I wrote earlier about a doctor who was dragged off a United Express flight last night when the airline needed to transport crew instead of four passengers. He needed to get to work at a hospital the next day. United, though, needed crew in place in Louisville.
In this case it doesn’t appear that United sold more tickets than seats, rather they discovered for operational reasons they couldn’t carry as many passengers as expected. They needed to position crew at the flight’s destination.
Credit: @Tyler_Bridges
What I wanted to explore here, though, is a comment from reader neversink,
You buy a ticket. You should be guaranteed a seat. Overbooking should be illegal. And if the airline wants people to leave, they should up the ante to the market rate until someone takes the offer. Whatever it takes. Even if it takes $20,000 to get someone off the plane. The airlines play this game at the passengers inconvenience. It’s time the airlines were inconvenienced.
Why Airlines Overbook
While there wasn’t an oversale in this situation, most airlines in North America will sell more seats than they can carry passengers. They use historical information to determine how many passengers are likely not to show up for a flight. They want each seat to go out with a passenger in it.
Maybe they figure passengers are likely to oversleep a Sunday morning flight out of Las Vegas, so they can transport home those passengers that do make it to the plane. Passengers that oversleep expect to stand by on a later flight (either free or for a fee). Either way, an empty airline seat is a spoiling resource.
Airlines are pretty good at guessing these things, taking data like when the flight is and how far in advance tickets were purchased. And indeed they’re getting better, the rate of denied boardings has been on the decline over the past two decades. (In 2000, 0.21% of passengers were denied boarding (voluntary and involuntary) by the largest US airlines. In 2015, 0.09% were.)
You might think airlines shouldn’t overbook, sell each seat one time. But if that were the case airlines wouldn’t really be able to allow passengers the freedom to switch flights at will either on refundable tickets or merely by paying a change fee. Show up 15 minutes late for the airport, buy a new ticket.
What Does it Even Mean Not to Overbook?
If an airline sells exactly the number of seats they have on a plane, they still may not be able to accommodate everyone. Sometimes weather requires the plane to take on more fuel, and so they have carry fewer passengers (weight and balance issues can even affect a widebody aircraft).
And the number of seats on a plane itself can seem somewhat arbitrary. American Airlines has more seats on a Boeing 777 than Cathay Pacific does, so American is more likely to be unable to carry as many passengers as the plane has seats on Los Angeles – Hong Kong than Cathay is.
Is American overbooking by selling each seat on their plane, knowing that sometimes heavy winds on the long flight could cause challenges?
If Airlines Couldn’t Overbook, Had to Sell Fewer Seats, Prices Would Be Higher
You may not like the idea of overbooking, but denied boardings are rare. And the flexibility to do it means that the airline has more seats to sell.
Ban overbooking and that’s fewer seats being sold. That means higher costs per passenger (since you’re spreading the costs over fewer ticket sales). And quite simply, holding demand for seats constant reducing the quantity of seats supplied raises their price.
But Shouldn’t Airlines Spend More Time Seeking Volunteers?
It often seems that airlines should work harder to find volunteers to take a bump in exchange for compensation, instead of involuntarily denying boarding to passengers who have to get where they’re going. Maybe the airline only offered $200 or $400 in vouchers, why not $600 or $800 in cash especially when they’ll be on the hook to pay out to passengers involuntarily bumped. Should the airline here have been forced to keep upping the ante to $2000 or $5000?
Except that the time spent doing this might cause even bigger problems. Or at least it’s reasonable for the airline to think ex ante that it might.
- Delaying a flight even a little could cause crew to time out and the whole flight to cancel
- Government may have given the plane a very specific takeoff time (air traffic control) and if they miss their window the flight could be substantially delayed or even cancelled
- A late flight might cause passengers to misconnect with their next flight and be stranded
- And late arriving crew would delay other flights
- Or crew might be required to sleep in the next day to meet legal minimum rest requirements
There are No Guarantees in Air Travel
JetBlue doesn’t overbook their flights but saw a big spike in involuntary denied boardings. It turns out they had to substitute small aircraft on a number of occasions, which had fewer seats than the original planes.
Weather cancels flights. Mechanical issues cancel flights. Airline IT meltdowns cancel flights.
A friend had her Delta flights cancelled three days in a row last week (on day two we got her a United flight using miles that Delta had said was unavailable, no time to argue over a rebooking).
Sometimes flights are delayed and you don’t make your connection, and sometimes those connections are the last flight of the day — or even the week.
Air travel is complicated, and subject to the whims of mother nature, the skills of the airline, and the vagaries of chance.
Unfortunately you have to roll with it, and if you really really need to be somewhere you need to build in a cushion (something my friend on Delta did, flying to Los Angeles a day and a half early, but with Delta’s operational problems this last week and their personnel and IT failures it simply still wouldn’t have been enough).
What Should the Doctor Have Done? And How Should United Have Reacted?
In this case the flight was delayed, and the situation went bad. It’s reasonable for an outside observer to think the police should have found a less confrontational way to work with the passengers who were ordered to get off the plane than to drag them off and bloody them!
In fact that’s my hunch, fully realizing that we only have seen video of what happened once the man was being dragged off and not what happened leading up to that.
However when an airline orders you off the plane, you need to follow instructions even if it sucks. You could face criminal charges for failing to do so. You could wind up in Guantanamo and frankly no one wants to be water boarded…
If the passenger had gotten off the plane, they still could have made it to the hospital the next day albeit more worse for wear. There was a later Chicago – Louisville flight on United — and also on American (if they’d hurried) — although it’s not clear United would have put them on it. It would have been a 4.5 hour drive but a rental car is possible. It would have been ~ $300 with UberX. These options are all bad but it’s better than being dragged off by cops and bloodied.
Sometimes there are no good options so you look for the least bad. That’s basically never confronting crew and then confronting police. Confrontations with police can end badly not in an airport. In an airport the stakes are even greater, and this situation could have become worse than it did.
While the police probably could and should have done better, in some sense the man got lucky.
1. United simply should not oversell their last flight of the day
2. Had the United employees not been put on this flight, there would not have been oversell at all – purely poor scheduling
I guess the issue is the average flier doesn’t understand, and isn’t made aware to what degree rights are given away when you board that plane.
I can see the sense of ‘I am on the plane – I paid for the ticket – I have not caused any disturbance’ – who are they to make me get off.
Respectfully, I think you are on the wrong side of this situation. For all we might point fingers at the doctor, the problem stems from the airline. They could have paid more, they could have sent their staff by taxi etc. so many other options.
I respect and support you a lot Gary, but use your bully pulpit to be a leader and speak out here.
I think it’s a bunch of BS. “…the main got lucky”. Cut me a break! You are a white
Man that travels a lot. The stakes are changed now. By saying what you said we essentially allow law enforcement to act in humane and brute force. THERE IS NO ROOM OR PLACE FOR THAT. While we don’t know what the circumstances prior to the police confrontation, there is no evidence from the other passengers that he was a threat to others or the police. Further, given his social status and being a doctor myself, I highly doubt he was a serious threat beyond the usual anger one may experience when being forced off the plane. While your reasons are understandable, I’m certain $1000 cash would have found 4 volunteers or get another plane or airline to take the crew. Your rationalization of this event is a disgrace to others who experience racism and unfair treatment on airlines and at airports. In stead of bwing an advocate for passengers you claim that “he got lucky”.
When they got no takers for $800 they should have immediately upped it to $1000 and that would have resolved the situation. After all they’re already on the hook for $1500 if the pax is over 4 hours late when involuntarily denied.
Instead to be cheap and thoughless they use brute foce on a doctor who had told them he had to be at the hospital. And now the airline has taken a hit that it may not survive, deservedly with the way they’ve allowed staff to behave toward customers. As Mr. 33% proves, Americans don’t buy into authoritarianism for long.
Where was the customer service manager to at least show the officers how to move the middle armrest since the video shows reckless police behavior that could be expected to seriously injure the man’s hips or ribs by dragging him over it?
Good riddance to authoritarian rubbish. Take it to Russia.
Agree w Gary. You have a medium and voice to have an affect and you’re using it to your fellow passengers detriment. I had always supported you but this is clearly a pebble in the road.
Disagree with you Gary. Not on the explanation on how airlines oversell flights, etc… but on how United handled this situation. I can guarantee you this will cost United way more to clean up the mess and bad publicity than would have cost them to increase the vouchers by a couple hundreds of dollars. I’ve seen in many flights that the word “thousand” breaks people resistance. I believe the doctor would not take anything to give up his seat but many people would if the word “thousand” was used. I would rather take a Greyhound bus than fly United.
Agree w Carl above. Gary, you have a medium and voice and opportunity to have an affect and you’re using it to your fellow passengers’ detriment. I had always supported you but this is clearly a pebble in the road.
To some extent, this was bad luck for United, but why does the same airline keep being the one experiencing misfortunate? To some extent, a man (or airline) makes his own luck and “bad luck” is a symptom of systemically poor decisions.
How much will this end up costing the airline in terms of bad press? They should have increased their offer.
Thank you Gary. Someone finally gets it. What a sense of entitlement to refuse to get off – when you were selected – because your being a Dr means you are more important than the other people on the plane. Read your ticket contract… you do NOT have an unrestricted right to that seat.
Unfair as it seems, just do the right thing and get off the plane. That way you avoid impacting thousands of people with your self righteousness.
Funny that you mentioned renting a car and driving or using Uber. Why didn’t United simply do that to get their crew to where they needed to be? Oh, that’s right, it’s all about screwing the customer. Seriously, the airline was wrong, the cops were thugs and the passenger was right. It was United’s screw-up. It’s getting beyond tiring hearing excuses of corporations and their abuses.
Whatever. Don’t let the airlines hide behind a veil of terrorism scare tactics. They screwed the consumer because they miscalculated.
It’s interesting how the airline just makes the call and the police do the dirty work.
This is how society has become. And why things escalate to the level they do. It’s because we are not treating each other with calm respect – and that’s the real crime.
Airlines suck, police make mistakes. But it’s a lack of respect that causes all of this.
Should the doctor have left – probably. Should the airline offer more and been more respectful – probably. Should people avoid dumb mistakes by a disrespectful United – yes.
There has to be some accountability in this world for bad calls and bad behavior.
If I worked for United now, I’d be thinking about the backlash on the brand and working aggressively to compensate out of court.
If I was the doctor, I’d be thinking which United plane I wanted as my own.
For shame – to everyone.
I understand overbooking, but do not see any justification whatsoever for taking an already boarded passenger off a plane so that the airline can send a crew member somewhere. All the options you recite are equally available to the airline for its crews.
To me, the issue here is not one of legality, but whether or not there is a culture at the airline that places respect for the customer at the forefront.
If this culture is in place, then an airline would work toward finding a solution to the overbooking problem that does not place the customer and the airline at odds with one another. Something tells me this kind of thing would never happen on Southwest. Why? Because Southwest has a culture that would encourage employees to find a better solution to this problem.
Literally, we have a situation in which the airline feels that it is forced to get into confrontations with customers who simply want to pay money to reach their destination.
Any company and industry that truly embraces a customer-centric culture would work feverishly and maniacally to come up with innovative solutions to avoid this situation from ever coming up.
I despise UA. I don’t prefer them or AA or any other airlines but within the USA, you have no choice. I prefer asian carriers or any foreign carriers over any US based airlines when flying internationally. The attitude of the US airline counter agents, gate agents and flight crews are always condescending, rude and unfriendly whether you fly alone or with family members. Sadly our GOV is with the big airline companies! You are there to make profit of course but you have to have respect and courtesy to your passengers!
All your points are valid, Gary, but the larger issue — the one screaming from newspaper headlines today — is that United mis-handled this situation, and badly. There is no excuse for the situation escalating to this point, and the airline — not the passengers, and maybe not the employees — is to blame.
Classic example of “penny wise, pound foolish!”
BS – UA tried to do this on the cheap. $800 was not enough. Especially if vouchers, which are at best worth 70% of cash.
UA could have upped the offer and switched to cash, I reckon they probably get takers once they go north of $1k cash.
