn’t scapegoat the police, there are risks to remove someone by force and I doubt the United staff fully briefed the Policemen with what was going on. It doesn’t look like he was beaten Rodney King Style and I wonder exactly how someone is supposed to be forcibly removed from a plane with such cramped conditions. I can’t see from videos that I saw if the officer slammed the guy’s head against the armrest or if doctor pulled free from the officer slamming his own head against the the chair. One way seems excessive the other way seems unintentional.

    The fault is almost solely United’s and involuntary bumping policies. I hope legislation comes from this preventing involuntary bumping. Everyone has a price tag, the airlines charge $1,000+ for a last minute flight, if you take someone off a flight last minute, you should pay market value for their seat. The market is your plane’s passengers and the airline has to buy a seat back at whatever the market determines.

    I love planes, but hate flying, how miserable can we really make things? Stressful travel conditions with rules like this make things worst.

  347. United agreed to a contract it couldn’t honor, then used force to remove itself from the consequences of that contract. That’s basically warlord level of behavior.

    Oh, they were in a ‘tough spot’? Boo, fucking hoo. Hold them to the same standard you’d hold the doctor to. It would be nice if someone else decided to help you out of your conundrum, but if no one wants to you still are responsible for how you handle the situation.

    “It was a terrible situation for him, but one that at that point could foreseeably have gotten worse. I’m just glad he wasn’t accused of disrupting the flight as part of a terrorist plot that sort of thing can happen in confrontations like this.” WTF. he did nothing wrong. Period. He is a victim. If someone is mugged and they decide to try and defend themselves I’m not going to try and tell them what they “should” have done.

  348. Excuse me, but he and his wife DID get off. After he called his attorney, he ran back on and then refused to get off…more money ????…..greed !!

  349. You completely failed to mention the fact that United could have sent its employees on another airline’s flight that night. Easy solution for which there is already a discounted process in place.

  350. @Toto – how about the other two people that were asked first to get off (and also refused) before the Doctor was asked?

    You are likely the type that just follow orders, even if they are illegal – way to have a moral compass and a brain of your own. As a long time flyer of United – I am happy someone finally stood their ground and exposed their ridiculous tactics and DGAF attitude toward customers – even long-time continental/united Frequent Flyers. This needed to happen a long time ago.

  351. @Gary “Stock price has recovered”

    Uh…no it hasn’t. It’s gone down, again…..man, you REALLY are in bed with United aren’t you? You that desperate to be “proven” right?

  352. United is taking the bulk of the blame here, and that’s probably their own fault. Probably United’s fault? Probably? Such an apologist article on behalf of United.

  353. I fully agree with your article. Finally some unbiased words. Shame on the guy for not deplaning, as the airline had the right to remove him. I wonder what America is coming to when such people act like babies, especially from a “Doctor”. His blaming it on race is even just as pathetic. If it was so important that he was there at his destination in a matter of hours, why did he choose the last possible flight? He seems to lack common sense or integrity. United Airlines did not do anything intentionally, in the sense that they would prefer a smooth flight and all passengers’ revenue. The officer was not a United Airlines employee, yet the airline is getting the blame. Yes, one thing led to another but the passenger’s childish behavior is what instigated the “Incident”. If it wasn’t for that, none of us would be reading about it today! Thank you for a good article and great job well done!

  354. @Anna

    Shame on the guy? Ok, so if they told you to get up and jump off the plane (or a bridge), you would?

    What’s clear here is that United didn’t follow protocol – they have to provide an overview in writing that explains how they were selected and what compensation they are entitled to – THIS IS FEDERAL LAW.

    How you and others point to this guy standing his ground when his rights were violated are beyond me.

  355. The initial Order to leave must come from a person authorized to actually “order” as opposed to request. My understanding of that is the Captain of the plane, not other flight crew, not gate crew, must first order the man to leave. Then and only then is the order valid, then and only then can law enforcement proceed. For it to be otherwise, law enforcement would have to know individual company policy as to who is and who is not authorized to issue an enforceable “order” to leave. Law enforcement cannot be placed into that ambiguous situation to first determine whether the order is valid. I cannot go to my local police and order them to arrest someone on my word. Not every gate attendant can order security to arrest someone. Start your research into facts to find out who has the legal authority to order a man off the plane, and did that actually happen.

  356. United violated their own Contract of Carriage in this incident. Even if you try to claim it was Involuntary Denied Boarding (which it wasn’t; “boarding” isn’t defined in United’s Contract of Carriage so it retains its ordinary English meaning), United wasn’t allowed to do it in this situation.

  357. I bought a ticket to a UA (United Artist) 3D film, went into the theater and took my reserved seat. The theater was full. Just as the previews were done and the main feature started, a clerk came in and told me I would have to leave because the popcorn stand had closed for the night and the popcorn girl wanted to see the movie from my seat. I declined to leave, so the clerk called in the Pinkerton guard and he tazed me until he could get hold of my feet and drag me out. As I briefly blacked out, I had a horrible dream about some kind of orange cones dropping down in front of my face from an overhead bin, and the cones were suspended from plastic tubes. I must have hallucinated that I was in some other UA universe.

  358. Yea, stocks still haven’t recovered and quite a bit of talk leans towards the unsure about them truly recovering anytime soon… maybe research before making statements. Or writing whole articles.

  359. @Anna

    You must be kidding. Are you a real person?

    United did nothing wrong? Wow, you missed the entire point – there are federal laws that United failed to follow – first ones being, written explanation that outlines (i) how the person was picked to be involuntarily disboarded and (ii) the compensation they are legally permitted to receive. None of this happened.

    So please, enough with this “united did nothing wrong”. Did you not see the LA times article where they kicked a first-class passenger off, also after he was seated? United, like many greedy companies (Wall street banks anyone), has gone too far in the name of corporate profits – and it’s paying for it (sound familiar? 2008 anyone?).

  360. Too many people convert the passenger’s after the fact behavior (bad as it was) to an excuse for what transpired before his bad behavior. Oh yeah, defend UA and claim they are harmless because their illegal bumping was somehow made legal by the passenger acting badly. The CEO admitted that the plane was not overbooked, it was fully booked. If you don’t know the FAR language for this, you are at a disadvantage to justify removal of a seated passenger with a boarding pass in order to seat someone who has no paid reservation and no status as an overbooked passenger. The CEO clearly admitted the plane was NOT overbooked (a legal term with a legal definition). Every argument that starts with the assumption they gate crew acted correctly for overbooking is a fake argument when the overbooking status was not factual.

  361. How did united fail to meet their contract? Its written in the fine print of all airlines that his is possible.

  362. I used to work in theater management and ticketing for a very popular annual film festival in Los Angeles. As is common with this type of event, we had to overbook because the structure of the ticketing system: general seating, large numbers of complimentary tickets/special admissions, etc. Especially in the early years of the festival, we were sometimes left with more people than seats. Managing the seats was stressful, and we sometimes but rarely had to kick people out of the theater, even some who had legitimate reservations. I get where the airlines are coming from. When you are managing an operation with lots of people and complicated schedules, you may have to make a decision that severely inconveniences a few people in order for everything else to work. Sometimes you have to do it to fix your own mistake, and that’s just the unfortunate truth. The people who get inconvenienced are the ones lowest on the pecking order of importance for your organization. Although it is unfortunate that the man was injured, he was responsible for his injuries because he resisted the orders of law enforcement personnel. The other passengers who followed orders were not injured, incidentally. An airplane is not a democracy. It is not a place for passive political protest. If he was legally required to leave the plane, then the police were legally justified in using force to remove him because of his insubordination. That was not excessive force, it was excessive stubbornness on his part. Was the plane just supposed to sit there until the police and crew intimidated him into leaving? What about someone who is disruptive in some other way, such as by being drunk or abusive to other passengers? Just wait until they leave on their own? It can’t work that way just because we think that we should never have to be compelled to do anything we don’t agree to do. The real question here is whether they had the legal right to eject him or not. If they had the legal right, then should the laws be changed so that airlines can’t overbook thus leading to this situation? If, on the other hand, they didn’t have the legal right to eject him, and only then, should he get damages for refusing to obey the orders of law enforcement.

  363. I will never side with Corporate America. Ever. This is why. If someone is this upset about being removed from a plane (and he has a right to be) ask someone else. But no: we picked this guy. He’s it. And we’ll break his head if we have to.

  364. The law sets the maximum required compensation for IDB at $1350 *in cash*. United offered no more than $800 *in vouchers* (which are worth 1/2 to 1/3 as much as cash). Why didn’t they offer more?

    @Gary Leff, since “boarding” is not defined in United’s Contract of Carriage, it retains its ordinary English meaning. Once I’ve already boarded, they can’t “deny me boarding”. That would be like a restaurant denying you a meal after you’ve already eaten it.

    In any even, United’s Contract of Carriage was violated in multiple ways in this incident. I suspect federal law was as well, but the stories aren’t clear on that. (Were the passengers given a written statement of their rights for Involuntary Denied Boarding as required by law? No report that I’ve seen says they were.)

  365. GARY: you’re clearly reading the comments here, yet I haven’t seen you weigh in on the actual rules United needs to follow: it’s Contract of Carriage with the passenger. Contract “Rule 25” which discusses bumping (“denial of boarding”) is the only rule that might apply here. Yet they didn’t follow it. They weren’t oversold (which triggers the rule), and they didn’t deny boarding (part of the mandated contractual remedy). They sought to “deny transport” by de-planing a boarded customer. That falls under Contract Rule 21. Read Rule 21, and you’ll see that the passenger had committed none of the transgressions listed at the time United began the denial of transport effort . United is clearly at fault here, and the doctor – however flawed he may be. Is 100% a victim here. GARY – care to weigh in on the Contract of Carriage?

  366. just a view from a ‘deplorable’ – if my wife and i were on that plane and we were told to deplane we would – there is no way that we would refuse to get off an aircraft and especially after being asked by a law enforcement officer – WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE TODAY?

  367. OK, here is the thing no one has addressed. What about his patients?

    I don’t know for sure if this guy was telling the truth that he’s a doctor and had patients that needed to see him in the hospital in the morning – but let’s assume he was. What about them? It’s easy to say “He should have just gotten off and it sucks to be him.” Oh yeah? Well, what if you were one of his patients waiting for a consult? Or you had to wait for the doctor to get there the following morning so you could go home and the next flight out to Louisville wasn’t until the next afternoon? Who compensates the patient who gets an extra day tacked onto their bill because their doctor was yanked off a plane so some wankers in United uniforms could get to Louisville? What about those people?

    I would have protested, too, if I were a doctor and had patients depending on me. Of course, I am already seeing a smear campaign starting that this doctor had had legal trouble in the past and blah, blah, blah. United’s legal staff already at work to discredit the victim here… whatever. Sorry about the folks in Louisville who would have had to get a new plane when their’s was canceled, but that’s still cheaper than most medical bills, hospital stays, rebooked tests and appointments.

    What recourse would those people have had? None.

  368. Worst case, couldn’t the airline hire a charter jet for the four crew? They don’t want to spend the money. As for the FAA rules about the maximum payout, you can bet the airline lobby was around to write that into the rules. Industries don’t want to be beholden to a fair market auction situation when it might be against them. If the costs of paying out for overbooking starts to cost too much, they can make the assessment to lower the percentage of overbooking. They like making their profits at the expense of customers, but they’ll be damned if they’re going lose money just to treat people properly.

  369. Granted United handled the situation terribly! However, there is no reason whatsoever to behave like you have lost your damn mind! Our two year old behaves better than that. Also, you are telling me that there wasn’t one person on that plane that was willing to forfeit their seat to allow all to be well? If I had been on that flight I would have volunteered to get off the plane. Clearly this man is not right in the head or it was for another purpose. The whole situation is a ridiculous display of all of humanity.
    1- United should have a better policy for these situations
    2- people need to get over themselves, everyone on that flight is a jackass. One for not volunteering and two for video taping an obvious low point in that man’s mental stability
    3 – I agree that the safety of the other passengers was at stake and they where so busy video taping that they didn’t even realize how vulnerable they all were at that moment. Terrorist thrive in chaotic situations!
    4 – If I saw my doctor or any medical professional acting in that manner I would have dropped them immediately!
    For those of you that said United only did it for the money. Really? Do you honestly think any of the people involved where ok with this situation? This man made it a security situation the minute he caused a chaotic situation that allowed for a security breakdown!
    Im sure all involved were shocked that this situation was even happening and this gentleman should be charged with a terrorist act!