If there was a later AA flight, why not offer $500 + seats on later flight. Again they would likely have got takers.
Finally, they could have put the crew on the AA flight / UBER
Lots of options, but UA picked the worst one. No good Oscar hyping up the new UA when on the ground we see this sort of nonsense.
100% behind the doctor on this. The airline is the cause no matter the economics. They made a conscious decision to overbook/allow crew to take this flight.
Hopefully this costs them significantly more than a couple grand they offered.
United, and many other airlines, have been shooting themselves in the foot as they replace well paid employees with min wages agents.
Total mismanagement on United’s part. How is it they only discovered they needed to deadhead 4 employees AFTER. everyone was onboard. No planning at United? FAIL.
Isn’t the airline required to apprise passengers of their rights before IDB?
Greg, where is your $1500 number coming from? As Gary stated in his other recent post, under “14 CFR 250.5 they’re required to pay four times your fare up to $1350 if you aren’t given transportation scheduled to arrive at either your first connection or final destination within 2 hours of schedule.” Given that this was an incredibly short flight, it’s very possible that his ticket was $200 or less, hence their reluctance to offer more than $800 in compensation. We can all agree that airlines are motivated primarily by profit, so this is probably the most likely explanation. But who are we to blame them? Everyone should be well aware of the rules when they purchase their ticket… if they don’t like these regulations, then perhaps they should petition their congressmen to increase the compensation requirements, since apparently many members of congress love attacking the airlines as well. The airline certainly could have handled the situation a little better, but once the decision was made to call the airport police, it was out of their control how the situation was handled. It was very unfortunate, but it’s absolutely no excuse for this man to behave in the manner that he did, further inconveniencing hundreds of other passengers (on this flight and on the other flights that likely were delayed due to this flight delay and the possible crew timeout). If three police men with guns instruct me to leave the plane, I will always leave the plane without issue and I think 99% of Americans would as well. It’s a crappy situation, but there’s no need to make it worse for everyone else by acting like a child.
My issue is the opaqueness of the process to get volunteers. Airlines should be required to provide a fixed amount of compensation for a bump based on how long the passenger will be delayed and provide a passenger with a sheet clearly detailing his or her rights.
I was recently on plane that had to bump people due to higher fuel requirements to avoid storms. We were given one offer and were told if we didn’t accept we would be involuntarily bumped and receive nothing. I’m not sure that’s correct under federal guidelines for compensation, but shows that the airlines are willing to threaten passengers and lie to save money.
First, I don’t think its United’s fault this guy got hurt. Police officers were responding to a situation where a passenger didn’t cooperate with crew member instructions (which is against the law). Yes, they could have been more gentle with him, but we don’t know what happened leading up to him being pulled out of the seat. At the end of the day, this guy knew he was going to be forcefully removed by three police officers if he didn’t voluntarily get up. Its his own damn fault for first not listening to crew member instructions and again his fault for not listening to a lawful order from a police officer. It sucks that United had to bump him, but it happens. No passenger has a right to fly just because they paid for the seat. Stop blaming the airline when the guy would have been perfectly fine if he had just listened and done what he was supposed to do in the first place.
Interesting that this was suggested as a course of action for the passenger but not for United repositioning their crew.
“If the passenger had gotten off the plane, they still could have made it to the hospital the next day albeit more worse for wear. There was a later Chicago – Louisville flight on United — and also on American (if they’d hurried) — although it’s not clear United would have put them on it. It would have been a 4.5 hour drive but a rental car is possible. It would have been ~ $300 with UberX. “
Finally the voice of reason! United reserves every right to bump passengers for whatever reason. They are under no obligation to reimburse you or entice voluntary bumps with vouchers; that is done as a courtesy. This unruly passenger should face criminal charges for failing to follow airline orders to disembark, which cost taxpayers money by requiring police intervention and disrupted the travel plans of others. Tough luck doctor but you don’t own that plane, and you agreed to the terms of the ticket.
Doesn’t matter if the passenger was a doctor or not, he was a paying customer that was treated worse than a criminal.
First, it was not an overbook as the seats they wanted were for employees. Overbooking references revenue passangers.
Second, United Contract of Carriage specifically does not provide the right or option to remove a boarded passenger due to the need for employee seating (alse Section 21 does not apply either). They should have stopped boarding, then addressed. Once a valid boarding occurred it was too late.
There is always going to be someone willing to be bumped if the price offered is high enough. Period.
When airlines choose to oversell a flight they’re effectively making a bet that says that they’ll either have enough no-shows to mean that the flight goes out at zero extra cost to them or that they’ll at least be able to get the aircraft out without having to offer too much compensation.
The problem here is that United doesn’t appear to understand that it shouldn’t be allowed to use threats and police/security as a stop-loss for when the bet goes against them.
As ever gambler knows, if you’re going to make bet after bet after bet you’re going to get burned pretty badly every now and again….except it would appear that airlines don’t want to accept this. They want everything their own way with their downside limited by, in this case, blatantly inappropriate behavior on their part.
United really screwed up here and, as others have pointed out, they should have kept increasing the offer to pax until they got the number of volunteers they needed. That’s how the “bet” should work….but the day airlines actually take true responsibility for their own miscalculations and “bets” will be the day pigs fly (under their own power!).
@Theresa, he was a criminal. He broke the law, twice… This situation was completely avoidable if he had listened to their instructions. United refused boarding, how else do you get someone off a plane when they refuse to get off?
Maybe the head of United’s revenue management department should be knocked unconscious, bloodied, then dragged off of a plane. Then maybe this wouldn’t happen again.
The police were called for a corporate issue, not airline security or safety. Police violated this mans Constitutional rights and falsely detained.
He will get alot more than $800 when this is over…..and there will be several fewer employees…..
How was he treated “worse” than a criminal? By definition, he WAS a criminal by his refusal to abide by the instructions of the flight crew or the police. Your comment makes no sense.
Also, how is the factor that he was an Asian doctor even relevant, and why does the media keep emphasizing this? Can anyone even imagine how the circumstance would be portrayed if it was a Muslim man in tradition clothing speaking Arabic, or a black man with a hoodie? As awful as it sounds, the passengers on the plane would have likely erupted in applause after the police removed these “criminals”, so I’m not sure how this man’s race or occupation is even relevant to the situation. Anyone who is refusing to obey the commands of the flight crew or the police is by definition a criminal and should be treated exactly the same, regardless or race, occupation, gender, etc… but since this was a little, harmless-looking Asian doctor, everyone is so quick to jump to his defense without even knowing the full story or seeing what happened prior to the videos that have circled the internet. It’s pretty messed up, when you think about it…
At least in the UK BA only steals the food from economy passengers’ mouths – this would NEVER happen on an EU airline. It’s a disgrace how this man was treated. I’m shocked by it and I would never fly United as a result. Do you realise how bad this makes US airlines look?
The assumption underlying your analysis and opinion is that the situation had to be resolved at the passengers’ inconvenience. You have failed to notice that all of the options you point out—car rental, taxi, uber, etc—were equally available to UA and its crew. I’d even guess that UA would have come out ahead by renting one car for its crew and keeping the airfare from 4 paid pax.
The problem is that there is no incentive and no culture of thinking out of the box, or in a humane way, proportional to the situation.
Culture evolves slowly but money can provide incentive quickly, so maybe it is time for much higher vouchers and even a hefty penalty whenever a confirmed pax is denied seat.
So the bottom line is that while the public *thinks* that they are reserving a seat on an airplane, they are actually only buying into a “seat lottery” for which there are X number of seats, and X+Y number of tickets. There is a Z% chance that they will not actually get a seat, and they are given no choice but to accept that risk when they buy a ticket.
Such a system is only acceptable IF you make this clear to your customers that this is the game being played AND you provide them both additional information with which to make a decision and/or give them other choices.
So first of all, airlines need to have very clear disclaimers in big red letters stating that “this purchase does not guarantee you a seat on this flight”, since it obviously does not. As it stands, it’s quite obvious that the public believes that they DO have such a guarantee.
Secondly, airlines need to offer people who simply cannot accept any “bump risk” a pricing option to purchase a firm, non-bumpable seat. A “if the plane makes it to the destination, you WILL be on it” fare.
Finally, they need to provide the consumer more information with which to make a conscious cost/benefit probability analysis to decide on whether the price justifies that particular risk that they’ll get stranded. For starters, airlines should provide statistics showing that, for example, the 9:00 a.m. LAX to JFK flight has historically oversold 15% of the time, whereas the 2:00 p.m. flight oversells only 2% of the time. Since the airlines base their overbooking procedures and pricing models with this info, they clearly have such information.
@Quinn United did NOT deny boarding. He boarded and was in his seat. Look up United Contract of Carriage….the passanger did nothing wrong!! They should have REFUSED boarding…which happens at the gate.
@AKTCHI, the crew would have exceeded the federally mandated guidelines for required amount of rest before work and thus would have “timed out” if they had been forced to drive to the destination.
Well commenter Tom if the airline is so motivated by profit, how much will this negative publicity cost in profits? Alot more than the extra few hundred dollars I bet
@JD, Like I said, the airline COULD have should have handled it a bit better, but it wasn’t exactly their fault if the police used excessive force. They also had no way of knowing that the passenger would literally fight with the police to the extent that he would need to be wrestled out of his seat and dragged from the plane… the vast majority of sane human beings would comply with armed officers when requested to do so, especially when on an airplane… obviously this didn’t turn out how United had anticipated, and I’m sure they regret the decision now, but it really is bad luck.. do you honestly think that American or Delta would have bent over backwards for this guy?
UA screwed up. The passenger was not IDB, he was boarded. The plane was not over sold. UA wanted to pull a passenger off so that a member of staff could fly instead. At this point in the process they needed to find another way to get staff to the other end or offer passengers more compensation.
@Quinn — if, after removing the stick from up your ass, you continue to stand by your comment, then would you care to explain which law of physics demands that removal of a passenger requires bleeding and knocking them out.
Many pax are removed against their will, often for drunkenness and whatnot. There are videos of these situations. No blood or loss of consciousness.
United should have taken care of this overbooking issue BEFORE the boarding. Or they should have upped compensation for deplaning.
“United didn’t just decide crew were more important than passengers, they needed those crewmembers in place in order to work a flight in the morning. The crew needed to make it to Louisville that night, and they’d have to meet federal rules for minimum rest before operating a flight the next day.”
They didn’t bump the passengers simply because a member of staff wanted to fly, as you suggest, they needed to bump the passengers in order to ensure that the crew arrived at their destination with enough time to rest and be able to meet federal regulations in order to operate their flight the following day. Had the crew members not taken the flight, the morning flight would have also been delayed due to lack of crew, and this would have likely cascaded to other flights throughout the day as well, inconveniencing hundreds and possibly even thousands of other passengers.
@Tom when the pax refused the flight crew’s “random selection” and threatened to call his lawyer I’m sure at that point it only strengthened their resolve to not get “shown up”. If airport security was directed by the airline to remove the passenger by force they are still liable for the actions of the police. They surely could have found a pax less resolve and with less valid reasons to take this flight, but they didn’t want to look bad. Ironically that’s exactly what happened anyway
@Jason, no need for the personal attacks, he was simply stating a fact. How is it United’s fault that the police used excessive force? Were they supposed to just allow the passenger to blatantly disregard their orders and sit their patiently, delaying all the other passengers, until he voluntarily stood up from his seat and walked off?
“Less valid reasons” ??? So his reason for taking the flight is automatically more valid simply because he claims he is a doctor? Since when did we start ranking passengers reasons for taking flights?
As a person who teaches law at a Texas university and is part owner in a longtime small family business that owns property, I can say that this situation is a direct result of the huge power accumulated by the federal government and by HUGE corporations, who then use terror laws and other extraordinary government security measures for their own business purposes. In my own family business, we’ve had tenants, when they vacated one of our restaurant sites, steal half the kitchen in the middle of the night while police stand by, claiming its a civil dispute, and they watch as our property is taken away. As another example, there was once a guy who was owed money by one of our tenants in one of our shopping centers, and he came by with a pick-up truck and stole our sign (that we own) off our shopping center parking lot. This fly-by-night lender, when told by our small business that the sign was ours (not the tenant’s sign), the shady lender still refused to return it until the tenant paid him. And, even though we were able to identify who this thief was, the police refused to get involved to get our sign back because they said it’s a civil dispute. United, through their own stupidity, allowed too many people to board the aircraft peaceably and then wanted forcibly to replace those people with United employees completely for the purposes of furthering their bottom line as a corporation. The passenger did not engage in disruptive behavior which required his removal (and I realize that bad behavior is a problem out there in the travel world, and police should remove disruptive passengers). Rather, United made a business mistake and thus created a civil dispute. United then took the business dispute and escalated it by using force in a way that most small businesses don’t have access to. In Texas, we can padlock a tenant’s commercial property if they don’t pay rent. But, we are not allowed to stand out in front of our property with a gun to prevent delinquent tenants from entering their store. Rather, we have to go to court, and that can take weeks. This passenger paid for a ticket, and United peaceably allowed him onto the plane. They should have either paid him whatever they needed to, or they should have cancelled the entire flight and rebooked everyone and not let the guy fly on the new flight if they wanted to make a point. But for me, as a small business owner (and a licensed attorney in Texas), I find it incredibly unfair in this country that HUGE corporations get to use the power of the federal government under color of law to push the rest of us around, for their own bottom line, and we apparently just have to take it. Until we realize as a country that the power of Washington – which includes the TSA (and Homeland Security), the EPA, and all manner of other federal agencies that are way too involved in our local communities – needs to be severely curtailed, these types of things will continue. I realize these were local cops in Chicago who removed the guy, and Chicago police don’t have the best human rights record. But, these local cops get to do that because they have the power of the federal government behind their actions – all sorts of things are used as excuses to fight terrorism.
@Jason, how else do you remove someone who is resisting and not complying with orders? Yeah its a shitty situation that he got injured but the bottom line is that he would be fine if he would have listened to the lawful instructions of at least four people (United representative and 3 police officers).
‘Airline shoud have offered more”. That’s a slipery slope. If airlines were known to continually raise the price, the public would soon get wise snd just wait for ever-higher offers. So it would solve nothing.
Yes, it would totally suck to lose the random pick lotto and be booted, but for that asswipe, er, Doctor to act like a child with his refusal to leave and screaming tantrum, nobody should have sympathy. Put me on that jury and he’d walk with 4x his ticket price for is troubles.. But being as this is a media storm, with everyone piling on in faux outrage over ‘what should have been done”, this twit will walk with 7 figure payday and his lawyer will be picking out his yacht already.
@Tom, thanks for having my back. It blows my mind that people don’t take responsibility for their own actions (or inaction in this case). If they waited for him to voluntarily get off the plane, that crew could have timed out leading to further delays or cancellations, and a snowball effect down the line. You think that when police show up, people will listen.
@Quinn, yes I agree completely with everything you’re saying, I don’t understand how people are taking his crazy man’s side after he acted like such a child and inconvenienced so many other people. It’s also somewhat disturbing to see people’s reactions considering this was an Asian doctor vs. a Muslim man speaking Arabic… remember the guy last year that was removed from a plane simply because a passenger witnessed him doing math equations that she thought looked like Arabic symbols? The double standard is extremely distubing… people are so quick to judge when it’s a Muslim or a black man, but when it’s a white girl wearing spandex or an Asian doctor, they are quick to jump to their defense, even though they were technically the ones not following the rules/policies, and the Muslims were not breaking any laws/rules. Obviously this is beyond the scope of this issue, but it’s disturbing to see these reactions nonetheless…
We have really crossed into the twilight zone when we begin to agree with the premise that someone being a pain in the arse is cause for them to be brutalized by government agents whose salaries we pay.
@Tom — which part of my comment was a personal attack? Telling someone to remove a stick from their ass? That’s actually sound medical advice. Sticks up asses are health hazards. More on the topic, you seem overly concerned with delaying nameless thousands of travelers. Why do you care about these faceless people more than the doctor whom you see on video. Are you aware that a large proportion of the travelers you worry so much about delaying are not MDs (medical doctors, who actually help people) but in fact MDs (managing directors, a pompous corporate title) at companies that produce dreadful goods and services, flying around the country on barbie jets just to deliver hacked up PowerPoints to other grunts and empty suits whose lives consist primarily of Excel macros and cheating on their wives.
@Quinn — well I’m not a cop, but maybe you could ask those cops who have removed passengers who resisted orders, without causing the same scene as what we are discussing now.
@Jason those other cops who removed people did so without incident because said pax LISTENED to them. This guy would not voluntarily get off the plane. You still haven’t answered how else they should have removed him since he wouldn’t get off voluntarily. Still don’t understand your rant on Tom and still don’t understand why you think I have a stick in my ass.
I’m also confused by his min-rant about MD’s vs. actual medical doctors, and how this is at all relevant to the situation…
Although I must admit, the PowerPoint and Excel references were quite entertaining.
I have to disagree. All of the alternatives available to the passenger were also available to UA to get the remaining single member of its crew to Louisville, and UA is better positioned to know and use those alternatives than Joe Passenger.
Also, there is no reason why our tax dollars, paying for the police, should be used to subsidize UA’s staff’s poor decisions – their failure to negotiate a fair price with passengers or use those other alternatives. This is of a piece with states using the National Guard to break industrial strikes, instead of forcing management to negotiate.
@Quinn — Cops board planes only to remove people involuntarily. Now if you say that sometimes people refuse FA orders but comply with cop orders, that is true. However you will find videos of cops dragging pax up the aisle, off the plane — that clearly indicates refusal to comply even with the cop.
How come those situations leave those pax uninjured, while the current situation left the pax beaten and bloodied?
@Tom — the point of the mini-rant, in more charitable terms, is that a lot of travel is not important, or at least not timely.
A doctor going to care for his patients is both important and timely.
“‘Airline shoud have offered more”. That’s a slipery slope. If airlines were known to continually raise the price, the public would soon get wise snd just wait for ever-higher offers. So it would solve nothing.”
It’s an auction. It solves everything. The kind of collusion to fix prices you are suggesting, among 150+ pax on a 737, is unlikely, as some people will be willing to take the airline’s deal (ie. defect from the cartel) at a lower price than others.
@Jason So based on your Monday morning quarterbacking after having viewed the two videos in question, do you have any insight into what the cops actually did WRONG. I agree it resulted in a less than ideal outcome, but I didn’t notice any flagrant abuse or brutality… do you have any suggestions as to what the cops SHOULD have done, instead of what they shouldn’t have done? Also, have you seen any additional footage that we’re not aware of? Your comments seem to suggest that you must have some sort of additional information, otherwise I’m not sure how you are making these conclusions. I’m not defending the police, nor am I condemning them, I don’t think we have enough information to judge how the police handled the situation. Regardless though, United has no control over what the police do after they have been called, so all of the boycott United stuff is nonsense.
@Tom You seem to get “disturbed” easily. 🙂 Identifying someone as an Asian doctor is no different when media refers to someone as an 87 year old grandmother, or a musician from Israel, an off-dity police officer, a tourist from France, etc. It humanizes the person and the story. That’s who they are.
I also think you are letting UA off too lightly. What kind of emergency caused this crew not to be at their destination in time, without having to cause such a commotion?
@Jason In theory a doctor caring for patients seems like a legitimate reason to take a flight, who’s to say that his reason for flying is any more legitimate than mine? Everyone has their own personal reasons for taking the flight, everyone thinks they are important and can justify their reasons (have you ever witnessed jury selection for a trial? hahaha) But who is to judge this, especially when the airline has no way to verify any of this information…. this would be a shitshow if they went around from passenger from passenger, it would take forever… in a perfect world your theory might work, but unfortunately this is far from a perfect world….
To the fat rednecks defending police brutalizing a doctor for not giving up his paid seat: you’re the same authoritarian bootlickers who would serve as the Russians’ jackboots to keep Trump in power after after he and his wretched party are soon flushed like the smelly sewage you are.
Gary under what law did UA ask the Doctor to deboard? He was not sick or a danger to others. Involuntary Denied Boarding regulations cover “Denied Boarding” . Once you let someone board you have no more right to ask them to deboard than does a hijacker does to ask the pilot to go to a different airport. Both are “Interfering with the scheduled operation of a commercial airliner”. The Gate staff, Flight attendents and the cops are technically all chargeable with a felony offense. Not that it ever would. Gary your advice seems to be if someone is breaking the law let them and sue them later on just because the criminal has a badge?
comment on the mini rant – yep there is a difference between an MD caring for patients and someone with a PhD (still called Dr.). Who knows what kind of MD, this guy was. Maybe he had several cardiology pts that he needed to see to get discharged – who knows. Yeah, he could have responded better, but we have no idea what he had going on regarding patients or his practice. United could have cut some slack for that. I’m sure had there been a medical emergency in the air he could have helped with, United would have gladly used his assistance. Allowing people to board knowing they needed seats is just bad customer service and bad karma – good going United.
So United felt it was better to seat their own dead-legging employees rather than a customer they had contracted to carry. Why couldn’t their staff fly with someone else or with Uber. If that is the reason then United are in for a whole heap of negative press and deserve all if it.
Presumably the passenger had been given a boarding card? So how was he then select for unboarding?
This is f&$@ed up. He wasn’t “involuntarily denied boarding” he was sitting on the plane and had already boarded!!! Then he was assaulted by three armed men for not agreeing to an unreasonable demand to move from his seat.
The airline should have never allowed more passengers to board than it could fly. It wasn’t like a safety issue or some weight issue where they could not carry enough fuel-it was a calculated business decision that it was more beneficial to remove this passenger to reposition some of their staff. All of the transportation options that were available to that doctor were also available to everyone of those employees to get to Lexington.
It is appalling that the airline can call the police to act as muscle to enforce their ridiculous policies and outrageous that the police would escalate this into a violent situation.
Every other passenger on that flight declined the option of getting to Lexington in some other way with $800 compensation so do not try to make it seem like HE was being unreasonable- 100+ passengers felt the same way he did.
It is understandable that airline flights need to be oversold, however more should be done to inform passengers when they are likely to be bumped based on their fare class when they purchase the ticket and more should be done to compensate passengers. At some point, one of the passengers would have been willing to give up their seat voluntarily for a compensation amount that they agreed to. $800 happened to be too low for the 100 people on the flight. Maybe someone would have moved for $1000 or $1500 and no one would have had to be beaten up over it. At some point of compensation, someone would have agreed. Therefore, if involuntary boarding wasn’t allowed and compensation was not capped, we would have a much better system for all involved.
I can’t help but ask this: Why are the police the ones removing him? That bothers me on a number of levels:
A) There was no public safety issue at play here. (as far as we know the man wasn’t violent)
B) Why should taxpayer resources (police officers paid by our tax dollars) be used to help United solve its staffing issue?
C) Why should further taxpayer resources be put at risk in the form of legal costs/settlement when that doctor inevitable sues the police department / municipality?
If United has a staffing issue (not having the crew where they need to be in time to get the rest they need for their next flight), it shouldn’t be the customer’s problem. When I screw up in business, that’s on me — not my customers. But more important than that, we shouldn’t be letting a private for-profit company put our tax dollars to use on a completely non-public-safety issue. Those officers should have been somewhere else actively keeping people safe. Our tax dollars shouldn’t be used because United doesn’t want to hire their own bouncers.
I know the response here is something to the effect of the fact that the man was trespassing since the plane was private property and he was asked to leave (or otherwise criminal because he wasn’t obeying crew instructions, etc). That still seems very weak to me when he has paid for the seat and there is no safety issue at play — and as a taxpayer, it bothers me no less that my tax money could end up in this doctor’s pocket in large quantity because United couldn’t find a way with their billions of dollars to solve the problem. (For the record, I am not a local taxpayer in this particular scenario — I mean that in the broader sense here).
If United wants to forcibly remove someone from a flight because they need to move their crew, let them do it themselves. If the customer requests the police to be present so he/she can report an assault when United’s employees rip that customer out of a seat, that’s a different story. United should be the one taking on the risk for that, not the police.