  370. @Amanda Pfan I actually have it’s just buried in a lot of comments. This is an involuntary denied boarding situation under DOT rules and United’s CoC, they WERE oversold (more passengers with confirmed seats than they had seats available for passengers) as it’s commonly understood in the industry.

    The passenger definitely got the short end of the stick EVEN BEFORE police arrived, though the beating he suffered made this so much worse.

    None of which means United didn’t follow its own rules. It’s the question of what the rules ought to be, how they should change given all the tradeoffs, that’s hard and needs thought.

  371. @Matt R – yesterday UAL ended where it began, today it was down 1%, Jetblue’s shares were down more and Delta was down half a percent. What are you saying?

  372. The simplest option for United would have been to pay their staff to fly on another airline. Multiple airlines fly similar routes. How easy would it have been to purchase tickets from a competitor and get them to there destination without inconveniencing paying customers??

  373. @Gary, I’m baffled how this is an “involuntary denied boarding” when the gate agent had already *voluntarily*: 1) allowed him walk down the gangplank, 2) pass though the door to the plane, and 3) sit in the seat assigned to him. In other words, when the gate agent had under any reasonably person’s definition: “permitted him to board”.

    The only ones they could have denied “boarding” to were the United/Republic employees who were waiting somewhere *outside* the plane. They hadn’t boarded yet. Semantics, yes, but if I’m sitting on a civil or criminal jury, you’d better show me with a straight face a United Contract of Carriage or Federal CFR that defines a “seated” passenger as not having really “boarded” yet. Can you? And if you offended me with that obnoxious definition, I’d probably still rule in the passenger’s favor.

  374. One additional comment: Reasonable people can disagree here. I appreciate your willingness to dialog in the comments.

  375. Gary: I am not going to call you names, but I will state as a factual matter that in some respects you don’t know what you are talking about. First, this was NOT an overbooking under United’s own Contract of Carriage. Section 25, read it. They do NOT have the right under either Federal Regulations or THEIR OWN CONTRACT to even deny boarding to a single paying passenger in order to deadhead their employees on the flight. So it was NOT an involuntary denial of boarding. And even if it were, the $1350 is the maximum they can be MADE to pay for an involuntary booking under federal law (400% of the price of the ticket or $1,350, whichever is lower); if they are looking for VOLUNTEERS to get off, which they were required to do here since they could not FORCE anyone off, they can offer whatever they want; the sky is the limit. Second, once they had allowed a fare-paying customer onto the plane and into his seat it becomes a denial of transport situation, covered by other regulations and Section 21 of the Contract of Carriage. Again, READ IT. There are no reasons listed for which transport can be denied that apply to the gentleman that was assaulted. Third, the Chicago Department of Aviation does not have a Police department; their officers are security guards with authority ONLY on O’Hare and Midway Airport grounds to act with the same authority as a Chicago Police officer, but they can only hold arrestees for pickup by CPD. Fourth, federal law does not apply to airplanes in a manner that would give the crew any authority over the passengers until the plane is “in flight”, which is defined as a plane with its doors closed and ready for departure. Clearly if people were getting on and off the plane, it was not “in flight” within the meaning of federal aviation law. Thus, United had no more right to call for Chicago Aviation security to enforce some commercial beef it has with a passenger than I have to call the police because I don’t like my landscaping job. In other words, you are way too easy on United. The gentleman who was abused was TOTALLY within his rights, and United was TOTALLY WRONG!

  376. Not to pile on but “the United Express gate agent had no authority to do more.”

    OK what do we mean by “authority”? Not DOT rules of course, or contract law.

    Presumably the management told this gate agent not to offer more, even though $1350 in cash should have been offered if nobody took the $800 voucher (or $1000 voucher there are different accounts). It was a discretionary management decision to lo-ball the customers below the clearlt stated amount of $1350 and when they held out for a higher offer (as they were 100% entitled to) do they were forced off the plane.

    And it wasn’t “random” in the normal sense of that word, that was smoke to persuade the passengers that they were being unreasonable if they didn’t obey orders to get off.

  377. It’s simple – don’t sell more seats than you have and leave a few available for contingencies, so if there’s a situation where other airline staff requires the seats they’re available. If those extra seats aren’t available then sell them to people who may want a last minute ticket. It’s only common sense.

    Most people flying are doing it because they need to be somewhere, it’s not just for a lark.

    So as far as I’m concerned, United is responsible – morally, if not legally.

  378. Oh good!
    This article confirms that even though he paid for a ticket and was within his rights to stay in his purchased seat. Blame is still assigned to him because he did not comply with authorities. Which means that he is a threat to society. This is why people are outraged when a man who expected to get what he paid for instead gets assaulted and then smeared in the news with all his “past deeds” (like the past is relevant here).

    He’s only being demonized, since anyone with a soul can see that this man was treated wrongfully, and that most people agree with the man.

    Again comes the posion to society, obey authority figures, comply with authority orders, follow orders like a good little drone. We are expendable to these people.

    What I’d like to know about are the other 3 people removed from the flight. Who are they? And how do they feel about it?

    The airline should already have designated employee seating, for 4 passengers they could add extra seats where their flight attendants sit so they cn accommodate their own employees.

    23 billion dollar company and they don’t have employee seating? Wtf are they doing with their money.

  379. This passenger is in no way responsible for this. He purchased a ticket and had a contract with United. The airline failed to honor that contract. If United failed to get their flight crew to their flight then that is United’s problem. You cannot put a possibly delayed or cancelled flight on the passenger. He was a doctor that needed to see patients. Of course money was not more of an incentive than his patients. United should have gotten him on another flight on a different airline that would get him to his destination on time and then asked if he would accept that. United showed that they do not care about their passengers and I, for one, will never use them again.

  380. I wonder what the backlash would’ve been if this happened to a black person? Will the Chicago steeets be full of riots again? Asians will not naturally go out to do that but will “riot” with their wallet.

  381. Lena West
    What were you watching you must be the only person i the world who would say that was a terrorist
    And he wasnt breaking any laws on that plane as it was not over booked
    So the puts the airlinr and police at fault

  382. What I really learned is that at best Gary Leff is an apologist and corporate profits are his religion. Fuck you.

  383. Every single person who works for United Airlines should be murdered. Every single one

  384. nonsense… the guy should have behaved like an adult and complied… the police did not use too much force, there is no magic way to make some leave if they are going to fight, which is what this guy did, stop encouraging childish behavior

  385. Once the situation became Federal the man had no right to disobey the cops. He should have walked off the plane then taken up his grievance somewhere else.

  386. This guy got what he deserved, he should have left the plane when asked. He had an alterior motive knowing if he refused and caused a scene he could sue. Look at his past! What an asshole!! He’s no fuckin doctor.

  387. According to the contract of carriage denied boarding takes place when the
    flight is overbooked. First the passenger was allowed to board and claim
    his seat. The aircraft was not overbooked and it was a last minute
    situation for the four employees. Since the passenger was allowed to board
    and claimed his seat he had followed the rules of the contract of carriage.
    This is no longer a denied boarding situation but now becomes he denied
    transport situation. In this the airline can ask for volunteers, but in no
    place under the denied transport rules can a passenger be forcibly taken
    off an aircraft because of the booking situation. He can be denied
    transport for other reasons, such as security and safety but not because of
    booking. At this point since he was legally on the aircraft, the Chicago
    Transportation Police (not federal law enforcement as stated) had no just
    authority to remove the passenger forcibly from the aircraft as there was
    no violation of any rules or laws in this situation. The passenger had the
    legal right at that time to complete his journey since he was allowed to
    board the aircraft.

  388. Sorry mate, but you are wrong. Unless you can show where United has the right to unboard a passenger due to overbooking. I’ve read their rules and policies which only cover denial of boarding. Since he was already admitted on board those rules no longer apply, he had every right to refuse.

  389. The fault lies with United and its employees for poor planning in having four crew members show up at the last minute and displacing regular passengers.

    “After passengers had already boarded the plane, United said it needed to clear some seats for four members of another flight crew who needed to get to Louisville.”

  390. Here is the problem with your idea that it is the Chicago Aviation Police’s fault mostly, more than United Airlines. Look, as a customer, I don’t deal with CAP and hope never to– although these videos show that United Airlines might call them to come beat me up on their airplane!

    This is really an interesting situation. Most articles that I make comments on, well I have an opinion, but it doesn’t really matter to the story (ie. was OJ innocent or guilty? should the Supreme Court have voted this way or that way?). This article, though, my opinion DOES matter. As does everyone else’s opinion. We vote with our dollars. And we might be choosing this year or next year, or both, or several times in a year, where to spend that money. This week, I expect to spend $1500 on 2 plane tickets. Literally overnight, United went from being one of my preferred airlines (because I was never that picky before and had no beef with them before), to one that I will avoid, even if it costs extra $$, esp while this CEO is still in place. The CEO who says that if I protest to being removed from a flight by staying in my seat, because I’m already seated, my stuff is in the overhead bin, my luggage is on the plane, I’ve already paid for my seat– and now they want to move me for something that sounds like a trivial reason or unreasonable request, the CAP can come drag me down the aisle unconscious, bash my head in till blood drips from my face– and the CEO says this is all following their procedure… no thanks!

    Are you looking at the situation from a paying customer’s point of view? I don’t know who the CAP is, never dealt with them, and don’t really care about them. United Airlines is the one who called them to come to do the deed– CAP wouldn’t be there if United Airlines didn’t ask them to be there. So when I’m making a choice to fly, I’m going to fear United Airlines from now on. I’m not choosing CAP, I’m choosing an airline to fly with.

    I’m paying hundreds if not a thousand dollars + for someone to safely transport me through the air, thousands of miles above the ground from one place to another. If that doesn’t scream ‘trust’ to you, I don’t know what does! Choosing an airline is all about TRUST and they are in the business of trust. In a way, it doesn’t matter who is wrong and who isn’t wrong– even if you think it’s wrong, the general public sides w/the passenger– if not for the simple reason that they would fear something like this ever happening to themselves or their loved ones.

    The videos showed a number of surprising/shocking things: I have flown many flights for many decades. I have seen many flights overbooked, people not allowed to board, frustrated people at the counters, etc. I have NEVER seen people being involuntarily chosen to leave a flight once everyone has sat down. This is eye opener #1. That also causes people like me to side w/the passenger, I would have been puzzled and have lots of questions, that procedure doesn’t seem right to me, at best, it is unfamiliar. Eye opener #2 of course, is that a passenger can be knocked unconscious and dragged down the aisle if they insist on staying in their seat. Please show me other videos of other airlines doing this– I have never seen it before. I didn’t even know this COULD happen!!

    So literally overnight, I’ve made the decision to not fly United for now. For those who want to keep flying United, please continue to do so, so that there is room on other airlines for me! Flying with United now means that if you don’t leave your seat when they want you to, you could get knocked unconscious, dragged down the aisle, and bloody nose/mouth. And at best, you risk being involuntarily chosen to leave a flight you are seated on, for whatever reason they choose. No thanks…. I could avoid both those potential problems by just flying with a different airline.

  391. This male knew what he was doing! What rational person refuses an officer. If he had just gotten off the plane he could have handled it then. He knew if he caused a disturbance he could get more money. When you cause a disturbance you will be removed. The airlines had every right to get a flight crew down to Louisville in time for the flight they were needed on. Also this “Dr” who had to see patients. Works one day a wk for another Dr! His past record stands by itself. If he were my Dr I would drop him faster than the stock is falling

  392. “…is a function of the growth of the security state in response to 9/11. ”

    Huh? How did 9/11 influence UA’s overbooking practices? Involuntary bumps occurred before 9/11 as well. Bringing 9/11 into the discussion is well, let’s just say, less than honest, as most of these “other side of the story” blog posts are.
    Spare us the “airlines mist have a plan for this moving forward” stuff as though UA’s awful response was their solution to a problem they had never seen before. A protocol is already in place and on this day UA and security choose to ignore it.
    Actions, like United’s , have consequences. A passenger’s INACTION in this situation should not.