United needs to hire their own “bouncers”… wow, that’s a new one. I prefer the previous comments proposed solution of raising the minimum and maximum amounts of compensation that must be paid to customers that are involuntarily bounced, at least this can be done by congress without the airline’s input and would in theory help to make the solution more market-based. This would probably be better, safer, and more cost effective than hiring dedicated “bouncers”… Although perhaps United might benefit from hiring bouncers at least for the purpose of enforcing proper dress code… two birds, one stone…(sarcasm)
I am sorry, but if I was in the doctor’s shoes I probably would have done the same thing. United caused this fiasco in the first place. If there was a later flight, why did they send the crew members on that flight? Why was there not proper planning to let the gate agents know ahead of time that they need four seats for the crew?
And why is everyone saying he was denied boarding? He was allowed to board. They should have taken care of the lack of seats before everyone boarded the aircraft and not afterwards.
Just because they could does not mean they can. I hope he gets a huge payday.
Increased VDB comp might have solved this problem. But once the decision to go IDB and a unlucky person was announced, the die was cast. Giving in to him, would have only emboldened the next choice to do the same. So they have to call the police.
And in case no one noticed. This was CHICAGO.
Gary Leff has honestly gone off balance in this case taking the side of United. All I can say he is full of himself. Thank You for showing you’re in this for the money. Empathy is not your cup of tea. Shameful post.
Nope, ridiculous. Should have upped the price until people offered to give up their spots. I hope this guy walks away with a fat settlement. I’ll certainly never be flying United again.
You do realize that giving this guy a huge payday will set quite the precedent, now that passengers know what they can get away with and still get millions of dollars… if airlines have to set aside millions of more dollars for insurance and legal fees, ticket prices will go up for everyone…
@Tom — you ask do I have any suggestions for the police, well not formally, because I have zero law enforcement expertise. Casually: the situation at hand was one calm and unarmed guy who needs to leave, but is adamant about not leaving. Okay — this cannot be the first time something like this has ever happened. Get multiple officers and handle the passenger like a recalcitrant overgrown baby. Be the physical version of “polite but firm.” Heck, wasn’t there a picture a few years back of a drunk passenger wrapped up in duct tape? Maybe do that, THEN drag the passenger out of the aircraft, making sure not to bump up or scrape against anything in the process.
@Tom and others re: relative importance of passengers and their purposes of travel — you’re right on everyone having our own reasons to travel, and “who is to judge,” but if we, the flying public, came to an agreement that booting people at random is unacceptable, then surely we could conceive of some value system to rank passengers. Could it be perfect, not even close. Could it be better than random, yes.
I guess IDB (Involuntarily Denied Boarding) should be renamed to DOA (Dragged off Airplane). I’m with some of the others – why did they let people on in the first place if they needed the seats? Regardless of the reasons and the doctor’s behavior, very bad form on United’s part.
Bad form on United’s part, unacceptable and childish behavior on the passenger’s part, and likely a bit of unnecessary force on the part of the police. There is plenty of blame to go around, but placing it all on one party is very naive… a lot of things went wrong here, and there is plenty of blame to be shared.
You’ve lost me as a reader Gary. Not only are you way out of your element but your comments are as bad as how UA handled this.
It was unavoidable that the airport cops beat the man? Did you seriously just make that statement? Yep you did. Use of force must be proportional and there was no reason at all for the injuries the man received. I wouldn’t describe as lucky, someone who was beaten up by airport thugs over UA’s ineptitude.
@Eric I think the cops likely acted VERY badly. But once hte cops are involved and you challenge their authoritah, things could have gone even worse (hence my reference to Guantanamo).
I think my phrase ‘lucky’ is being misinterpreted here, likely my fault, I’m suggesting even worse things could have happened. Like being held as a terrorist.
any flights on Unites or other airlines have vacant seats to the same destination that day?
seems like someone did not take due diligence to resolve the problem
I remember a time when it was common practice for an airline to over 1)a continental rounding trip voucher and 2) first class on the next outbound flight. Now, United, being a bunch of tightwads bought them selves a lawsuit in which the court of public opinion has already found them guilty. So, instead of maybe $500-$1000 worth of good, they are going to shell out $25K -$100K for “”reasons.”
It’s complete shame on UA. Making customers suffer because of them mismanaging the situation.
Inspiring people to be afraid of the system and be thankful that the system didn’t torture people even more – what can be worse for a journalist of a free (or so-called) country.
There will be no change in customer centricity as long we’ll advocate carriers’ evils and invent excuses on their behalf to make us look like wise fellows.
I hope that some of UAL shareholders will challenge the management on the situation to make them sweat about sweet corporate careers and relate to what that poor MD used to feel.
@asdf – Absolutely right, it would just be a Dutch auction in reverse – the most equitable way to solve this.
You lost all credibility at this line: “You could wind up in Guantanamo and frankly no one wants to be water boarded…”
Seriously man?? That’s where you want to go with this? That someone would have earned a slot in Tortureville for this? Despicable.
Biased and unintelligible article. Gary, you are better off writing about redeeming miles and free hotel stays. Beating up a doctor was “unavoidable”!!!!! What a moron!
@R Rig – the scary reality is aviation and conflict with law enforcement places people at grave risk
Congrats: This column made travel professionals look even worse. I’m sorry, but there is no reasonable explanation for this astonishingly inhuman behavior OR the excuse-making of this author. All of you need a dose of reality… And a “re-accommodation” of your own.
Gary, you should rethink your article. The points you mentioned are sadly misleading or incorrect. A few salient points, as mentioned by many:
1. It wasn’t any safety issue causing the need to remove passenger, but United’s own operational need. If United needed those employees somewhere else, they should have accounted for it, and figure out ways to transport them (take a cab, buy last minute tickets at another airlines, etc)
2. The passenger already boarded. Anything at this point should be voluntary, and it’s up to United to provide the right incentives. It’s in their interest too, because after 3h if the plane can’t take off United is a much worse financial situation
3. Yes, auction is the right way to fix it. The price would naturally be what individuals are willing to be compensated to leave the plane and take the next one. I’m pretty sure that it would have costed United way less than cancelling a full flight or dealing with this PR nightmare.
0.09% of the 632 million people who fly annually is still nearly 600,000 people bumped annually. I don’t care how small the percentage is, that’s still a substantial problem. And I don’t buy the argument that the airline has the infinite right to refuse someone a seat. Contracts generally specify the right to prevent boarding. They let him board, after which he is entitled to the flight unless he is disruptive, which he wasn’t until they tried to unilaterally violate their agreement with him.
“What Should the Doctor Have Done?”
That’s your question?! That’s victim blaming.
What about the police?! They are not forces of nature. They work for us. No public interest is served their behavior here.
Those of us who live outside suburban Fox News bubbles know: Don’t talk to the police. Don’t call the police.
This post is shameful, Gary.
So based on your article, I exptrapolate that you are placing the blame on the passenever for not cooperating? You are blaming a passenger, for paying for a seat, then sitting in that seat, and then refusing to give up that seat? So what rights do passengers have? Pay us and maybe we’ll get you there?
@Who Cares III passengers have very few rights under the law
No conceivable, non-safety-related, “operational need” of United Airlines justifies the treatment of this passenger. United made the mistake by boarding too many people when they shouldn’t have, therefore they need to eat the consequences of delaying their own dead-heading crewmembers. It’s just the cost of doing business (poorly).
Nonsense. There is an enormous difference between not letting someone who showed up late board a flight, and kicking off passengers who are not only already on a plane, but were on the plane on time. Everyone gets that airlines can’t control the weather, but we also get that they CAN control their poor decisions. If there was another flight leaving soon that had empty seats, why weren’t the United crew asked to get on that one?
You flirt with blaming a passenger for beating beaten up and justify it with all kinds of irrelevant information and things that passengers didn’t even have about later flights. But it all gets down to the airline’s “need” to do business, as if ONLY an airline ever had to do business ever. I mean, yay for your friend who could afford to fly somewhere 2 days early, but in the real world, this is not how either life or business work. I do not have 4 days available so I can pad every flight on both ends. Nor would my employer pay for me to arrive somewhere 2 days early.
If the airline really needs to do business, they’d accept that the cost of their “need” is that they must offer more money to induce people to get off the plane. This is the morally right decision and also the way to do customer service. United is a failure on all levels.
Your desires to comply with abuse are why you’re abused without concerns.
Treating people like animals is how savages are made.
Putting economic reality and fear mongering above humanity….just pathetic.
Gosh, the police and airlines will just beat you if you question them as they rob you,. taking thousands of dollars from you then denying you the service you paid for. It’s just like weather or something. They aren’t people who are legally and morally responsible for what they do. Thanks for clearing up how its my fault when your bosses beat their paying customers with truncheons.
Racism a contributing factor? You don’t have to be black, you only need be non white. Sadly it happens every day.
He is a doctor. His job is by definition more important than that of airline employees United wanted to put in his seat. Every time.
Gary, you are a complete idiot. I’ve lost total respect for you as a human being. United chooses to save money instead of raising volunteer denied boarding compensation then calls security. You come to United’s defense about flight delays? Well start the volunteer freaking compensation at $1000 and go up in $1000 increments until there is a taker. What the hell don’t you understand?
You are a complete piece of work!
“needed to” is not appropriate here.
You don’t pass the smell test, Gary Leff.
There is a stunning lack of empathy here. To sit here in judgement of this fellow—and then invoke the spectre of state sponsored torture— reflects a callousness such that I am no longer reading this blog.
Gary,
You are spot on! Its about time someone reported the truth about this situation. If you don’t listen to the crew and then the police, there is the potential for thing not going well for you. The passenger had a lot of options had he just complied and dealt with the situation like an adult off the plane. Instead he defied everyone, including the police and unfortunately things went south from there. This was not so much an oversell situation as it is was a scheduling issue.
My understanding is that the next flight out wasn’t until 3 in the afternoon the next day. So not exactly a timely solution for most people. Once all the passengers were settled in their seats on the plane United needed to come up with an alternative solution for their particular problem and not make it become one for a paying passenger. Monstrous. I was almost bumped off a plane in FL once because they brought a smaller plane. I was furious. They sold me a seat – I was there on time ready to go – they damn well better honor that contract.
Rubbish. This is such a piece of shit article. It’s completely avoidable.
The airline stop at $800 because they don’t give a sh*t about people, and the government only makes them pay 4 times the ticket for those it forcefully throws off the flight.
It shows the ugly face of deregulation. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN and regulate the airlines again. Americans don’t deserve this sh*t show because a large corporation wants to add a few pennies to the billions they make and the CEO wants a few pennies to the millions it gets as a bonus.
Airlines are acting like feudal lord that can punish their subjects (the little people of America, better if non-whites) at their whim — America used to be great, look at what happens now. Congress needs to put put a stop to this.
This guy was a HERO for not subserviently taking it in and putting the welfare of patients ahead of the CEO’s bonus. The airline was crass for calling the police, and the police was even more so for using taxpayer dollars for enforcing a totally misguided airline policy. I am so sick that my own money paid the salaries of the guys who stand around awaiting orders from United on who to go to beat up, sorry, remove from aircraft. Think of this when you file your taxes on April 18. Your own money got you this.
And as for you, Gary, you’re just a low-form paid vassal. Shame on you for condoning this corporate activity. Your moral compass needs to extreme recalibration.
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This is such a sickening piece of #fakenews.
Airlines don’t even report denied boarding. They only have to report “involuntary” denied boarding, and they make it into an art form left behind to sign a form when they get their vouchers, forms where the unaware infrequent passenger states that they voluntarily accepted the bump.
In other words, they’re fudging the statistics. The amount of “voluntary” denied boarding, which is unreported, would totally shock. But Washington doesn’t care about us.
Ick. Total airline-a** kissing propaganda. You are gross and completely in-credible, in the truest sense of the word.
Go to hell.