  393. Amen and good commentary. I have been a hotel company executive for many years. It is actually illegal to evict a hotel guest for similar reasons. And although the legality does not seem entirely clear in this circumstance, FAA/DOT regulations and United’s own contract of carriage were violated. That is clear to anyone that reads the contracts and regulations.

    Regardless, I am personally less disturbed by the incident itself than the response from Oscar Munoz. Mistakes happen. Those of us in a service industry that excel at our profession realize that how we deal with those mistakes shapes the perception that customers have of our brand.

    I have been a loyal United flyer ever since my bride and I were upgraded to first class on our honeymoon by a desk agent that did a nice thing. That level of service in the airline industry is a thing of the past. And the 27 years of loyalty that this one act created was destroyed by Oscar Munoz in his statement and indifference.

  394. Seems to me united airlines could have sent there 4 employees by private plane . The fallout of the CEO’s comments that united needed the seats for employees. And his bs comments about we tried to compensate the passengers we ask to leave . Yes they tried to but one passenger said no he needed to fly now . He bought a ticket payed his money and got the sh%# kicked out of him . United made there money from that flight and another flight also . The stock is getting hit in the hind end because of there actions . And well I would think that the doctor will have enough money after court to buy a private plane now . If he doesn’t that would be a crime in it’s self . The point is airlines have so much business they want to crap on customers. And if the customer doesn’t like it they will beat you and drag you out of the seat you bought and payed for . It is a shame money driven decision made that happen. It will cost united more money than just giving a call to delta or American Airlines or a private jet to take 4 people to where they had bought a ticket to go . Inconvenience of 4 customers or a CEO to pay extra to make customers happy . Hummm we will see how this plays out .

  395. This event has solicited personal opinion comments, minus any facts whatsoever. First, a person can refuse to follow an unlawful order verbally spoken by Law Enforcement. It may not be the safest thing to do, but one does not have to jump to attention if the order is unlawful. This entire debacle is ridiculous. United screwed up big time, and they are stepping all over their ignorant selves. I’ve not read a time frame as to when the four airline employees showed up at the gate to report they needed seats. Had they showed up in plenty of time, before the passengers were permitted to board, this entire ordeal may have ended differently. As it is, the passengers were seated and ready to fly to their destination. Was their luggage stored in the cargo hole? Federal law prohibits luggage on a plane without a physical passenger(owner of luggage) in a seat. I can foresee all sorts of nightmare situations with a computer selecting who should get off. Let’s pretend for a moment that a parent, and two infant children are flying. The computer picks one of the babies to get off the plane. Then what? Or, someone flying to attend a wedding, funeral, or whatever milestone event. Back to reality. This particular passenger may not have understood why he was being picked on. I’ve not read any information about the other three passengers who may have been told to get off. It doesn’t matter if they cooperated, got drunk, or punched someone. We are only hearing about the man who was battered by some sort of authority. Several agencies of Law Enforcement have been mentioned as involved. In the end, United has a bigly black eye, and it’s going to cost them millions in lawsuit settlements to end the mistake. The man may not sue, but he should. This activity cannot occur again. Congress needs to get their heads out of their asses, and repeal whatever law granted permission to treat paying passengers as punching bags.

  396. Why has nobody asked why this flight crew of 4 were not ALREADY in the airplane getting ready for the flight with their seating ALREADY preassigned? Whatever the reason it occurs to me that they were LATE which precipitated this “horrible” fiasco

  397. Stop using the “Denied Boarding” argument. The man had already boarded so any arguments you pose in your article for this are not accurate and you need to remove them. You’re reaching for reasons to blame the man and this is a BIG overreach. He had already boarded so he couldn’t have been denied boarding.

  398. This passenger did nothing wrong. The control freaks and those here who demand passivity and slavish obedience need to understand that United Airlines broke the law, not the passenger. And, their monumental stupidity is going to cost them a lot more than whatever they could have offered to get someone else to voluntarily leave the plane.

  399. Mr article writer why should a 69 year old be dragged out from a plane if he has not done any crime. And you defending it is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. May your mom or dad or wife be dragged out from somewhere and then defend that case.

  400. Great, balanced article, bit I think blaming the police is a little harsh as they were placed in an invidious situation where there was no good solution. From my view as a long time traveller on many airlines around the world, I have to say United is one of the worse ones that I use as a last resort, so this event doesn’t surprise me.

    United!s excuse that they needed the seats for transferring crew really doesn’t ring true as they should have known this before the plane was boarded and asked for volunteers at the gate. Letting people board and allowing the process to degenerate to what eventuated smacks of both arrogance on the part of the staff involved and hubris on the part of the airline management. In reality both regard passengers as numbers not people.

  401. I’m in heated agreement with Theresa and Neil and all others on this blog who will vote with their feet. For full disclosure I made that decision with United about 16 years ago for another situation – not one that included a bloody trip down the aisle, but one that more directly affected me.

    I’m saddened to see the sprinkling of posts that sink to racist and other hateful comments – including the personal attacks on Gary, however misguided his commentary on this matter may have been.

    We’re all suffering through the stressful consequences of unbridled corporate greed – which current circumstances have accelerated us into what feels like a Twilight Zone episode. These times will test nearly everything – our system of government; the viability of our American culture and even our ability as a species to evolve in a positive direction.

    Good luck to everyone.

  402. Rosa Park was not a terrorist, and neither is this brave passenger. Whoever thinks he deserves what happened needs to have the same things done to them. Remember the golden rule.

    Remember that some people will refuse to comply to injustice when they’ve had enough of it in their life. We all do that at some point. I’m waiting for Trump to weigh in on this domestic issue.

    If Dao was black, the CEO of United would be be asked to resign for his insensitive remark of blaming the victim as belligerent and the Chicago police chief would be asked to resign for his department’s “belligerent” lies, and the penalty on the corporation and officers and gate agent would be stiffer than imaginable. And the one who blames the victim would be called a racist because prejudice blinds him/her from seeing the real issue here. And rioting (please don’t destroy other people’s property or lives.)

    Munoz’s compensation of the passengers later on rewards the non victims for what happened to the victim to buy their loyalty. Too late to spend money now. Should have spent it to prevent passengers removal before this took place. Some people also needs to be fired, from the top down.

    It also doesn’t matter what the victim’s past is. Character assassination is a tool to demonize the victim and take people away from the true issue, the work of darkness. Each situation has its own merit. No one deserves to be beaten to compliance for refusing to give up what belongs to him or her.

    Most of us have been victimized by bullies. Please, don’t give the bullies our business. They make much money off our backs and treat us like dirt, and try to buy our loyalty once their sin found them out. Fire them!

    Trump- please enable more competitors to the airline business.

  403. The situation never was “federal”. Security officers or Chicago he vision department personnel. In addition, no federal law was being violated as the federal laws only apply to airplanes in flight. This was a commercial dispute in which United was in the wrong where they called on local authorities to act as their bouncers.

  404. Your ability to optimize flight miles doesn’t make you an expert on carriage contracts. You make many presumptions that are incorrect. You cannot deny boarding if the passenger has already boarded. He was not given a written explanation of his rights. Your opinion shows pro-authoritarians leanings, which you have a blind trust in things you probably shouldn’t trust.

  405. @Trader Jim – I don’t see how placing blame on police for use of excessive force can possibly mean that my “opinion shows pro-authoritarians leanings” that simply makes no sense.

  406. I think next time the police should just let an unruly passenger just continue to be unruly. Then turn around and walk away!

  407. To be clear to those who are blindly hating UA, this sort of situation is just as likely to have happened on American or Delta (the only real difference that they could’ve made was raising the voluntary compensation higher). The ultimate problem here has never been United. It was the Chicago police overreacting to a man who simply needed to get to work, excaberated by the airline’s poor response to the situation. I don’t endorse this sort of thing by the airlines; I hate it as much as you do. But the big problem lies in the culture, not any one airline.

  408. The man only became unruly when United successfully and illegally used the Chicago Aviation Authority security personnel as their bouncers in what was simply a commercial dispute. You don’t get to provoke someone into a reaction and use the reaction as justification for the provocation. That’s backwards reasoning. United had no basis upon which to insist that they passenger leave involuntarily; read the Contract of Carriage. They had even less business bringing in the authorities to use force to avoid having to pay enough to have gotten someone to leave voluntarily.

  409. @Budd Duke
    While I agree that the police should not have taken to the force they used to remove the man, I do not agree that being unruly should have gone ignored. There is a completely reasonable explanation as to why the flight crew needed to take people off the flight as stated above, and the man got upset about his name getting called. He refused to follow directions. What the police should have done was detained the man in the standard get up and put your hands behind your back. And not yank the man from his seat. I also believe this could have actually happened (please note I did not say I believe it DID happen). And the reason they yanked him out of his seat could have been for failure to comply with that. But there were 3 Police officers there they could have done a much better job detaining this man until he was removed from the plane and had a chance to calm down from the inconvenience.

    Unruly=Disturbing peace=Detainable offense

  410. This is the only well-balanced, thought out and logical article I’ve seen on the matter. Can you please take it down to make way for more biased conclusion jumping. We wouldn’t want this to encourage people to think critically now would we?

  411. Aside from some of the author’s misunderstandings regarding the Contract of Carriage, here’s where I think the biggest gloss-over occurs:

    “More importantly, United didn’t do it because Department of Transportation regulations set maximum required compensation for involuntary denied boarding (in this case 4 times the passenger’s fare paid up to a maximum of $1350).”

    Yes, DOT sets the maximum REQUIRED COMPENSATION, sure. But that doesn’t mean UA can’t offer an amount beyond the required amount. They chose not to. Then they chose to utilize a public agency to handle their bad business predicament.

    In no way was anyone entitled to this passenger voluntarily giving up his seat – and that includes UA. This situation is clearly a known risk of operating for UA and that means it is a business risk, plain and simple.

    This blog entry is a bunch of BS, authored by someone who gets a lot of perks from the airline industry, I’m sure. Including United.

  412. @Jason
    Maximum Required does mean that is the cap. I think you are thinking MINIMUM REQUIRED

  413. @Jon — Jason’s point is that while the airline has a cap on what they are required by law to offer, they can certainly choose to offer more than they are required to by law.

    And as an attorney who has read the carriage contracts, there are some pretty big problems with the above analysis. First, the airline is permitted to refuse boarding to individuals in an oversold situation. But this wasn’t an oversold situation, as noted above. Wanting to move your crew doesn’t mean you’ve sold more tickets than you have seats. The crew didn’t have purchased tickets. Legally, the flight wasn’t oversold and the airline breached its contract with the passengers by forcibly removing people to give priority to their crew. Second, the requirements are different under the contract for denying boarding vs. forcing passengers to get off the plane after they’ve boarded. There are fewer situations in which you can require someone to get off once they’ve boarded. An oversold situation, or making room for crew members, aren’t among them. One of the few situations where you can forcibly remove someone is where they’re being “disruptive,” which is why the airline initially tried to paint him as disruptive even though the video clearly confirmed that he wasn’t disruptive at all until after they tried to forcibly remove him, leaving his wife and belongings still on board.

    The CEO’s multiple responses demonstrate that the airline came to realize this. The first time he made a public statement he blamed the passenger entirely, pushing the “disruptive” narrative. Apparently, someone then explained to him that the airline’s behavior had misapplied the law and they had real exposure. Suddenly the airline was all apologies and taking responsibility. Part of this was media backlash, of course, but a bigger reason was likely their realization that they were in fact legally in the wrong and they needed to get rid of the story before it became a lawsuit. (That ship appears to have sailed….)

  414. No two companies are exactly alike. Otherwise there is no differentiation in price and service. Incidence like this will happen if you only care to maximize your profit in the short term. UA saved some money that day by kicking out a passenger. UA didn’t think there would be backlash. Let UA fail and the rest of the airlines will learn. Not all 12 disciples of Yeshuah were replaced. Only Judas Iscariot.

  415. @Stacey
    Got it. Maximum Required means that is the maximum that the law can require. Not capping the maximum that could be offered. I wonder who came up with a maximum requirement law when it comes to compensation. I completely understand minimum requirement laws in compensation settlements

  416. Seems that you can’t even explain the law right. As noted in other comments, the $1350 is the cap a customer can request without case-by-case justification. There’s not a cap on what the airline can offer. It’s funny how some people talk as if they know it for sure when they actually don’t. That makes the credibility of the content of your whole site questionable.

  417. So how come the pilot (God of All Things Aboard) has no responsibility? What if the captain had walked to the back and explained the situation? And certainly the captain realized from all the screaming and dragging that unreasonable and excessive force was being applied.

    Further, isn’t there a jump seat in the cockpit that check pilots use when conducting a check ride that one of the ‘accomodated’ crew members could have used? How ’bout an extra cabin-crew seat? All they needed at that point was one.

    Of course, the better, and ultimately less expensive option for United, would have been to keep upping the offer for a seat until a true volunteer agreed to give up a seat.

  418. UA offered $800… The passenger was not unruly… in fact there is new video from a man that sat behind him before the doc was dragged out. He was declining to ‘voluntarily’ leave in a calm matter. I don’t know where some of you are getting the idea that he was unruly.

  419. @Lyla – the airlines treat it as a price cap because it’s their maximum legal liability, and there are limits on customer ability to sue.

  420. I also agree w/Neill, Rita, Steve, Stacy. btw it might be interesting to know that a United FA, I think, commented that the $800 had something to do with the SHARE computer system, which they really dislike and find hard to use. They have had to use this ever since the merger w/Continental. To be able to offer more than $800, they mentioned it is a bureaucratic/technological mess that would have taken a lot of time, included 10 more steps in the computer, getting multiple authorizations from superiors, etc. Of course in retrospect, this still would have been a cheaper option.

    Gary– it might be useful to research more about the Chicago Aviation Police vs Chicago Police Dept. I’d be curious to know. From what I’ve read so far, they are NOT a part of the Chicago Police Dept, and act more like security officers? They don’t carry weapons. I work in a place that has both security and Police. Our Security cannot arrest people. If escalation is required, Police have to be called and they can do the arresting. Generally speaking, the Police Dept takes care of the more serious issues.

    I will reiterate that the passenger said in the video he was willing to go to jail. I am sure that Stacy is right and there are different rules for denying someone boarding vs. forced removal from a flight. The first is preventing someone from boarding; the second is actively and possibly physically removing someone, and of course there are greater risks to the passenger and personnel, and greater inherent liability. So these rules should also be scrutinized. Certainly United could have contacted the Chicago Police and asked them to arrest him, if they chose to push it that far. This is another big problem. It’s one thing to forcefully remove him after being arrested. It’s another if he’s not being arrested, which I don’t think he was.

    Another detail being glossed over is that both security and police can respond with force that is COMMENSURATE with what the person is doing. I can imagine scenarios where this response was appropriate: the passenger punched the FA or another passenger. Also the police can point a gun at him and even shoot, if he had a weapon and was pointing it at people.

    In this case, they cannot respond violently if the passenger is not violent. For those who are saying that because he didn’t listen to the FA crew, he can be treated violently like this, the law does not say this.

    A passenger who IS acting physically violent CAN be treated like this. However, a passenger who is verbally protesting, disagreeing, refusing to leave cannot be treated violently, except force might be able to be used by the Chicago Police after they arrest him. The police response must match the action of the person they are responding to. In other words, the police would not be justified in pointing a gun at him and shooting him, just because he refuses to get out of his seat when he is otherwise nonviolent and not a physical threat to anyone. Gary, if you want to look into this, it might be interesting for all of us to learn more about.

    Rosa Parks is a good example that someone mentioned– the bus driver (nor a security officer, typically) did not have a right to physically pull her off the bus and give her a head injury on the way out. The bus can contact Police to arrest her, though, which is what happened.

    However, focusing on CAP and giving them all or most of the responsibility, while giving UA a free pass is premature to say also. At issue will be– what exactly did UA tell CAP? Did they portray this as a physically threatening or violent situation that requires a violent response (as you would for a drunk, violent passenger)? If so, and if THAT’S the reason CAP acted the way they did (because otherwise it is puzzling why CAP used so much force), the UA will be quite liable for this. I’m sure everything is being reviewed carefully now. Also as much as UA might want to say this passenger was physically violent, which necessitated a violent response, it simply is not what is being reported by the passengers on the flight so far. So, UA is potentially in a lot of hot water here.

  421. I HOPE all the AIRLINES have learned their lesson and treat people with respect. This is more than the Hitler and dictators that the North Korean, North China, North VIETNAM Communist kind of thing would do to their human. THIS IS SICK.

  422. First United should Have offered more money. They screwed up the man paid for seat it’s his. I disagree with overbookings. My tickets always say nonrefundable so if I cannot a refund then why do they get to oversell.

    Not I keep hearing USG cap on allowable compensation I have not read any rules that place a cap on allowable compensation only a cap on the minimum or maximum required amount of compensation. Not a cap on allowable compensation.

  423. Interesting that there are now 2 memes, this one & another, circulating FB that have almost identical Q&A format…with nearly identical outcomes…United had no choice in this matter

    United had many choices, rather than the CHOICE to offer fairly worthless travel vouchers of $800 to passengers that had already been boarded & were seated on a flight (their code of carriage allowed up to $1350 CASH… real money, not vouchers!)
    As I have already stated in many posts on this issue, the 4 crew members & United KNEW IN ADVANCE THAT THIS TRANSFER WAS NEEDED & KNEW THAT THE CREW TRANSFER ON THIS FLIGHT WOULD CREATE AN OVERBOOKED SITUATION… Think about it, Ohare airport is one of the airport that you NEED the advanced boarding time to get to most gates & any flight crew would have been called up from a distance from the airport, unless they were already on standby in the airport for this callout…
    They had plenty of time to offer the maximum allowed by law -$1350 in cash PRIOR TO BOARDING AN OVERBOOKED FLIGHT – REAL money (not the $800 voucher which costs UNITED way less than $800, and, from our experience having taken vouchers, is WORTH WAY LESS THAN $800 as they are very hard to use in todays booking environment… unless you are a totally dedicated United flier!)
    AND THE DECISION TO HANDLE THIS CASE THE WAY THEY DID ENDED UP IN A 2 HOUR DELAY & a passenger in hospital for days… & over a BILLION dollars of stock value lost in a little over 24 hours
    These facts are what totally negates this whole argument that they had no other choice & they had to bump a seated passenger-
    Many have questioned the TIMING of this incident…. This is a commuter route, & was the last flight of the day… many travelers had work the next day at the destination (used to do this route, ON UNITED fairly regularly when I did production inspections…)
    If the crew transfer was needed & they called up a crew in Chicago…they had at least an hour or more notice prior to boarding (Ohare airport is one that you actually NEED the recommended lead time to navigate & any crew called most likely was some distance from the airport…)
    It is one thing to bump PRIOR to boarding & offer fair compensation…it is quite another to bump post-boarding and offer a pretty useless travel voucher….again…have accepted it once, will never do it again for the voucher…they are pretty worthless….

    I have also seen airlines that handle overbooked situations pre-boarding, & we have even accepted an alternative prior to boarding…. I have also seen United handle overbooking post boarding, after customers are seated in the plane on flights into & out of Hilo (they are our only direct-to-mainland carriers) & this is always a way more stressed filled scenario…

  424. If the selection of the passengers to be removed was “random,” shouldn’t the fact that he was a doctor with patients in the morning be a factor? Thoughtless and no respect for the customer … and that’s pretty much how I feel the airline culture has changed.

  425. Technically, the Chicago Department of Aviation security personnel are not police officers. They have the authority of a Chicago police officer with respect to the airport grounds only, but do not carry weapons (thankfully). As to whether they would act with reason and restraint? You must not live here, or you would be aware of the issues we have been having with a sizeable minority of the law enforcement officers in Chicago. It isn’t at all surprising how they acted, as these are either off-duty cops moonlighting for CDA or they are law-enforcement wannabes that think they are acting like real police when they behave this way.

  426. Before I continue, I don’t have anything bad to say about you, as a person.

    This article is very “white” of you, never living a life of a minority. Airlines have treated it’s customers, not just minority, horribly. This man might’ve felt that being a minority, he will make a stand, to an unacceptable case. Please read this theblaze article below, maybe it’ll restart some common sense.

    Did this man threaten the crew? Did he use physical pressure against the “hired” security? He just spoke of unfair treatment in a loud manner anyone can agree with. He might’ve felt slighted, being a minority being picked to give up his seat after he had clearly every right to fly. In my mind, he did 0% wrong here. I commend him for standing up for his rights, which so few passengers have done since 9-11. Did crew try to reason with him, like if you don’t give up the seat it’ll delay for hundreds of people? They just threatened him by force.

    http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/04/12/commentary-just-because-united-airlines-had-the-right-doesnt-mean-they-were-right/

  427. The gentleman involved is a surgeon. He had people scheduled to go under the knife the next day. How are those patients less important than the passengers on a flight that hypothetically might have been grounded? United should have chosen someone else. Period. He is not in any way at fault. And you have got to be kidding me with your comment about the cops. I do not tolerate police brutality. Ever. Full “f”ing stop.

  428. So many people have no clue about boarding and rights. Just because you are on the airplane, doesn’t mean an airline can’t ask and have you taken off. Perhaps people should read the contract when they buy a ticket. People think because they are on the airplane that they somehow have magical rights and that they don’t have to leave if asked. Try again. And when you start refusing to follow aircrew directions, now you are obstructing the flight which is a felony. This guy should have gotten off when asked. But this good news is this guy will be banned from United and probably from the other major airlines. The question is why isn’t this guy sitting in jail for the felony charge?

  429. Amazed people are traumatized by this video. What fortunate, sheltered lives you have led.

  430. @Halstead

    He Was not a surgeon undergoing the knife in the morning he was an outpatient physician

    It’s not even about the 1 flight that may have been cancelled it is about the whole ripple effect that happens when a plane is grounded. It screws up so much more than 1 little flight. Like months of recovery and not just the 1 airline. It affects the airports in a big way.

    @ James

    Thanks for being the anti racist-racist. Your point became invalid at the beginning.

  431. United is going to pay $$$$, and they should. My outrage is at the public. Instant personal opinions and character assassination rolled in on social media. The battered (unlawfully) passenger was dragged through the mud, as is the usual response to these sort of incidents. Citizens do not have to obey an unlawful order of Law Enforcement. It’s not a smart or safe thing to do, but when a LEO directs an unlawful order, it can be ignored. Who gave legal authority to the Guards/Officers to batter and then drag this man off an airline? The entire debacle was mishandled by airline employees. You stop people from boarding if the seat needs to go to another. This man was seated on the plane and his luggage may very well have been stored in the cargo area. Federal law prohibits checked baggage if the owner is not on the flight. I’ve not seen any mention of checked baggage yet. Just because three unhappy passengers got off, doesn’t mean the fourth did anything wrong. The CEO of United should resign. His comments were spoken in public before he knew the facts. Everything he said, initially, was character assassination upon the man involved. Coming back and apologizing, sorta, doesn’t erase the initial gross mistake.

  432. @Stan – You say: “Just because you are on the airplane, doesn’t mean an airline can’t ask and have you taken off. Perhaps people should read the contract when they buy a ticket.” Sounds to me like YOU haven’t read United’s Contract of Carriage as it applies here. I have. Rule 25 allows “denial of boarding” for “oversold” conditions (i.e., bumping). United not only WELCOMED the passenger to board, but the plane wasn’t oversold. At the last minute, they decided they wanted to fly their own staff over paying customers. You can argue semantics all you want that “deplaning” and “denial of boarding” are the same thing. No reasonable jury would agree.
    You can call last minute employees showing up out of the blue as “oversold”. No reasonable jury would agree. If I’m sitting there in my seat on the plane and you read me Rule 25, I wouldn’t agree either. The only rule that triggers de-planing is Rule 21: Denial of Transport. The only time it could be argued that the passenger violated Rule 21 was AFTER the mall-cop airport security officers were – improperly – called on board, and AFTER he was told he had to leave. It’s far more likely the mall cops are convicted of a felony for assault than the passenger is for disobeying an improper order.