Here’s the thing: We didn’t see what happened just before the man was dragged down the aisle. And yes, the airline has the right to bump him. Regardless – even if he said no (which he did), that in no way justifies immediately using force in removing him off a plane. There are levels of escalation before you apply force – it’s what cops are trained to do.
Gary,
You have missed the mark with your analysis. United Airlines is not the victim. The victims are the passenger removed and all of the passengers, including children, who had to witness this violence.
United Airlines made mistakes. United oversold the flight to maximize their revenue. United made the choice to board the aircraft without tracking how many non-rev seats they needed. United decided to cap compensation for volunteers at $800. To avoid highers costs for their mistakes, they randomly selected passengers to remove and then called the police when one of the passengers refused to leave their seat.
This wasn’t about passenger safety. This was United trying to limit the cost of their mistakes.
The gate agent could have walked row to row offering higher compensation until a passenger volunteered to leave. United could have offered to bus the passengers to Louisville in four hourse. United could have bused or paid to put them on another flight.
The gate agent and flight crew could have worked to de-escalate the situation, but instead chose to escalate a customer service problem with violence.
The issue here isn’t whether United did want the law allows. There are many things that are immoral, unjust, and plain bad manners that are legal. Frankly, I would have expected you to be more concerned about United Airlines using the power of the state through the police to manage their customer service problems.
Instead of acting as a United Airlines apologist, how instead holding them accountable for delivering a better customer experience?
Stop supporting the airline industry when they are totally wrong.
Part 2: why fascism is a good idea
Your post makes a tremendous amount of sense and explains all of the stuff that people just won’t get no matter what you try to explain to them. To some people the airlines will always be the devil in this situation and they can’t see how if this man had made smarter decisions then he wouldn’t have gotten hurt.
It takes two to tango and in this situation if either party had backed down the guy wouldn’t have gotten hurt. He could’ve made a better choice in the same way the airline could’ve made a better one.
How much were you paid to write this piece Gary. Beating up a doctor was maybe unavoidable are you shitting me.
The policeman assaulted the passenger as the policeman obviously felt empowered to do so. security and police do not have the right to detain or remove people unless they suspect that person of committing or intending to commit a criminal act or jeopardising the safety of the flight.
Removing passengers because the airline needs the seats for airline staff does not fit that criteria.
As previous comments have stated the airline should have kept on upping the ante until enough passengers accepted. If that meant $2000 per seat then so be it.
The airline in worse case scenario, should have a light plane on standby to accommodate staff.
The passenger should file assault charges against the policeman, and sue the airline.
The US is becoming more of a police state and less of a democracy everyday and corporate apologists like you are trying to justify it.
Gary you missed the mark. Makes me not want to read this blog anymore. Need to be compassionate, have you seen the videos? Geez
As concise as usual, I see.
I side with the United here. The airline personnel nicely asked the man to remove himself from the airline first. He declined. Then security is called in and he’s still refusing. This part isn’t shown. If a police officer asks you to do something you don’t say, “No.” The airline had a good reason for their actions and it was likely about hundreds of thousands of others whom they had a responsibility to get somewhere. This man happened to be chosen at random but it can happen to anyone. The airlines work very hard to accommodate people the best they can. No one is guaranteed transportation. Read about universal terms of agreement when you buy your ticket. I don’t blame the airlines or airline security. When they request your seat, “Give it up!”
UA could oversell the morning flight, there are a few flights on UA before 3pm.
UA can endorse the customer to AA. it has multiple flights.
If UA can accommodate with a better time, it can induce VDB, even at 400 USD.
The airlines have totally lost any sense of perspective or decency regarding customers. They do it because we allow them to. To excuse this horrible incident is hogwash. This doctor will likely sue and win and deserve it. But that will not not change the underlying situation. Airlines make money. Paying customers allow them to make money. We all have to demand decent treatment or nothing will change. We are mad as hell and won’t take it anymore.
You actually brought up water torture as an expectation for a customer who did nothing wrong. Everything you stated is tainted by that absurd, repulsive remark. Have we fallen so far as a people that we now should expect to be treated with illegal torture when we don’t capitulate to a corporation’s unreasonable demands? So we better do as they say or else? I am so repulsed and will never read this sight again. I hope this article gets circulated among the writer’s peers and employers. Though I’m sure a fascist regime would accept your resume; your lack of empathy and decency is staggering.
Wow. The commenters on this post make me weep for the future of this country. They’re all a bunch of armchair quarterback social justice warrior snowflakes who cannot read your article using any logic or reason, because their bleeding hearts and emotions render them incapable. The article is well thought-out and information is concisely presented. The logistics of running an airline are ridiculously complicated. I don’t want to defend United (although their overselling strategy as you present it is sound), and I don’t want to defend the ONE officer who was a little too aggressive, but I definitely do not want to defend this so-called doctor for not cooperating and inflating this situation. The officers tell you to get off the plane, YOU GET OFF THE PLANE.
United Airlines oversold the flight to maximize their revenue. The passenger most likely had a non-refundable ticket. If they decided not to fly, they would have still paid.
United made the choice to board the aircraft without tracking how many non-rev seats they needed. United decided to cap compensation for volunteers at $800 to save money. They could have chosen to pay more, pay to place the passenger on an American flight, paid to bus their employees (who apparently were not scheduled to fly until Tuesday?) to Louisville, or gone row to row asking for volunteers to take the place of the passenger being refused.
United didn’t do any of these things. Instead, they called the police. This is just United Airlines doing what is best for United and customers be damned.
Lightheartedly joking about water boarding seems pretty out of place here. For that man to have reacted in such an exaggerated fashion to authority (the screaming, resisting, and later moaning “Just kill me” over and over) one has to wonder if torture wasn’t exactly what he was afraid of. Who knows what his background is? Also, so far I haven’t read any reason the flight crew couldn’t be bussed to Louisville or couldn’t have taken that Uber ride themselves. Are there regulations that prohibit this?
John,
You really think it is better to encourage an airline to abuse the police power of the state rather than managing customer service problems of their own making? You think it is better for the adults and children on that flight to witness a customer being taught a lesson by armed officers throwing the passenger to the floor as an example to the others not to step out of line and stand up for themselves? Not me.
United could have taken care of their customers the same way they expect their customers to take care of them, with money. Instead they used violence. Truly sad for all concerned.
Gary, thank you for the sane voice in response to the insane, angry mob. There are reasons why the captain controls the aircraft and the passenger was required by law to exit the aircraft. He should be prosecuted.
United’s official statement was that the flight was overbooked. This is what United said in their statement.
Gate agent and flight crew should have looked for alternatives for the flight crew – like get them on the next United flight (stated in the article) where people have not boarded or simply work with American to get them or passengers on that flight. I was placed on an American flight after my flight was canceled in Chicago – United paid American to take on that leg of the trip since the cost of hotel and means were more costly (I assume).
And blindly obeying authority is not the answer, the guy did nothing wrong and did not deserve to be beaten, arrested, or detained like the author suggested.
Maybe somebody should beat your ass to get you out off of a plane so, that you can see how it feels. Bet, you’d change your tune then. It was poor planning and irresponsible staff that caused the problem. I hope he bankrupts United .
The author of this article is a prize idiot.
Clearly United thought that getting their crew to Louisville on time was only worth $3200.00. This seems like a low value to put on the inconveniencing of the passengers flying out of Louisville on whatever flight the crew was heading for.
Let me fix some of this for you Gary. They didn’t need to board the gate crew because if they had then it would have been arranged beforehand, remove a paying passenger or beat him. United Airline’s own policy says that they shouldn’t ever remove a paid passenger for none essential crew. You’re no journalist. You’re a corporate shill. Go hang.
I find it shocking that you would try to compel people by invoking Guantanamo, which is meant for non-citizens only.
That said, rather than suggesting that the passenger do all these remedies, perhaps United should have used them. Doctors ALSO have time constraints for work. They ALSO need to be well rested in order to protect lives.
No matter how you slice it, this is United/Republic’s fault.
Let’s stop taking UA. It is terrible/brutal actions.
United you big piece of shit
So on the next flight that Gary takes will he quietly give up his seat to accomodate an airline staff? Come on Gary.
Sorry Gary, realised my earlier statement was wrong. You would never be put in this situation as you never fly cattle class. In addition to that, the airlines do know how to keep a blogger happy, im sure.
To go with your premise, its the Doctors fault, they could have told him if he stayed on the flight, he would be liable for the costs the United incurred for not being able to transit the crew to the needed destination. Then let him stay on the flight and force him to pay.
Instead, they assaulted the Doctor. Who was smart enough to provide passive-resistance which is allowed as your right in the United States. They can fuck off and die as an airline.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/political-science-and-government/political-science-terms-and-concepts-50
It’s really disturbing how much you blame the victimized, paying customer, who was assaulted by law enforcement personnel at the behest of the airline.
The willingness of some Americans to simply bend over and take it when law enforcement / flight crew / whatever authority figure demands it is appalling. No, there’s no ethical ‘requirement’ to obey flight crew commands in a situation as ridiculous as this. There is a requirement of the airline and of law enforcement to not use bodily harm to enforce a simple civil disagreement.
The airline is ultimately responsible, but our law enforcement organizations need to be far better at mediation, de-escalation and control of situations, rather than just being the junkyard dogs of corporations.
Disgusting.
Gary:
You’re so wroooong! No person should be treated this way in a commercial transaction. At least, that’s what it was until he was attacked by the vicious minions of the establishment. Now he’s a victim of the American Oligarchy. Also, I will never set foot on a United flight again in this life time.
They could have killed him by smashing his head against the arm rest. Unavoidable?????
They could have killed him.
We are entitled to everything. The world owes us everything. If we dont get what we want, when we want it, we better be compensated by $$$$$$$$$ because clearly, we deserve this.
Dear airlines, please don’t over book your flights so my airplane tickets are way more expensive. I would love it if I couldn’t afford to fly home during an emergency because some people can’t be reasonable during flight boarding.
Wow, Gary.
Getting beat up was “unavoidable”??? Put down the highball glass and quit blogging for the night.
You make lots of arguments about the economics and then overlook that the airline tried to have it both ways. Bid up to a set amount. When that fails, resort to brute force.
I’d love to see your reaction if a lawn guy tried to buy a ticket from United and then resorted to force if they didn’t accept a coupon toward $800 of lawn care (good only in the next 12 months.) If the airlines are going to overbook (or bump for operational reasons) they shouldn’t expect every transaction to be roses for them. If time is limited (like a crew showing up AFTER the flight has boarded full), start higher and offer something other than a voucher with tons of restrictions.
The fact that the guy was a doctor (kinda like the airline crew that *HAD* to be there the next day, huh?) has clouded the issue. What if he’d been going to a funeral? Or his daughter’s graduation? Or a travel writer going on a mileage run? What if he just wanted to get home by air travel on the ticket he’d purchased and boarded with?
The point is, what United was offering wasn’t seen by ANYONE on the flight as of greater value than taking the flight. So if you’re going to trot out all these economic argument, take a moment to think about the essential element in every voluntary economic transaction: both sides agree that what they are giving up is of equal or lesser value than what they are getting in return.
All the people who have weighed in on how great the offer was unfortunately were not on the flight, or this would never have been a story. But they weren’t. So United got an F economics 101 and instead got an A+ in coercion. And another A+ in cluelessness. Lots of that going around.
PS, Guantanamo? Seriously?
Jesus fuck their is zero civic responsibility in this guy huh? Shot in the dark? You did not serve in the military.
So you think getting UA four crews onboarded is the same as weather issues? When you suggest travelers plan ahead of time, why would not suggest UA plan their crews to be prepared ahead of time? Gary, it is like you have no brain.
This article is full of some of the most red herring, “look at the shiney object” nonsense. Let this gem:
“If an airline sells exactly the number of seats they have on a plane, they still may not be able to accommodate everyone. Sometimes weather requires “the plane to take on more fuel, and so they have carry fewer passengers (weight and balance issues can even affect a widebody aircraft).”
Trying to get the reader to question what it even means to overbook! What a profoundly idiotic trite way to lay down an arguement.