    You also say: “But this good news is this guy will be banned from United and probably from the other major airlines.” Far more likely: He’s given a free first class pass for life. I doubt they have such a pass, but it’s far more likely they create one just for him than ban him.

  433. @Stan – so many people, like you, have no inkling about what a contract between a ticket holder an an airline involves and you still think you have to express your cluelessness. This is what really amazes me. Also the immense spinelessness of quite a few commenters here (well that includes Gary the blog owner!) who’s first and after some uproar even second reaction is to blame the victim, apologize for the airline and can’t for life understand that somebody doesn’t immediately follow stupid, insulting as well as illegal directions from some kind of ‘security’ guys. WOW – dark times indeed.

  434. Security in a plane or any other location of an airport should be high and if asked to leave or get off of a plane, anyone should simply cooperate. Simple as that. This man is clearly crazy.

  435. As it turns out, the jerk lied about having to see patients the next morning! He’s not employed. He was belligerent from the onset – view the video taken prior to his being forcibly removed from the plane. Now he’ll use everything available to sue the airline- which will of course end up paying the former drug felon millions! Let him go back to his home country. We have enough trouble with people such as that without having to put up with immigrants breaking laws – especially someone who SHOULD be gracious – one EXPECTS a REAL doctor not to deal in drugs! His license should have been permanently revoked & he should have been sent back to his country of origin where perhaps they like homosexual drug dealers. It’s a wonder his wife even accepted him! I know I’m being overly harsh – but just fed up with people such as this man.

  436. So let me get this straight, the real United airlines takes the rap for something that was not done directly by any of its employees on an airplane owned and operated by an independent airline called Republic airlines who has code share deals with American, Delta and United. Does anyone care when it comes to the blame game? Also, it’s amazing to me that Chinese people in China are so upset at United airlines when everyday, thousands of their own citizens are removed and disappear for saying the wrong thing. What happened was wrong and changes will be made. Let’s be real about what this was, simple police brutality. When it comes to blame, maybe we should all just look in the mirror.

  437. I do appreciate trying to take a more level-headed tone; however, you are downplaying United’s responsibility a little too much.

    United screwed up big time by boarding all the passengers and only then kicking people off. It’s on very shaky ground they even have the legal right to do that since the law allows denying boarding due to overbooking, not removal once on the plane because they forgot to save room for their employees.

    United made a huge operational error to be so disorganized to only realize that the crew needed to get on the plane after the boarding process was completed.

    Sure you have to stop somewhere but $800 was way too low considering that this wasn’t just the standard legal overbooking but an huge operational blunder where they tried to cram crew on after the fact. At a minimum they should have gone up to the $1350 – I’ve read differing accounts, but by some accounts they got 2 volunteers at $800 and only needed 2 more – surely they should have made a reasonable decision to increase it before kicking someone off the plane who was already seated. Even the CEO incorrectly stated that they had offered $1000. I’m sure in hindsight United wishes they had done exactly that – they should have correctly empowered it occurring in the first place.

    I don’t buy that they could not have found replacement crew members by the next morning local to Louisville – I call b.s. that the plane could not have flown without these 4 exact crew members.

  438. In no way should this man have left this airplane. United should have found another way (by car or another airline) to get their staff to work on time….or how about run a better operation. The doctor purchased a seat and made his plans – despite the rules of carriage, which I don’t pretend to understand. Perhaps next time we go to a restaurant and order a meal, as we begin to enjoy our dinner the restaurant will throw us out because they need the table for management. Or you rent a car and they run out of cars – this has happened to me more than once. Airlines get away with FAR too much and the traveling public is not protected. Shame, shame, shame.

  439. Garry’s original comments have been proven to be very flawed over the last days. They should be revised to reflect information learned since the 11th.

  440. You keep referring to this as a “denied boarding” when the video clearly shows that the passenger had already boarded, stowed his belongings, and fastened his seatbelt. This could very easily have been avoided if it HAD been a denied boarding. This type of situation should never happen because it should be taken care of at the gate BEFORE anyone boards the plane. There was no surprise that they needed the seats for the deadheads. This was just poorly handled by United from the very beginning.

  441. @Ken S – Exactly. This wasn’t a “denial” of boarding situation, no matter what legalese someone might try to spin. It was a WELCOMED boarding situation. United knows it won’t win in court with that argument. In fact, I wonder if there’s a class-action suit just waiting here for all people bumped involuntarily once they’ been seated on a United plane. The CEO in his letter to employees is on record saying they followed established protocol.

  442. Just heard that the dr. and his wife accepted voluntary compensation and got off the jet. That he ran back onto the aircraft after that and then refused to get off the aircraft. Can you verify this story going around the airline industry?

  443. Hey it’s a guy with stock in United that doesn’t like what he sees and has every excuse lined up – nice.

  444. Its a pain in the ass but if the Police tell you to get off you get off and ask questions later

  445. Yeah. Even fake police with fake badges and jackets, right Travis? My guess is Dr Dao will do just fine with the decision he made. Meanwhile, you just keep doing what you’re told, no matter what your rights and no matter who it is telling you.

  446. This is really a difficult situation.
    I feel sorry the judge who has to sort it out.

    In light of this situation, I bet being a judge is one of the worst jobs – but maybe not.

  447. This writer is incredibly biased against airline passengers and says many things in this article that are plainly stupid. Just two examples:

    “It wasn’t ‘to maximize their profits’ although they certainly wanted to limit their losses…”

    Really? If you lose less money in business, that means you make more money. And you’re a so-called “expert” in the airline business…?

    “…refusing airline and police instructions unless designed to provoke a violent response for media attention to promote a civil rights cause…”

    So you think Dr. Dao planned in advance to sustain a concussion, a broken nose, and lose two teeth because he wanted “media attention” to “promote a civil rights cause”?

    What kind of person says things like that? So this is what the world looks like when you have a “view from the wing”…?

  448. I agree with the blog post’s core point that airlines have adopted a very antagonistic attitude towards passengers, where even mild questioning can be immediately construed as a security threat and grounds for arrest.

    Buried in the blog post is a comment that the airline employees weren’t empowered to offer higher compensation. They also aren’t empowered to think creatively. If an offer of an $800 voucher plus a hotel and a flight the next day isn’t enough, perhaps offer $500 cash, an $800 voucher, and an immediate Uber ride to Louisville. That’s a far less disruptive offer: it provides actual cash, plus an voucher for United travel, and a same-day arrival in Louisville. But of course airlines have elminated the ability of employees to be creative.

  449. The men were not Sworn Law Enforcement Officers. You do not have to follow unlawful instruction from Police or Security. It’s not physically safe to refuse, but you can. The man was seated on the plane, enough said. The airline is responsible for securing volunteers to give up their seat BEFORE the passengers board the plan. United employees and their CEO screwed up and there is no denying that fact.

  450. Excuse me, but United knew exactly how many ppl had checked into the fight vs. how many seats the plane actually had.

    This situation should have been resolved at the boarding gate, before the Dr. Or anyone else boarded the plane.

    The author of this article is full of excuses and misses the point.

  451. He bought and paid for his ticket it was his seat he should have rights why should he have give his seat up do they think that their behavior is exceptable just because they are security officers they should get jail time that is abuse I don’t care how they try and justify their bahaciors just my opinion

  452. stan, I’m going to defer to a legal expert on this one. A former DOT Inspector General:

    https://youtu.be/O7-8pECwfd0?t=1m7s

    “This wasn’t a true overbooking. This wasn’t a denied booking situation, and they complied with none of the FAA regulations. For example, this guy was entitled to be presented with a piece of paper that explains his rights and the criteria that the airline used to select him.”

    Here he is, prior to the violence, asking for the criteria that were used to select him:
    https://youtu.be/O7-8pECwfd0?t=1m7s

    Logic would also dictate that the selection process was not random and that United is lying through its teeth. Dr. Dao unfortunately has a brain and was using it, questioning how it could be that he was randomly selected. He played in the World Series of Poker so I think he understands how random selection actually works.

    If you need four seats you would choose any combination of passengers of the same priority that results in four vouchers. Dr. Dao was traveling as a couple with his wife. Let’s just think logically, since a computer runs on logic, I need four empty seats, why would I select a combination resulting in my paying out five vouchers given that three other unrelated persons were selected. All the eyewitness accounts point to a gate agent on a power trip.

    Last, but not least, even if he was ‘randomly’ selected it would be stupid to kick physicians off the flight, almost as stupid as kicking off a commercial pilot. In this case it would be two physicians, since it would also have resulted in his wife, who was not selected in coming off. Case in point: http://www.turnto23.com/news/national/nj-doctor-saves-woman-on-united-flight-where-medical-supplies-were-lacking

    For an eyewitness account from a retired Marine on the flight:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/united-passenger-dragging-incident-more-horrifying-than-when-he-fled-vietnam/2017/04/13/7941ccdc-206f-11e7-be2a-3a1fb24d4671_story.html?utm_term=.00cb827f035d

    “One person yanked him out of his seat and then I saw them starting to drag Dao,” Fuller said. A woman ran to the front of the plane shouting, “What are you doing to my husband?”

    “She kept shouting,” Fuller said. “The police kept telling her she needed to come out or they were going to arrest her. She finally stepped outside.”

    [Video shows man being dragged off United flight after refusing to give up his seat]

  453. The problem though was that he was not denied boarding. He had already boarded and was seated. All the contractural issues disappear as they are based around the normal procedure of being denied boarding due to over booking etc, which was not the case here. In which case United are did not only make a bad situation worse, with the help of the aviation police, but they instigated the situation n the first place. I think this one is going to hurt them a little.

  454. Someone told me that they saw a post on Facebook about the man initially agreeing to give up his seat but when his wife weighed in he changed his mind. Can you find out if this is true?

  455. Unless broken, there should have been one flight attendant jump seat available on this particular aircraft, Embraer RJ170. The United Airlines gate agent or manager could have easily put one of the 4 crew members in the jump seat. Problem solved.

  456. @Gary, if “Scary Mary can’t be relied on, how about an Ivy League law professor? Jens David Ohlin of Cornell Law wrote this guest column for Newsweek and cites everything I and others have earlier regarding United’s breach of their Contract of Carriage with Dao: http://www.newsweek.com/why-united-were-legally-wrong-deplane-dr-dao-583535.

    Ohlin’s specialty might not be contract law, but I suspect that this is not remotely a complicated contract law case. For most of us who know how to comprehend English, the contract in this case is not that difficult to read or understand. It seems pretty black and white as applies here. What’s difficult to understand is the argument that it allows United to 1) demand Dao exit the plane, and then 2) call in the authorities to do their bidding when he refused. So far nobody provided a reasonable explanation as to why United was right – specifically citing clear language in the contract to back their argument. Those in defense of Dao’s contact position quotes some fairly unambiguous CoC language. Those who defend United have to twist the contract’s words and meanings. Ohlin agrees with the straightforward reading of the contract.

  457. My feeling is that the man’s “foreign” appearance was part of the reason the airport police treated him the way they did.
    It’s very probable that, in the wake of 9/11, many people decided that they needed to “protect America from foreigners” and became TSA agents for that reason. Given the melting pot nature of this nation, we are going to have to address that culture of xenophobia in general, and eradicate it from our security forces.

  458. The individuals that removed Dr. Dao should be brought up on charges and then hanged for their involvement. This is so similar to NAZI GERMANY during the Hitler rein! This is so intolerable. Those individuals should hang for this this!

  459. The individuals that removed Dr. Dao should be brought up on charges and then hanged for their involvement. This is so similar to NAZI GERMANY during the Hitler rein! This is so intolerable. Those individuals should hang for this this!

  460. All you paid trolls and misinformed public should know that the smear campaign against the doctor is as ignorant as your comments. The guy with the criminal past was not the one being bloodied and dragged out. The two shared the same first and last name but not middle names. The Victim is David Thanh Duc Dao, a doctor as well as father of 4 other doctors. The one whose past record was used to discredit the victim is David Anh Duy Dao. And this case is about passenger rights, not about what a person has done after having been convicted and paid the penalty for his crime, to deserve getting beat up and dragged off the plane. I don’t think that Nunoz, the airline, the gate keeper and the officers knew before hand and conspired to do so. And if they did know and follow through with their crime, it would be a bigger crime. Do unto others what you would have them do to you. That’s the golden rule. What good is it to lie for the perpetrators and lose your soul? What happened to Dr. Dao should never happen to anyone.

  461. I appreciate the article. To the person who says this wasn’t the guy who had the criminal record, that has been proven to be incorrect. This is the guy, and whether or not it should have been published that he traded drugs for sex and had multiple felonies, a person’s character can be relevant in association with something like this. I think that United’s options were somewhat limited, and I do not know why he was picked when he had other family members traveling. That part I would want answered, but I’ve never met a respectable doctor who would rather “go to jail” than abide by a request by authorities and then let himself be dragged out forcibly from his seat. Doesn’t make sense. A lot of things here don’t make sense, but people are so vocal and opinionated when they don’t really have any knowledge of the facts. That’s what horrifies me about the masses in this country.

  462. “Maximum required compensation”. Also known as the minimum. They can and should have offered more, as has happened before and since.

  463. Code of Federal Regulations Title 14 › Chapter II › Subchapter A › Part 253 mandates that commercial airlines are to be ruled by a Contract of Carriage.

    Here’s the pertinent section in United’s CoC:

    RULE 21 REFUSAL OF TRANSPORT
    UA shall have the right to refuse to transport or shall have the right to remove from the aircraft at any point, any Passenger for the following reasons:

    Breach of Contract of Carriage – Failure by Passenger to comply with the Rules of the Contract of Carriage.

    Government Request, Regulations or Security Directives – Whenever such action is necessary to comply with any government regulation, Customs and Border Protection, government or airport security directive of any sort, or any governmental request for emergency transportation in connection with the national defense.

    Force Majeure and Other Unforeseeable Conditions – Whenever such action is necessary or advisable by reason of weather or other conditions beyond UA’s control including, but not limited to, acts of God, force majeure, strikes, civil commotions, embargoes, wars, hostilities, terrorist activities, or disturbances, whether actual, threatened, or reported.

    Search of Passenger or Property – Whenever a Passenger refuses to submit to electronic surveillance or to permit search of his/her person or property.

    Proof of Identity – Whenever a Passenger refuses on request to produce identification satisfactory to UA or who presents a Ticket to board and whose identification does not match the name on the Ticket. UA shall have the right, but shall not be obligated, to require identification of persons purchasing tickets and/or presenting a ticket(s) for the purpose of boarding the aircraft.

    Failure to Pay – Whenever a Passenger has not paid the appropriate fare for a Ticket, Baggage, or applicable service charges for services required for travel, has not paid an outstanding debt or Court judgment, or has not produced satisfactory proof to UA that the Passenger is an authorized non-revenue Passenger or has engaged in a prohibited practice as specified in Rule 6.

    Across International Boundaries – Whenever a Passenger is traveling across any international boundary if:

    The government required travel documents of such Passenger appear not to be in order according to UA’s reasonable belief; or

    Such Passenger’s embarkation from, transit through, or entry into any country from, through, or to which such Passenger desires transportation would be unlawful or denied for any reason.

    Safety – Whenever refusal or removal of a Passenger may be necessary for the safety of such Passenger or other Passengers or members of the crew including, but not limited to:
    Passengers whose conduct is disorderly, offensive, abusive, or violent;

    Passengers who fail to comply with or interfere with the duties of the members of the flight crew, federal regulations, or security directives;
    Passengers who assault any employee of UA, including the gate agents and flight crew, or any UA Passenger;

    Passengers who, through and as a result of their conduct, cause a disturbance such that the captain or member of the cockpit crew must leave the cockpit in order to attend to the disturbance;

    Passengers who are barefoot or not properly clothed;

    Passengers who appear to be intoxicated or under the influence of drugs to a degree that the
    Passenger may endanger the Passenger or another Passenger or members of the crew (other than a qualified individual whose appearance or involuntary behavior may make them appear to be intoxicated or under the influence of drugs);

    Passengers wearing or possessing on or about their person concealed or unconcealed deadly or dangerous weapons; provided, however, that UA will carry law enforcement personnel who meet the qualifications and conditions established in 49 C.F.R. §1544.219;

    Passengers who are unwilling or unable to follow UA’s policy on smoking or use of other smokeless materials;

    Unless they comply with Rule 6 I), Passengers who are unable to sit in a single seat with the seat belt properly secured, and/or are unable to put the seat’s armrests down when seated and remain seated with the armrest down for the entirety of the flight, and/or passengers who significantly encroach upon the adjoining passenger’s seat;

    Passengers who are manacled or in the custody of law enforcement personnel;

    Passengers who have resisted or may reasonably be believed to be capable of resisting custodial supervision;

    Pregnant Passengers in their ninth month, unless such Passenger provides a doctor’s certificate dated no more than 72 hours prior to departure stating that the doctor has examined and found the Passenger to be physically fit for air travel to and from the destination requested on the date of the flight, and that the estimated date of delivery is after the date of the last flight;

    Passengers who are incapable of completing a flight safely, without requiring extraordinary medical assistance during the flight, as well as Passengers who appear to have symptoms of or have a communicable disease or condition that could pose a direct threat to the health or safety of others on the flight, or who refuse a screening for such disease or condition. (NOTE: UA requires a medical certificate for Passengers who wish to travel under such circumstances. Visit UA’s website, united.com, for more information regarding UA’s requirements for medical certificates);

    Passengers who fail to travel with the required safety assistant(s), advance notice and/or other safety requirements pursuant to Rules 14 and 15;

    Passengers who do not qualify as acceptable Non-Ambulatory Passengers (see Rule 14);
    Passengers who have or cause a malodorous condition (other than individuals qualifying as disabled);

    Passengers whose physical or mental condition is such that, in United’s sole opinion, they are rendered or likely to be rendered incapable of comprehending or complying with safety instructions without the assistance of an escort. The escort must accompany the escorted passenger at all times; and

    Unaccompanied passengers who are both blind and deaf, unless such passenger is able to communicate with representatives of UA by either physical, mechanical, electronic, or other means. Such passenger must inform UA of the method of communication to be used; and

    Passengers who are unwilling to follow UA’s policy that prohibits voice calls after the aircraft doors have closed, while taxiing in preparation for takeoff, or while airborne.

    Any Passenger who, by reason of engaging in the above activities in this Rule 21, causes UA any loss, damage or expense of any kind, consents and acknowledges that he or she shall reimburse UA for any such loss, damage or expense. UA has the right to refuse transport, on a permanent basis, to any passenger who, by reason of engaging in the above activities in this Rule 21, causes UA any loss, damage or expense of any kind, or who has been disorderly, offensive, abusive, or violent. In addition, the activities enumerated in H) 1) through 8) shall constitute a material breach of contract, for which UA shall be excused from performing its obligations under this contract.
    UA is not liable for its refusal to transport any passenger or for its removal of any passenger in accordance with this Rule. A Passenger who is removed or refused transportation in accordance with this Rule may be eligible for a refund upon request. See Rule 27 A). As an express precondition to issuance of any refund, UA shall not be responsible for damages of any kind whatsoever. The passenger’s sole and exclusive remedy shall be Rule 27 A).

    The good Doctor fell under none of the conditions listed above, and there is nothing in this CoC that allows the airline to remove any seated passenger to accomodate any other passenger of airline employee for any reason.

    UA acted in viopation of Federal law and their own Contract of Carriage.

  464. Dear Editor,
    It seems that the media is trying to make United Airline CEO Oscar Munoz the bad guy regarding the ejecting the of infamous Dr. David Dao of Elizabethtown, Ky who refused to get off an overbooked plane. Dr. Dao had his medical license suspended for about 10 years for illegally prescribing painkillers, including to a patient in exchange for sex. I wonder if Dr. Dao paid income taxes on the $234,664 he claimed to have won playing poker while he was suspended.
    Anyone who flew in the time line where Dr. Dao was disruptive knows that all of the airlines were trying to compensate for Delta Airlines scheduling disaster. Without the minimum legal requirement for aircrews, airliners can’t fly. So the getting crew members to the aircraft deficient in staff would allow hundreds and hundreds of innocent passengers to make their flight. Dr. Dao could have driven back to Ky. from Chicago in 4.5 hours for the “sake” of his patients. But No! He was willing to delay “his” plane and the plane/planes which needed crews and have his 15 mins of fame. All I know is that United Airlines accommodated me after I missed their flight thanks to Delta screwing up. They did not have to do it as I did not have a refundable ticket. But they did which demonstrate sense of corporate compassion. You know had Dr. Dao’s plane crashed with the loss of everybody how many of you would have voiced a protest anywhere? It would be old news within 48 hours. Dr. Dao, get a life.

  465. 14 CFR 250.5 amounts should be viewed as minimum amounts the airlines is required to reimburse. Airlines are free to offer more, as Delta recently increase their limit to $10,000. However, that doesn’t matter anyways because 14 CFR 250.5 only applies to passengers “denied boarding”, in this case the man was boarded.

  466. Joe Dupont, ignorant you are. I am not going to fact check your claims about Dr. Dao’s license, or taxes, at it’s irrelevant. Dao purchased and paid for a United airline ticket, and he is entitled to take his assigned seat and fly to his destination. The flight was not overbooked as originally lied about by some. As for stating the Dr. could drive home, that’s not your suggestion to make. Obviously he wanted to fly, and had every right to do so.

    The United Airlines CEO shot himself in the foot with opening his mouth before learning the facts. He should have let the PR department handle this issue, but he jumped out there and made a fool of himself and caused great financial harm to United, and the stockholders.

    Dr. Dao was not disruptive until the Security Guards ordered him to follow an unlawful act. A person is not obligated to adhere to unlawful commands of any acting as Law Enforcement or Security. It’s not advisable to disobey the unlawful command, but legal to do so.

    The flight crew was negligent in seeking Security interaction as Dr. Dao had done nothing wrong. The crew made the mistake of letting passengers board the plane and take their seats. The need to find volunteers should have been completed BEFORE passengers boarded the plane. That’s the proper procedure of all airlines.

    The crew in need of seats were not more important than the passengers seated on this flight who had paid and boarded. Yes, a missing crew can start a domino affect, but, you don’t batter and drag off a plane one passenger to make future passengers happy.

    As for you being previously accommodated on a United flight, great, but has nothing to do with this event.

    So, in conclusion, learn the facts, before harming the reputation of a total stranger. Thank you.

  467. “Yes, a missing crew can start a domino affect, but, you don’t batter and drag off a plane one passenger to make future passengers happy. ”

    No, but when you ask someone to cooperate with you and they start screaming and are talking on their phone about suing United and wanting to go to jail rather than get off, then all the passengers are going to be affected. His behavior has by then become erratic and questionably unsafe for the flight, and the company/staff/whoever are more than within the law to have him removed. They do it many times when someone is behaving erratic.

    What a professional ‘”doctor” would do is get out of his seat, go with the officers to a private place in the front of the plane, ask why he was chosen, and ask how this could be settled if he ‘indeed’ has to get back quickly to see patients. A larger settlement perhaps? , a calm ‘threat’ to get his lawyer involved, etc. An educated and professional person does not behave this way. Everyone claims to know everything that went on, and United is in a position that no matter what happened before Dr. Dao was pulled out of his seat, they will have to appease him and the public. He has done way more damage to the airline (not that the public loves air travel anyway) than they did to him. I guarantee he is lying in bed counting his millions (leftover after the lawyer) and so happy he let himself get dragged down the aisle. I don’t know what this man’s character is currently, but this was a big show and there are videos from behind his seat that record the conversations. Of course, those aren’t shown by the media. I am NOT a corporate shill, so don’t go there. However, the public will believe anything if they see just the right video clip. I’m so disappointed that people have a knee-jerk reaction and don’t think of why people behave like they do. Dr. Dao is responsible for his “beating”. I’d be super-miffed if this happened to me, but I sure would not handle it like he did. I’d seek recourse, but I wouldn’t throw a 2-year-old tantrum in front of a bunch of people.