Let me be clear you shill – by “overbooking” we ALL MEAN THE SAME THING. We mean SELLING MORE SEATS THAN A PLAN PHYSICALLY HAS. We aren’t talking about the rare case we’re the plane has to adjust something for weight distribution reasons or some random hazard. We are ALL talking about REAL, INTENTIONAL OVERBOOKING. Intentional. Get it? Is this blog a joke?
Police brutality in this case was not a proportionate response to this mans actions.
This is a really depressing article, totally missing the point and totally lacking in compassion and common sense. Having read and enjoyed your blog for a long time I am now unsubscribing.
Gary did United give you a free boarding pass for your piece of sh*t article. Next time when you need to fly home to make it to your child’s birth, I hope they beat you over the head with a billy club and drag you out so one of their employee can have your seat…maybe then you will learn to empathize for your fellow mankind.
Here the far side of a truth, you cannot fly if they do not want you on their plane, BUT:
1. if you state options for the passenger such as a 3 hour uber ride why didn’t the crew consider getting the uber to get to their destination whereas after a 2 hour delay and another 1.5 hour of flight time, arriving at least 30 minutes later than by Uber. So its not a matter of federal regulations, its purely for the convenience of the United crew.
2. As far as racism, its not that the man was an Asian, it just so happened that they picked a rather placid, non-violent person, rather than a huge muscle bound athlete or a SWAT chief instructor, so its not racism, its called predator psychology, and the luck of the draw.
3. If you ride a taxi and the driver stopped and wanted you off, you get off, or he will drive to the nearest station house and you get off. Then you go see Judge Judy.
Here’s the far side of a truth, you cannot fly if they do not want you on their plane, BUT:
1. if you state options for the passenger such as a 3 hour uber ride why didn’t the crew consider getting the uber to get to their destination whereas after a 2 hour delay and another 1.5 hour of flight time, arriving at least 30 minutes later than by Uber. So its not a matter of federal regulations, its purely for the convenience of the United crew.
2. As far as racism, its not that the man was an Asian, it just so happened that they picked a rather placid, non-violent person, rather than a huge muscle bound athlete or a SWAT chief instructor, so its not racism, its called predator psychology, and the luck of the draw.
3. If you ride a taxi and the driver stopped and wanted you off, you get off, or he will drive to the nearest station house and you get off. Then you go see Judge Judy.
You’re really unbelievable. Maybe, how ’bout this…get some other flight crew in Louisville in place from elsewhere…or get a private plane to fly those special snowflake flight crew that needed to work to where they needed to go. I mean, if you’re legally supposed to shell out up to $1300 USD for each passenger you have to displace–that’s a total of $5200 USD so I’m sure they could have gotten a good ole’ Cesna to fly those crew members to where they needed to go. Or send them in a car. Or do anything else except brutalize people so that it’s not ‘inconvenient’ for the people who work for your company. With your logic, the captain of a boat that’s going down should get in the first life raft and sail off into the sunset and let the other people drown. I hope United gets sued and I hope there is a massive boycott of this terrible airline (I stopped flying with them 5 years ago due to their notorious ways which hadn’t gotten quite as bad as they are now). Sad world that we live in if one could ‘end up in Guatanemo Bay’ (as you wrote) for refusing to be treated like trash. And it’s people like you who will keep flying with United and continue to support this airline that will keep it in business. I really hope the outcry is so great that it puts United out of business. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
i hope you got well compensated for writing this well written article.
(by United)
Finally, a voice of reason! Denied boarding is a fact of life. Deal with it, people. This guy broke the law by refusing to comply with flight crew instructions. He should be arrested and charged.
And I’ll bet he’s not really a doctor, because no doctor I know would act that way.
This is unbelievable in other decent countries.
Rational profit maximization like this?
If you overbook for higher profit, then you should take the risk and the cost.
The airline had a wrong prediction, then pay for the mistake, instead of kicking passengers off the plane for the seats of your own employees!
No wonder U.S. airlines get such low worldwide rankings!
Your article is entirely undercut by your claim their wasn’t “time” to offer more compensation.
Instead of dithering around offering 400 or 800 dollars (and you know they never hurry to jump between steps) they could have – along with assistance in rebooking and accoms if needed – started with 1000 cash, 60 seconds later gone to 2000, 60 seconds later gone to 4000, 60 seconds later gone to 6000.
There is no way in hell they wouldn’t have got their 4 volunteers in a three minutes if they’d offered that much. They would have saved time over first going through their pitiful call for volunteers, and then explaining to each of the four people thrown off why they needed to vacate.
So even if we accept your claim such brutality is justified in this case, it could have been avoided by spending more money without burning more time.
This is unbelievable in other decent countries.
Rational profit maximization like this?
If you overbook for higher profit, then you should take the risk and the cost.
The airline had a wrong prediction, then pay for the mistake, instead of kicking passengers off the plane for the seats of your own employees!
No wonder UA get such a low worldwide ranking!
UA 69th worldwide
http://www.worldairlineawards.com/Awards/world_airline_rating.html
Got a strong feeling that you wrote all these articles to defend United. Shame On You, Gary!
You’re just wrong here. There is no excuse for what happened to this passenger and this is 100% victim-blaming.
United had the discretion to up the ante in looking for voluntary bumps from $800 to $1350.
United had the discretion to find a more willing involuntary bump rather than escalate the situation with a passenger who did not want to deplane.
United had the discretion to send their non-rev crew to Louisville via Uber, rental car, that later flight that you think existed, etc.
Instead, United decided to call the cops and to forcibly remove him from their aircraft. They knew he didn’t want to go — what made them think he’d do so peaceably? While the action of one officer — hitting the passenger and knocking him unconscious and bloodying him — was not typical, it certainly was foreseeable.
Nothing in how United handled this is appropriate. The victim made one mistake; United made many. United is justly getting roasted over this disaster.
This sounds like this airline is disorganized. That they need remove customers for their staff really shows how bad airlines are to their customers. I won’t fly Delta after seeing this
You know what’s also disgusting? Gary Leff capitalizing on this terrible incident by posting provocative article after provocative article. Why?
Why do you think?
Clickety-click-clickbait. All he cares about are getting his blog numbers up.
You Sir, are a despicable human being. Shame on you.
United has already lost in the court of public opinion, with all these videos out there & the appalled passengers who were on the flight. People now are scared to fly United, because they don’t want this to happen to them or their family members. Even if they chose to comply, nobody, but nobody wants to be told that they have been chosen by a computer to leave a flight that they are sitting on, with their stuff in the overhead bins and their luggage already on board. And worst of all for United, people are not typically treated this way on other airlines.
The ONLY Way to regain a percentage of the customers United has lost, is to come down hard on this: condemn what happened; state this is not their policy; reassure everyone that this would never happen again on a United flight; fire anyone involved, including higher level executives who came up with this policy. Accept full responsibility and fully apologize, something that the CEO is not capable of doing in his callous & inadequate response, so he needs to resign or be fired also. Because someone at United made this terrible decision that resulted in this man being assaulted, United will be paying dearly to this passenger and his family, and I am sure there will be lawsuits from the passengers who were traumatized from watching this. Not to mention there were a bunch of high school students, whose parents are probably irate and also considering lawsuits. Worst of all for United, they will lose money from all the customers they will be losing. I used to happily support United airlines, for several decades now. Unless the above happens, I am more than willing to pay an additional $100-$150 per ticket to fly on a different airline. $200-300 is a small price to pay to make sure my head doesn’t get bashed in by United, or that I don’t have to watch someone else’s head get bashed in…!
What i see here is a typical Caucasian arrogance to apurely racist crime. He was the only Asian on the flight. If I were the person’s lawyer I would go to the top with “Command Responsibility”. Anyway lets see where the suits go in this case.
wonder whether the author was paid for this drivel!!
what Gary Leff is advocating is putting the priority of profits over rational and empathetic and civil treatment … he doesn’t deserve to write a column here … stay away from this clickbait
You suggest that the doctor should drive for 4.5 hours and then start work at the hospital? If I were a patient at that hospital, I’d much prefer to be treated by a well-rested doctor. The airline employees could have driven or been driven and saved the company money and everyone a lot of unnecessary grief.
Hope United and the police Beat you up next so we can see you apologizing to them.
So if the paying customers had alternatives surely that means the staff had those alternatives too and therefore no need to this utter shambles? Crew discomfort MAY put passengers lives at risk however doing so to a surgeon 100% will put patients lives at risk
On the side note, Is there a law for a hosoital to bump a patient while inside the theater ready for a procedure just because the hospital is fully occupied and not having enough doctors. Talking about karma
what a pile of shit Gary Leff.
your an asshole.
they only offered him a 3PM flight the next day. United flight was not overbooked – united just chose to put their crew as more important. why didn’t united find another carrier for their team?
you don’t beat up your customers….literally
You are 100% wrong. This is absolutely illegal and is not a case of denied boarding so is not covered under those regulations. This was forcible removal from an aircraft. From a lawyer on another blog:
“This myth that passengers don’t have rights needs to go away, ASAP. You are dead wrong when saying that United legally kicked him off the plane.
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. “
The only thing you got right in this lousy article is that the airline should have tried harder.
Think you should report what happened before video.
This is a ridiculous article. Your whole point of “the airline didn’t have time” is totally baseless and pathetic. Why didn’t they seek volunteers at the gate, as any experienced crew would do, instead of forcibly dragging someone out like a pig when everyone was seated? If one is not willing to do so, try ask someone else, and you don’t need too much time if you are willing to pike up your compensation at the very beginning. Why didn’t they just offer your Uber ride suggestion to their own crews? No wonder why the US airlines’ customer service are always ranked so low globally, whoever handled this situation needs to be fired, and whoever wrote this article lacks a mere sense of apathy towards mankind.
Let’s leave racism out of the conversation. There were 3 others selected that were white so get your greedy litigious minds to focus on how United had treated a paying customer incorrectly!!
This stupid baught-off author is out of his mind. What he would say if the one who was beaten on that UA flight was him or his family member?! The ridiculousness of this article is beyond anybody’s imagination.
DOCTOR? WHAT DOCTOR? https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4HccDTbPLOnVmRSTGpBcWN4dzA/view
This article is so nonsensical I don’t know where to start. Let’s boil it down and simplify it.
1) Passenger buys ticket. Airline gets money.
2) If passenger misses flight and wants to go standby, Airline still has the
money. The seat said passenger gets by going standby was not sold
to begin with so Airline does not lose money.
3) If passenger cannot get on standby because all seats were sold said
passenger will have to wait or by a new ticket. THIS HAPPENS ALL
the time!
In eve SIMPLER TERMS, let’s say Gary leases a car but then said car is taken back by the dealer because they over leased a number of cars they had in their inventory. Would Gary think this was fair? But WAIT – it’s not another customer who wants the car, it’s someone from the dealership who needs it for a family member!
Gary?
I’m generally amenable to your analysis here. However- though this wasn’t a simple oversold flight, United most definitely screwed up. Either- the crew they wanted to deadhead on the plane was not properly scheduled, meaning United screwed up with scheduling, or some other factor after scheduling out the crew in that difficult position. Either way, United screwed up- in the first scenario, their mistake was failing to properly schedule, combined a second mistake of ejecting passengers from an already-boarded craft; in the second, if the cause of the crew schedule problem is assumed as an act of God, then their mistake is how they responded: forcibly ejecting passengers from an already-boarded craft.
No matter what scenario you assume occurred, the real mistake wasn’t overselling- it was their response to needing a crew to be somewhere else. In the same way we can’t blame overselling here, we can’t blame the passenger for his response to being told to leave.
You need to recognize the real error in judgement that United made here. It’s sad, but likely, that government intervention and involvement with airline regulations contributed to this piss-poor outcome as well.
On a side note- why not open up the market for customers inconvenienced by airlines to bid for recompense? Seems to me that in a free market, where government doesn’t in effect “deputize” carriers with a quasi-monopoly on force, the voluntarily created contract between customer (passenger) and business (airline) would be open to renegotiation if one end of the agreement attempts to reneg (airline). But that’s my two cents.