  468. Well argued, Rita. Gracias, Luis G. for your comment.

    United and its security agency should agree to a huge settlement.

  469. I’m astonished by the number of citizens who keep blaming the victim. The point everyone keeps glossing over; Dr. Dao DID NOT HAVE TO EXIT. The plane was not overbooked. He was provoked, and therefore his demeanor, whatever it was, was justified. Not one of us knows if Dr. Dao had experienced ethnic discrimination before, and maybe he decided he had endured enough. Again, not a defense, but an everyday reality. We don’t know what went through his mind, and it doesn’t matter. The airline crew was wrong. I will continue to direct your attention to the fact Dr. Dao was already seated. Once the passenger is on the plane, the forced volunteer departure is improper. The force used to pull him out of his seat was legally unjustified, and therefore, unlawful. Prior to his being told to exit, he didn’t display any inappropriate behavior. Again, he was PROVOKED. He was defending himself, lawfully. Citizens don’t get to dump their suggestions as to how he should have handled himself in this situation. United was wrong. The CEO was seriously wrong in his first response. Dr. Dao is a victim, and he is entitled to his own reaction. I’m confident if this case goes to court, the Judge will rule in favor of Dr. Dao. United will settle, as it’s to their benefit to settle and get this debacle out of the public arena. I watched/listened to the various videos many times, and I was unable to hear clearly the words Dr. Dao said into his phone. I doubt anyone else could either. I have vast experience preparing cases for adjudication. Dr. Dao is the victim. He’s justified until proven otherwise.

  470. Absoutely, Rita. I mean, people can keep taking the “CEO Munoz” approach of blaming Dao, and he took it all back several days later…. so, that speaks volumes.

    Also, if he had done something illegal, then he should have been arrested prior to being physically removed/beat up. Why wasn’t he arrested? If he did something SO serious… well, the answer is that he did nothing illegal. In fact, United could have CYA by having him arrested. but then they realized they had no grounds to…. oops. maybe someone should have thought of that before he got all bloodied up.

    Regardless of his background, this could have happened to anyone. Certainly, United didn’t look at his background and then decide it was ok to have him physically removed. They would have been happy to involuntarily remove any of those passengers on the flight that day.

    In addition, look, Dao protested about being involuntarily removed off a flight he already boarded, his luggage in the plane, his stuff in the overhead bins. Other people would too. I’ve personally never seen it and would have questioned it too. And guess what? Dao was RIGHT. it was a bad policy, and now United and other airlines have changed their policies, just days later, saying that they now won’t ever remove a seated passenger from a flight for a crew member. so… why shouldn’t he have protested this? The airlines did exactly what he was arguing for just days later. ummm…. maybe because he was right?

  471. @Donna Hill, I can’t believe you are serious. You put “beating” in sneer quotes, as if he wasn’t beaten. A concussion, a broken nose, two teeth knocked out, visibly bloodied and battered. In what world is that not a beating? Your initial point, that most people (professionals or not) would cooperate, is correct, but it doesn’t excuse his treatment. It’s equivalent to saying there is no problem with unarmed people being killed by police, since if everyone would cooperate at all times no one would get shot. Being uncooperative doesn’t justify getting beaten or killed.

  472. I think one of the larger issues (that has troubled me for a long time) is the initiation of force by law enforcement, or security, in situations that are inherently nonviolent, or where the threat or use of violence escalates the matter. Dao was not being arrested; however, even if he were, the use of force would not be warranted. Inflicting serious (and perhaps permanent) emotional and physical trauma on someone who is not a clear, immediate threat to himself or others should NOT be an option in such scenarios. I mean, it’s off the table — even if the time, cost, and inconvenience of nonviolent solutions likely surpass those of possible forcible ones. Would a multimillion-dollar settlement satisfy you if cop violence left you with nerve damage, or chronic pain, or diminished capacity, or even psychological damage for the rest of your life?

    not be an option in such sc
    ALWAYS make it the last resort — no matter be trump has not yet been judged guilty of a criminal offense

  473. @Donna Hill, Imagine if this happened to your husband on the plane, and some important event was happening tomorrow. First, they picked your husband but not you, according to you your husband should cooperate and get off the plane without you. What if you had been asleep in your seat and not noticed your husband getting taken off the plane? What if he refused to go because he didn’t want to be separated from you and was beaten unconscious and dragged off the plane? Would that be your husband’s fault?
    What if this had been a white woman instead of an Asian man? Would she have been treated this way if she refused to leave the plane?

  474. I’m surprised that your extensive knowledge as cited on your brief bio fails to mention that he VIOLATED the Contract of Carriage that actually sets the policy for this event. Volunteers first then they chose people at RANDOM and failure to abide by these conditions violets the contract and results in a denial of service. Once he said no, he was no longer a welcomed guest.

    The only thing United is guilty of is bad PR response and failure to find a way to make customers actually read the terms and conditions before buying a ticket.

    My failure of a stipulation of a contract doesn’t place fault on the company I was in agreement with. Nor does it place fault on aviation police for forcefully removing me as I refused to exit a plane I was no longer a passenger of… Both by violating the contract and by the rules of overlooking… Nor does it place “excessive force” blame on someone because I physically struggled.

  475. Wrong you are. The airline is misusing the Contract in this case. The airline lacked legitimate cause to seek volunteers to give up their seats. The plane was not overbooked as first claimed. Regardless, the airline did not follow their own Contract. Volunteers must be found BEFORE passengers are boarded. Once seated, a passenger enjoys legal expectation of flying to their destination.

    Clearly the airline industry did not consider passengers flying with family members if they resort to computer generated forced volunteers to exit the plane. What if a parent is selected and their 3 year old is left to fly? Yes, I am resorting to what if. Based on my reading, Dr. Dao was flying with his wife and she wasn’t selected to get of the plane. That’s ridiculous.

    Since the airline failed to follow their own procedure, they lacked authority to call in Security to remove a legally seated passenger. People do not have to follow an unlawful command. As I stated before, it’s not advisable, for safety reasons, to disobey, but it’s legal to do so.

    The Security personnel jeopardized their own jobs, and they will be dealt with. I surmise loss of jobs is going to be the end result. Civil lawsuits will more than likely be filed in the court system against the Security personnel.

    As for the airline employees, let’s hope retraining is in their future. The CEO will be dusting off his resume. He was hired to improve the airlines, and he’s all but bankrupted them with his initial offensive statement. NEVER blame the victim.

  476. “More importantly, United didn’t do it because Department of Transportation regulations set maximum required compensation for involuntary denied boarding”

    Ah, if only he was actually y’know denied boarding then this statement would matter. In fact, he was lawfully and legally boarded.

    United is wrong on this in every conceivable way.

  477. Just a point to make here. Most security guards make rather low wages and most of their job is to deal with difficult combative passengers. I am certain the security guards were told to remove this passenger from the plane. They were probably given little to no detail about why. So, being a security officer who wants to keep their job, that’s what they are gonna do. UNITED IS MOST DEFINATELY 100% responsible here. Don’t be filled by their big money and high powered lawyers.. The security guards were simply doing what they were told to do. United is hiding behind this. I hope Dr. Dao gets big bucks in court.

  478. I am well aware Security guards are paid poorly. Most are wannabe Police Officers, but fail to meet qualifications. That said, if they can’t do their job without using excessive force, then they deserve to be fired. United is wrong in this particular situation, but so too are the guards. It is their responsibility to ask questions of the airline BEFORE approaching the subject, Dr. Dao. Their behavior and actions were criminal in nature, and they will be dealt with accordingly.

  479. http://www.newsweek.com/why-united-were-legally-wrong-deplane-dr-dao-583535
    There is nothing in this CoC that allows the airline to remove any seated passenger to accomodate any other passenger of airline employee for any reason.

    UA acted in viopation of Federal law and their own Contract of Carriage.

    Also what does his personal life have to do with anything. He is a paying customer who was being bumped or “refusal to transport” when he already boarded which is not legal. This can only happen before he boarded unless he was a danger to the plane and other passengers which he was not.

  480. [Redacted -gary] He should’ve got up. He agreed to the terms and conditions. He checked a little box that says he’d get up if they needed the seat for exactly this.

    The fact that he got a settlement is [Redacted -gary] ridiculous. [Redacted -gary] should have gone to jail for disrupting the peace.

    United gets bad press for this? It was security that kicked his ass (as they should’ve). I’ll still fly United.

  481. The fault should be on the airline, it should be on the police/security officers, but it definitely shouldn’t be on Mr. Dao. There are groups out there trying to twist and cloud the big picture with fine prints and small details. “They agreed to the terms when buying the tickets.” “They should obey the instruction from the officers.” “Look at his doctor credentials.” Folks, none of those matters. Look at the big picture and see what’s really wrong with this industry. If we “agreed” to all terms or “obey” instructions from authorities even when they are morally wrong, then black people will still be at the back of the bus and out of restaurants and colleges will still only have white students. Sometimes, it takes a brave soul, or a stubborn one, to make changes for the better. Putting Mr. Dao aside, at least what we get out of this is it puts a spotlight on the airlines practice of over-selling seats in the name of profit over people.

  482. You’re obviously a paid stooge for the airline industry

    Just curious, how much did they pay you for this drivel

    I’m not even going to bother tact checking the nonsense you have spewed in this blog

    Will be interesting to hear your thoughts if this had happened to you or someone you care about

    I hope you rot in hell !

  483. The men who dragged Dr. Dao off the United Airlines flight, WERE NOT Police Officers. They are airport Security Guards. They were not justified in wearing jackets with wording; POLICE. They were told previously to stop wearing the unauthorized jackets. Once a correction to a story is published, please stop spreading false information.

  484. I keep hearing that the officers used excees force. Looking at the video, I see Dr Dao holding on for dear life and the officers trying to pull him off. He finally lets go and face plants into the armrest. Am I missing something? Were they punching him? United will be fine, this Dr Dao will be fine and get a nice settlement but these guys that were doing their job will prob lose theirs.

  485. The Security Officer’s used excessive force, period. They had no legal authority to touch Dr. Dao, under any circumstance. Had they been trained properly, and known the airline laws/rules/regulations, they would have known they had no justified cause to touch Dr. Dao. The point you may be missing; the airline had no justification to remove Dr. Dao. Airlines must find their “volunteer” give up seat passengers BEFORE the passengers BOARD the airline. This entire debacle is the fault of poor training of airline employees, and the CEO finally publicly admitted same. Stop blaming the victim. How many flying passengers know about the random computer selection of passengers to kick off the plane due to overbooking, or airline employees need for the seats? I fly and have never seen that rule written anywhere. Computer random selection is problematic if selected passenger is flying with family members/groups/whatever. This isn’t a matter of Dr. Dao being inconvenienced for a few hours, there were no flights until the next day. United Airlines lost countless millions of dollars over this unnecessary, and unlawful action. Money doesn’t always solve physical injuries and mental stress.

  486. I’ve been in that minority group that thinks Dr Dao responded in an appropriate manner. I thought I knew that I would not behave that way, but didn’t anticipate that I’d have the chance to see so soon. I had a return flight to Seattle on Friday night and an early flight Saturday to another city. Our flight to Seattle was postponed multiple times and finally departed 6 hours later. We had finally boarded late in the evening and then deboarded an hour or so later. We had a hotel reserved which was not going to get used except for 2 hours if we were lucky. I have seizures and depend on regular sleep to avoid. Our first response was to be upset, angry, and join the others who were all murmuring about what they were hoping to get out of the airline. Everyone is super aware and ready to pounce because of the United incident. I think most of us are egocentric and never think of what it takes to run an airline or something like the US Postal Service. We all need to grow up, have a little grace in difficult circumstances. Comparing this to civil liberties is not relevant. I’ve flown out la airports which had no electricity and tickets had to be handwritten, flight patterns changed to avoid trouble. When you think of what our soldiers go through, I think the least we can do is keep our heads and act like grownups. Saying this was worse than Vietnam is ridiculous. Only because he made it worse. Anyway, he got his settlement and we’re beating a dead horse.

  487. Kevin, we know you’re the type of dirtbag that defends officers no matter what, but the cowardly scum of the Chicago Aviation police are the major ones to blame. They’re the ones who escalated a benign situation into a hostile, violent situation.

    And Garry Leff, not sure where to begin with your drivel, but the dishonesty and often flat out lies in your paragraph are beyond pathetic. To fact check you a bit (a futile effort for someone as off the rocker as yourself), the gate agent has the authority to raise compensation (with the simple backing of United. Certainly as much authority as they do to throw someone off a plane). The union does not come into play with transferring employees. You’re obfuscating here. FYI, airlines have their own shuttles that they frequently use for these situations. I’m fairly certain United owns such a vehicle as well. And finally, this DID happen since United oversold tickets. If you know you have four employees to accommodate, then simply see four less tickets.

    Bottom line, your rambling is brain damaged

  488. Just a simple comment pointing out that EVERY SINGLE ONE of your contrarian sentiments have been DIRECTLY CONTROVERTED by United’s own admissions subsequent to the incident

    Despite what you wrote, United has voluntarily STOPPED its policy of forcibly removing passengers or bumping them for staff.

    that invalidates all the mental gymnastics you involved yourself with, trying to rationalize this gross corporate misconduct. the airport police used excessive force (and according to 1 witness even laughed while dragging Dao off the plane) but this was a SYSTEMIC failure… from the CEO all the way on down. FFS man, United even LOST THE MAN’S LUGGAGE after all that.

  489. Yes, it was an outrage, the manner they chose to handle this. No argument there.

    HOWEVER, what this also reinforces is DO NOT LISTEN TO anyone in ANY authority & BAM…..YOU TOO might get award large sums of money.

    let’s look at FACTS!! they were within their LEGAL rights to remove passengers as they did, moving to lottery when no one volunteered for a good amount of recompense.
    then after being removed, he SNEAKS back on & into seat.

    I say this…what about the other THREE who left before him who ALSO did not want to depart (or they’d have volunteered?)….they certainly obeyed law & terms of their ticket thought they did NOT enjoy being bumped. So screw the honest, UNSELFISH person, right?

    And the VERY worst charges I heard was this was “racist” and ALL of China is upset due to him MOST of all being targeted as an Asian man???????
    Are you f’ing kidding me?
    There were THREE others removed before him, how the heck could he have been profiled & targeted??? So they are protesting & some rioting in the streets of China over THIS?
    Have we LOST our minds? Everything is NOW racist biased when you can’t even make a case for it.

    SO sick of PC world today, it’s insane!! Oh and let’s not forget, be SURE to violate any rules, attack police & DO NOT obey laws…because that is the way to get a settlement.
    This man was clearly mentally ill & now has hit the lottery by disobeying LAWFUL demands.

  490. Alicia Platt, you are mistaken in your analysis. United Airlines has publicly stated the plane was not overbooked. That rumor has been debunked, so please stop repeating it. Regardless of the claim that three passengers got off after being told to do so has nothing to do with Dr. Dao. The Airline on board employees had no legal standing to tell anyone to get off the plane. The entire debacle was a caused by poor training of the Airline employees. Or, maybe they were on a power trip and just wanted to misuse their authority. Authority figures do not have to be obeyed if they are acting unlawfully. Dr. Dao did not have to obey the Security Officers who were following unlawful orders of the on board Airline employees. It’s never advisable to disobey a Security Officer or Law Enforcement Officer, but it’s legal to do so if their directive is unlawful. In this case, there was no legitimate reason for Dr. Dao to be kicked off the plane. He had already boarded and his luggage was either in the cargo hole, or on board with him. If the Airline needed volunteers to give up seats, that action must be done BEFORE passengers board and take their seats. The rumors about China are just that, rumors. Unless you are a minority, I suggest you keep your theories to yourself. As for Political Correctness, that’s just a dog whistle for Right Wingers. Common courtesy and politeness is the normal demeanor for all humans to practice. How dare you state Dr. Dao is; “clearly mentally ill.” The Security Officers used excessive force in battering and dragging Dr. Dao off the plane. His running back on board just proved he was confused and scared. Please learn the facts, as admitted to by the United CEO and stop spreading false claims. Dr. Dao didn’t take his paid seat on the plane planning to get rich. The injuries he sustained will be life altering. Nobody deserves that, and money doesn’t always fix a wrong committed.

  491. United didn’t overbook. They didn’t know, until the last minute, that they’d need 4 seats for employees. All the passengers had purchased tickets long before that.

  492. Some of the Myths were true. The plane was full, and all seats were occupied when the crew showed up with their must ride passes. The deadheading crew was late, and if the flight crew had simply closed the door when all passengers had boarded, the deadheading crew would have found a different way of getting to their destination on time. While expensive, United could have chartered a business jet for a lot less than what they eventually paid . And yes, there were other passengers who told the gate crew they were willing to get off the plane for only a few hundred dollars more than the $1000 the airline offered to Dr. Dao. The gate crew laughed in their face. Who’s laughing now?

    The entire episode represents a colossal series of blunders and poor judgments by all involved. The gate crew could have kept the seats open for the deadheading crew when they boarded the flight, and bumped the passengers at the gate. Having boarded all the passengers, the gate crew should have thought twice about calling the cops; as this was sure to generate a lot of unnecessary bad publicity. United is attempting to expand into the Chinese domestic market; so roughing up an Asian Doctor would certainly not be appreciated by either the Chinese government or United HQ. (United’s CEO was subsequently called to the Chinese consulate in Chicago) There were others who were willing to take a higher offer, and it made no sense to ignore their offers.
    As for the police, they should have simply walked away from something that was not a law enforcement issue, rather than endangering the lives of Dr. Dao and all on board by staging a riot on board the plane. Dr Dao was 69 years old, and could easily have died from a heart attack or other condition during any struggle. Other passengers could have gotten hurt as well.

    Finally, we should not overlook that what was done by the Airline and the police could be regarded as a criminal act. Using force and violence to get what you want is a felony called robbery, and since the Dr was more than 60 years old, a class 1 felony. It comes as no surprise then, that United very quickly settled this lawsuit “on an amicable basis.” At least someone had sense enough to see the danger they were in.

  493. Here’s the real question, When did United know they needed four seats for employees? Are you telling me that they are so incompetent that these employees rushed up after the plane was boarded and said “hey we have to get to ST louis” just out of the blue?
    The plane should not have been allowed to be boarded if they knew they were going to need 4 seats. So that tells me there was a HUGE miscommunication somewhere. What happened that created a situation where the flight crew had no idea they were going to need those seats until after the plane was full. Much better that people are pissed that they can’t get on, which I understand that is usually how it’s done, than to be dragging people forcibly off a plane.
    United is completely at fault for this and I hope the guy gets a huge settlement maybe that will get united to get it’s ducks in a row. How big a mess must they be in to not KNOW they were going to need those employees on the plane before hand?
    I mean these people were needed to fly another plane, right? So you just at the last minute, after the plane is full, you go “oh gee we need a crew to fly a plane”

  494. Yes, I agree. He was definitely wronged when he was forced off the plane, but everyone is exaggerating a little. His injuries were nothing that can’t heal. His refusal to get off the plane could have been constructed as a terrorist plot, being in the right place at the right time, being forced off could mess the attack all up, but I seriously doubt that he would be tied up in that. He had previous drug problems, leading the airport personnel to believe that he was smuggling, but again, I doubt that. He was chinese, but I doubt that was the reason. If you want to see he was not segregated, find the computer reports from the random selection. A security officer was put on leave because of the incident, but I am sure that there are and were federal laws requiring him to comply with the crew and security personnel. But it was also United’s fault in part because of their bad management of the booking record. How hard can it be to say ‘Oh, all of our seats have been taken, sorry’? But the incident will likely repeat itself from fear of 9/11. It may not seem like it, but the country is still under threat from another attack like that. Its only been 16 years. If it was 50, well that’s different, but that was still recent and very horrific. But, along with the other comments, I agree that United needs to change the way they do things.

  495. @Matt: “His injuries were nothing that can’t heal.” Broken teeth do not heal. Concussions can result in permanent brain damage. Even a broken nose can be quite serious in a 69-year old male.

    “His refusal to get off the plane could have been constructed as a terrorist plot,” I am personally very tired of everyone and their uncle claiming that everything is suspicious as a possible terrorist plot. It’s really silly and leads to an unjustifiable escalation of responses.

    “He had previous drug problems, leading the airport personnel to believe that he was smuggling” Can you cite even one source for your assertion that airline staff knew of his previous issues with drugs and suspected him of smuggling? None of the reports I’ve seen have ever suggested this. His past is irrelevant. Bringing it up is an attempt to shift blame onto the victim.

  496. I know it’s been a while, but I just want to say that I FULLY 100% agree with this article, and I was in complete shock that instantly the entire country seemed to rally around this jerk, David Dao. To me this wasn’t the fault of United (as they regularly do things like this without the media getting involved or even caring), OR the police (as we are in a post 9/11 era where throwing a tantrum on an airplane COULD and should put you in jail). Whether or not it was the actual police does not matter to me, only that David Dao thought he was more important than everyone else on that plane. He lied to the other passengers, he lied to the crew, and while they couldn’t KNOW he was lying, his reasons for not getting off of the plane were irrelevant. We as consumers don’t own the plane or United, if they tell you to get off the plane, get off the fecking plane. If it makes you that angry, go file a complaint, go to the media, go to the service desk after leaving the plane, but don’t make a scene on a private aircraft you do not own, and expect to get away with it just because our society is so liberal now, and you know people will be recording. This entire thing made me realize who has common sense and who doesn’t. Apparently most people don’t, and everyone loves a good victim story.

  497. It’s United who either lied or broke the law (possibly both).

    They had no right to remove a boarded passenger except for specified reasons, none of which applied here.

  498. Stop dumbing us all down!

    United could have gotten authority to offer more compensation than what is regulatory. It has been done before and it doesn’t take as long as you are implying, (your implication being in numerous instances that going out of protocol takes too much effort and time) United works out of protocol all the time and whenever it is convenient for them.

    Perhaps the point here is that people are willing to take a huge hit in order to make their point that they are done with the status quo. The general public feels the same way with the airlines that they do with government, so listen up airlines!

    The next thing that is going to happen is the airlines will make it against their policy to have a phone on the plane under the presumption that it is unsafe for flying, while in all actuality it will be to keep passengers from sharing situations like this.

    That’s ok, we can still use a video camera that isn’t a phone and still upload to youtube.

    The public can manage the airlines by continuing to publish the inflight airline shenanigans . Electronics are keeping the public out of the dark and into the drivers seat.

  499. Brynn: Forward, sheep! Bahhh, bahh! Do not make any efforts to enforce your rights in federal law against your corporate overlords! You are too insignificant for them to be forced to be bothered by your pitiful attempts to assert yourself! Bow to them and do as they say, and file your laughable complaint later, which will be duly ignored.

  500. 1) Lack of Preparation on Your Part Does Not Constitute an Emergency on My Part. 2) It’s about respect. What if that passenger had been Tom Brady or Hillary Clinton?

  501. I’m sorry, you don’t get a pass on this. If United had to transport four crew members, then why did they wait until all passengers were onboard, seated, and buckled in? I’ll tell you why, because they didn’t know they had to transport four crew members until the last minute. If the plane had taken off, then what would they have done? There is no excuse for United and you should not be white washing the absolutely horrific behavior of this airline.

    I travel extensively. In fact, I used to be on a plane 3-5 days a week. In the 1980s, United was great. They started taking a downturn in the 1990s, and today they are without a doubt the worst, rudest, and least customer centric airline in the industry. In fact, I take multiple connections on other carriers to avoid flying United. They need to go out of business!

  502. You need to blame Danielle Hill, she is the Supervisor with the terrible attitude who started this whole incident. Horrible, uncivilized Woman..

  503. You mention that United should have kept increasing the amount for VDB. However, you also say this, “Though the time this would have taken might have lost a takeoff window or taken time where the crew went illegal (and the whole flight had to cancel) or the replacement crew wouldn’t get the legally required rest.”

    He was bleeding profusely due to the excessive and unreasonable force of the Aviation Security Officers. All passengers were required to deplane so they could clean it up. The plane ended up leaving 2 1/2 hours late. Obviously, the crew didn’t go illegal.

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