So they book 105 people for a flight that holds 100. They sell tickets to 105 people and collect money from 105 people knowing that they only have 100 seats. Nice racket if you can get away with it. THEN, it is the public’s fault if everyone shows up.
This was not even the case. If you bounce people off a flight for “employees” then you really need to compensate. Ridiculous and pandering article!
@IJ Winfrey but that’s not even what happened.
What the actual fuck Gary. Overbooking is a way of compensating for the vagaries of air travel, I get that – but that in NO WAY JUSTIFIES United beating the shit out of a paying passenger.
They should have denied boarding at the gate and offered compensation, and given that they failed to do this they should have upped the compensation until somebody took it voluntarily. It would have been a damn sight cheaper than the bad publicity is going to cost them, and the way this is going (and growing) online, United may have inadvertently solved their overbooking problem for good – by having no paying passengers left.
Are you seriously trying to smear this man by showing he is a medical resident, who always are referred to as doctors? This makes his claim he had to be at work even more credible. Someone needs to investigate you to find out how far Untied is going to go with this smear. Their handling of the matter has already forfeited the entire value of the airline in PR damage. Munoz is now the walking dead, United flying dead to hundreds of millions of customers who won’t even buy the desperate Going Out of Business fares.
United airlines SUCKS… period.
Gary… go suck and choke on your damn PEPSI commercial bullshit.
The author of this blog should get a beating from the police for writing this claptrap.
Here are a few basic facts.
1. Airlines overbook all the time. ALL airlines.
2. When more passengers show up than there are seats, the airlines have to reduce the number of passengers.
3. They usually do this by offering compensation. They usually start with a voucher for a future flight and/or money. If a passenger is a chump, they will accept the offer and volunteer to be bumped. If they refuse the offer and the airline bumps them anyway, then the airline is on the hook to pay them cash money and refund the cost of their ticket.
4. If involuntarily bumping the passenger causes a delay of up to one hour, the airline must pay the passenger 200% of the cost of his ticket. If the delay is two or more hours, they must pay 400% of the cost of the ticket up to $1,350 plus refunding them the cost of their ticket. They may also be on the hook for a hotel room and food. This is the LAW.
5. United offered volunteers $400-$800 in vouchers for future flights (NOT CASH).
6. Commenter SNorth, above, pointed out that this is not really a legitimate case of bumping a passenger on an overbooked flight. The flight was NOT overbooked. It was fully booked. Every seat was paid for and every passenger had a seat. Bumping a passenger is done BEFORE boarding. Once the passengers are in the seat, the rules change and the law cited by the airline no longer applies.
If passengers do not volunteer, then the airlines is on the hook for the cash anyway. Why not offer the cash and a refund before they go to the extreme of roughing up one of their paying passengers? Even the legal limit of $1,350 does not constrain the airline. They are free to offer more. They could have offered $2,00 or $4,000 in cash. That would be a lot cheaper than hiring a PR firm to handle this mess.
Then there is the lie about “randomly” picking four passengers to be bumped. They did NOT randomly pick the doctor. They looked at the roster and then exempted all First/Business Class passengers. Then they exempted frequent fliers and full fare passengers. That left them with a small pool of budget fare passengers. It was from this small pool that the “random” selection was made.
The other possible remedies were to hire a car to drive the last minute flight crew to their destination. They could even sleep on the drive. Or book them on a carrier with which United has a reciprocity agreement.
This was a complete comedy of errors. Except there was NOTHING funny about it. A doctor was brutalized and the whole world knows about it (thank you iPhone). This confrontation should have been avoided at all costs. Especially after the debacle of last week and the 10 year old girls wearing leggings.
C J above, that is very white of u to say that beating up a Chinese man on a plane is not racist. But u know it all. Hate it when white people excuse racist acts. Yes, I assume u r white and know zero about racism except for overlooking and excusing it which is what racists do
I hope an “unavoidable” kick in the dick finds it’s way to you very soon. Arguing that physical violence is needed to rectify United’s screw up is the most insane thing I have ever read. Also, under United’s own terms of contract, once he boarded the plane United agreed to carry him to his destination. The man did nothing wrong until United tried to remove him from the flight. In summary, eat shit
How much did United pay you for this piece of shit article? Infact don’t say. What did they up your mileage status? Again – don’t say. This is garbage. If the point of this article was to inform flyers how to save themselves from a blood face on an upcoming United flight l, you’ve failed miserably.
You are justifiying criminal action taken by a men who are suppose to uphold the law. Let us know when your dad, wife, mom or child have been dragged off an airline in blood. This blog post is an embarrasment. You ought to be ashamed of yourself and have some dignity.
All you complainers who don’t have a clue about how the airline industry runs in this country should just go fly another airline until the same thing happens to you on that airline. The “good doctor” was wrong when he did not comply with the directives of the airline personnel and with the directives of the airport police. Your civil rights do not transfer onboard the aircraft. You must comply with the directives of the crew. It’s pretty simple….if you don’t like it then don’t fly! Flying is not a right and the chances of you losing your seat in an overbook situation is directly related to how cheap your ticket was in relation to the other passengers. If you decide to no longer fly on United, that’s fine. That’s what capitalism is all about. You have choices. By the way, United will do fine without your business. The planes are full and people are clamoring to get onboard, just go to any airport today and you will see what I mean.
…sez Mike the fat bully bozo as CNBC announced United lost 1 billion in stock value today..
Thanks, Greg. Your reference to me as a “fat bully bozo” really says all I need to know about you. I stand by the facts in my post and when you have some concrete facts to add to the conversation, then I will be glad to read them. By the way, stocks rise and fall every day. Look at Tesla, now the most valuable auto company in the world. I hope they stay there because I am a big Tesla fan, BTW. Cheers!
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/chicago-united-lambasted-man-dragged-off-plane-46724398
Man removed from jet is Kentucky doctor with criminal record
The assurance that security responded appropriately since we didn’t see what happened before the video does not take into account that the people watching getting the full scene did not find this reasonable hence the recording of it. The eyewitness were appalled. The airline community should be appalled, and not condoning this. This as ALL involuntary removals that happen for reasons beyond patron behavior (drunk, belligerent, etc) are the airlines fault, and patrons should be treated like royalty from start to finish. The CEOs response was shameful.
You think that beating up or possibly knocking a passenger unconscious was unavoidable? Seriously?
Gary, you are saying that beating up a passenger, possibly knocking him unconscious, was unavoidable? Seriously? I will tell you what I think it was. I think it was a terrifying act of violence against an innocent person! Horrifying actually!
Stop making excuses for incompetent United Airlines management. Increasing the offer for passengers to voluntarily give up their seats takes all of 30 seconds. Just have keep going up by $100 every 10 seconds until someone rings their call button.
Bullshit bullshit bullshit!!! This was a situation entirely created by United and when the employees couldn’t resolve it they escalated the situation because they never bothered to make a Plan B. There was only a single solution they would accept and it ended up assaulting a paying passenger. This is ENTIRELY on the company.
Unavoidable? Really? Why him? Why not the lady across the aisle? Why not the 12 year old seated 3 rows away? This is bullshit. The man was not being irrational, he was not threatening anyone and violence was COMPLETELY avoidable. You are an idiot.
“In some sense the man got lucky”. Shame on you Gary. Terrible word choice.
Overbooking shouldn’t have to be an unavoidable fact of the industry. Southwest? Jet Blue?
Frank, whether the Doctor has a past criminal record is not what this whole debacle is about! We are not here to pass judgement on the Doctor’s past! This is about any human being to be treated in this disrespectful manner.
Gary, you drank the cool-aid and all you can provide is excuses. News flash: Every business is complicated. Is United so incompetent that is can not figure out how to serve all of it’s customers? Last I heard legitimate businesses don’t have the police beat up their customers, even when they disagree or fail to do as asked. They make it worth the customers trouble to go along. You saved a couple hundred dollars by not willing to pay for someone to get off. I hope you lose millions because of the incident. I will never again fly United and I hope thousands more will do the same.
This mentality is incredibly disgusting. You assume the structure of a business is an excuse to interfere with basic decency and fairness. If the airline industry shocks the general public with their motive and performance of despicable acts, it aint society and decency that have to yield. Everyone from a five year old child to an economics major can instantly understand how incredibly awful this situation is, and how any industry that has gotten to the point where a man who has paid for his ticket in good faith is told to rearrange his life and potentially the lives of the sick, for the purpose of an airline maintaining their financial quota. If this is the airline industry as it must be, then we must all learn to drive and take trains, as this is fundamentally counter to our ideals as capitalists, customers, and above all else, people.
I challenge you to examine your life and career, ask yourself if you are an apologist for a tone deaf and greedy industry. I believe this article in its entirety is a major indication of this error. If you feel that in some way you are, I encourage you to do the right thing, call an injustice an injustice, and apologize for describing the beating of a paying customer for refusing to be moved as “unavoidable”. If you feel this article is still justified, then I encourage others to remember the name of Gary Leff, and to never let his erroneous points take root without a challenge for the sake of ethical responsibility.
Good day.
We are supposed to plan better and leave a cushion. Sure. It looks like United was the poor planner here when they had to get a crew to another location at apparently the last minute. United chose their needs over their customers’. Plain and simple. Not a great business model.
> They want each seat to go out with a passenger in it.
No, they’d actually prefer to maximize the number of tickets sold and minimize the number of people on the plane. Greater income and lower fuel costs.
An empty seat might be a sign they didn’t sell that seat enough times, but that’s a distinctly different issue.
People have a gut instinct that selling the same resource to two different people is wrong. Honesty would mean selling something other than a “ticket” to budget travelers who are buying something more like a bus ticket (Greyhound will get you there, but you have virtually no guarantees on timeline or actual bus).
Airlines want to have it both ways — selling something that gives the illusion of certainty (a flight number and even seat assignment) while using the fine print to defend a practice that abuses the language and the less sophisticated. When an industry that used to be exclusive moves to be mass market (as illustrated by dropping ticket prices), it needs to use language readily understood by its customers.
I’m reminded of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry’s rental car reservation turned out to be something less than “reserved”.
Your article reads with a slight undertone of victim blaming. Just so you know. If it was intentional, you should check yourself and try to empathize with this patron who purchased a ticket and had every right to stay on that flight and be provided the service he paid for! I’m a little woman and watching this video thinking this could possibly happen to me, or my father or mother is mortifying! This video is deeply disturbing. My heart breaks for that man and I hope he his not only compensated, but vindicated!
This is rubbish
Dear Mr. Leff,
I am hoping that you can explain to me how “the man got lucky.” I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen such a complete lack of humility in my lifetime. Additionally, I am curious as to how long it took you to craft this blog post that is rampant with contradictions and lacking an overall structure – with the beginning stating this was not due to over booking only to be followed with a rambling set of loosely coherent quasi-factoids about why overbooking exists. Perhaps my favorite is the third from last paragraph where you highlight the alternate options for the displaced passenger. If those options were so feasible, one must ask oneself why the four crew members didn’t select one of those very options. I by all means hope you are are somehow affiliated with United airlines or are receiving something in return for whatever it is that I just read.
Perhaps most obvious is your place of privilege established by your bio on here. If that information it is in fact true, it is likely that you are an elite member of this and many airlines, and therefore you would not be able to relate to this passenger because the “random computer selections” do not select elite members.
If you made it this far, would still love to learn more about how this man got lucky.
I just wished that poor man were your mama. An old Asian man being dragged off a plane… Shame on you AA. Never again. I have used this airline for years. I will never allow my parents and rest of my family use AA ever again. They will be discriminated and attacked. WOW
I have to laugh at all of these comments. Was every single person who has commented, on the aircraft and knows every detail of what happened? OR did they just watch a 10 video and read social media and formulate their opinions? If the passengers were so concerned about this man, why didn’t one of them volunteer for him? Maybe you all need to stopping flying commercial airlines because they all have the same business faults and practices and find other means for your future travel. Also, did you all know Delta had authorities drag a woman of a flight in December?. Google it if you do not believe me.
I just wished that poor man were your mama. An old Asian man being dragged off a plane… Shame on you. Never again. I have used this airline for years. I will never allow my parents and rest of my family use United ever again. They will be discriminated and attacked. WOW
Gary, you know your wrong. Be the big person (not phyiscally) and apologise.
Actions speak louder than words. The fact the author hasn’t responded indicates he acknowledges his mistake writing this article… Or this blog prohibited him to do so
Well airline works in service industry, although said points above maybe true, i believe there is customer protection law or act somewhere out there and since he didnt violate any rules, telling him to go, beating and dragging him is not in anyway acceptable
This is the most absurd bias article I’ve ever read. Smh.
“you could end up in Guantanamo and frankly no one wants to be waterboarded”??????
I cannot believe I am reading this!!!!!!!!
wtf, this should not appear in a civilized city. I hope the government should do something.
How do you think it would go over, if say the Metropolitan Opera sold more tickets than they had seats for a performance? Or if they said “we need your seat for our staff, so you will have to leave?” In any other industry, this would be preposterous. Time for a culture change, methinks.
One thing to mention that everyone seems to be overlooking. United personnel did not drag the man down the aisle. They only called authorities to assist in removing the man from the aircraft. How the rest played out is on the passenger and authorities shoulders.
While some interesting points made, I found this biased and predisposed to victim blaming.
The fact remains, United could have pulled any flight crew member from anywhere across the USA to cover that other flight. They have thousands of cabin crew, but rather than allocate a different crew, they chose to forcibly evict (don’t even think to suggest volunteering in this case, as clearly that definition did not apply) their paying passengers, who were ALL boarded and IN their allocated seats and ready to taxi.
United should have resolved this issue prior to boarding passengers. They would have known they had crew on stand-by. Why they didn’t account for them is United’s problem. You do NOT board passengers THEN think to ask for volunteers. This is miss-management on a grand scale on United’s behalf.
Using the premis that flights would cost more is irritating. Airlines make millions, even billions, in revenue and profit from US, the paying customers, so there realistically is no reason why the flights should cost more.
We seem to have no rights as customers, even though we are sold a ‘confirmed’ ticket with an allocated seat. As someone mentioned, the fine print shatters that illusion as you can be ‘bumped’ at the airlines discretion. For their lack of managment. This is unreasonable. You have paid for your seat and a service, therefore you expect that seat and service to be provided, as per your plans.
There is NO justification for treatment like this. That Poor gentleman deserved better. As paying customers, we all deserve better from airlines and if anything, this highlights changes that need to be made to the industry.
It appears to me that most of the comments seem to forget that the passenger was asked to leave the aircraft by law enforcement officers. Regardless of the reason , he must accept some responsibility for his own actions. You can hardly refuse an order to leave an aircraft, be warned that if you refuse that you will be forcibly removed and then complain about the consequences.
Seriously?!!! So let me see, so if I buy something and paid for it and the seller decides they want it back, so because the seller said because it’s in their terms to take back the item that I already paid for, I must give it back or they will take it from me forcefully? Hmm…the word stealing comes to mind so I thought I double just check the dictionary:
steal
stēl/
verb
1.
take (another person’s property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it.
Just because they stated in their policy they can steal doesn’t make stealing right. So don’t give me your b.s. about how it’s unavoidable and THEIR rights to kick off a customer who paid for the seat and how his seat can be taken away. That’s he definition of a thief
I agree with concerned citizen.
I didn’t see a united airline agent involved in this video.
United called for assistance and the way the rest of it played out was on the customer and authorities.
Airline rag stepping up on the apologist narrative, no surprises here. Did you really just write that if someone doesn’t get off the plane they could be sent to Guantanamo, with a casual reference to water boarding? WTF!? Quarterly profits are not more important than human decency.
Thank you, Gary, for such a clear, logical and rational assessment of the situation. I wish that more people thought more rationally rather than reacting so emotionally to these types of situations. Keep writing.
While it is a shocking incident, I am not surprised. The service at United Airlines is getting worse lately. I recall the incident happened with me and my wife on the 12 hours flight. We were refused to be given vegetarian food by the reason that we did not warn the airline company 24 hours before flight. As a matter of fact, I have called twice – first when the booking has been done and the second time before leaving USA on our trip. The flight attendants completely ignored our request. Their behavior has been rude and outrageous and without a trace of sympathy. Finally they brought us a piece of bread and the leftovers of salads, leaving us hungry and most of all – humiliated.
When I placed a complained upon arrival, they offer us 5k bonus miles as a compensation for the “inconvenience”. United is the worse company in the whole world.
I find that in most large companies today, sometimes things don’t happen exactly like they should. Some companies are worse than others; however, we are responsible for our own self interests and we should plan accordingly. If I was a vegetarian about to board a 12 hour flight, I would plan ahead on the off chance that someone at the airline made a mistake and didn’t board by vegetarian meal. I would perhaps buy a vegetarian sandwich or carry on some vegetarian snacks in case there is nothing for me to eat onboard that long flight. People make mistakes and we should expect things like this to happen instead of assuming that everything is going to happen perfectly every time.
So sorry. I hope you are not flying United anymore.
You deserve whatever happens to you. It doesn’t matter, police or not, you should stand for your rights, or those pretty police cops would abuse their power.
I’m with you Gary. What happened to the other three passengers? Who knows, they were adults, got up and left the plane, as adults do in situations like this.
Sorry, I take issue with a few of your comments:
“You might think airlines shouldn’t overbook, sell each seat one time. But if that were the case airlines wouldn’t really be able to allow passengers the freedom to switch flights…”
Years ago, no change fee. Able to change flights any time, including same day, with no fee. Not sure about overbooking but I never saw it (albeit very young so didn’t fly much).
“Ban overbooking and that’s fewer seats being sold. That means higher costs per passenger (since you’re spreading the costs over fewer ticket sales).”
Amazingly, prices weren’t bad and the airlines still made $ and prices didn’t go up.
What it all boils down to is greed. Airlines can screw us every which way and we have no recourse. If we don’t show up for a flight, we’re dinged. If they don’t fly, we’re dinged. Ask a flight attendant a simple question and you are trouble maker and you better watch out–you can be arrested.
On the other hand….Not saying that United was right, but I am tired of the entitlement mentality that says screw you to everyone else. “I’m a doctor and I have to get home to patients.” Why is his time more valuable than anyone else on that flight? Oh wait, it’s not. Everyone is busy and needs to be somewhere or do something. And that goes to anyone who feels so entitled.
Airlines have no right to accost a paying customer especially when he as a doctor was due at work. I dare say he had a right to stay. This airline should have used the CEO’s private plane to take passengers rather than inconvenience any traveler. Shame on them. I hope the doctor sues them for this debacle.
Anyone want to thank the Regan administration for deregulating these greed mongers?
@Lauren so there are several problems with that.
1. deregulation was done in 1978 during the carter administration
2. deregulation primarily means that airlines just set their own schedules and prices now
3. the regulated era largely protected the profits of airlines
4. involuntary denied boardings are down substantially since deregulation (from ~ 150k per year to 46k per year, despite many more passengers flying)
Having read many pages of ranting, I finally felt compelled to give my two cents worth.
On the surface, it does seem like United had a world of alternatives that would have prevented this whole scenario from starting. Of course, none of us has access to all the contextual information that might have led them to the course of action they took. Something that comes up in my employment…bad choices, unknown info, whatever….we’re here at this point right now….how do we solve the problem from this point. Should it have been handled differently….maybe. But they were in the position they were in….and this was how they chose to address it. They broke no laws, it’s their plane and their business. However, for the sake of argument, let’s go ahead say that United totally botched the whole situation. That’s ONE of the two isolated incidents that took place. Yes, one led to the other, but was it the cause? None of that got this person beaten.
The second incident is the beating of this person. (Please note, I’m leaving out race, gender, profession, etc…because it’s NOT relevant.) There is a person on the plane who is not complying with instructions and who’s behavior is interfering with the operation of PUBLIC transportation. The person’s behavior is now affecting not jut the fellow passengers on his plane, but, potentially, passengers on other planes. How do we know someone on that plane doesn’t have a more important reason to be somewhere? If this type of behavior happens while in the air, they land the plane and have the passenger removed. It does happen…and it should happen. This person’s refusal to comply was the problem. Security professionals were brought in to remove him. Should this person have been bloodied? Was it excessive? That will be determined…and not by United.
The amount of vitriol being voiced here is amazing to me….and it seems to come from an inability to distinguish distinct events.
Your analysis of the situation overlooks the fact that this was a commercial dispute. The passenger and the airline had all of the elements of a contract, offer, acceptance, and consideration. This was a civil dispute about specific performance of the contract.
United Airlines chose and was incorrectly allowed to bring the power of the state in the form of sworn law enforcement officers to enforce their interpretation of the contract. This was possibly illegal and certainly unjust.
For too long we have assigned extraordinary powers to airlines in the name of safety and security. We all have every right to be safe and secure when we fly, but the airline does not have the right to abuse that power to achieve their own commercial goals.
The aircraft was fully booked. United Airlines benefited from maximizing their yield on the aircraft. Someone made a mistake and didn’t reserve seats that United wanted for their own operational purposes. United made the mistake and should have born the cost of correcting their mistake, either through incentives or other transportation.
As a society we must now allow ourselves to be complacent and, in your words compliant, with those who would violate our rights.
@Ben, I’m assuming you’re responding to me…and I appreciate the discussion. It beats all the yelling that was going on.
Please understand, my intent wasn’t to absolve United of responsibility or imply that they did things right. How they managed it certainly seems out of place. It was a decision made by someone in their staff which doesn’t reflect well publicly and that will affect their business. I do believe it’s their choice how they are going to manage (or mismanage) their customer relationships and the consequences/obligations associated with those choices. The point I was trying to make was that it was separate from the actions of the passenger.
I also don’t mean to imply complacency should be the norm. But I do question where the line gets drawn between right and wrong. Do I think he should have been complacent? No, of course not, but I also don’t think that’s the same thing as giving up his seat. He should have gotten up and demanded every dime due to him for not getting him where he needed to be when they said. Or, he could have plead his case to see if someone on the plane would please volunteer in his place. He made the choice not to do that…and the situation escalated to security (I don’t think it was technically “law enforcement”). At that point, though, to me, it crosses a line. Respecting authority isn’t the same as complacency.
I’m not a lawyer and I’m not going to pretend I read all the fine print that goes along with buying an airline ticket…probably wouldn’t understand it all if I did. I look at airlines this way. I pay for passage from point A to point B. Their obligation is to get me from A to B in a timely fashion or compensate me appropriately if they do not. To further that cause, I choose not to do anything that interferes with their operation or the other passengers on the plane. Is that complacency? Is it giving up my rights? To me, it’s not. It’s respecting their authority. It’s not my right to be on their plane.
@Objectivity of course the passenger could have simply gotten up and left the plane as the other three passengers did. If I had been that passenger I would have reluctantly left my seat and then raised holy hell.
The key point here is that the passenger was not legally obligated to vacate their seat. The passenger paid for transportation, was assigned a seat, and was ready on a timely basis. The passenger was most likely on a non-refundable ticket which means that the passenger would not have received a refund if they decided not to travel. United Airlines was trying to have it both ways, the passenger must pay to travel, but United was trying reserve the right to only provide the contracted service if they felt like it.
I read an analysis by an aviation law attorney who read all 45 pages of United Airlines Conditions of Carriage. I imagine this must have take the attorney several hours. This attorney could find no provision in 45 pages that comprehended permitting United Airlines to remove a seated passenger. Even if United inserts this language into a new 46th page in the future, it still isn’t just.
All the rest of us in the real world are required to live up to our commitments. Why should United Airlines be any different?
Overbooking is a strategy airlines use to maximize their “yield,” meaning their revenue per flight. The airlines are betting they will collect fares from more passengers than actually show up to fly. Nothing wrong with this practice per se except when it doesn’t work out, it should be on the airline to make it right. United Airlines involuntarily refuses boarding to more passengers than any other airline because they try to minimize the compensation to passengers. Why should we reward this practice?
This case wasn’t even overbooking. Someone made a mistake. The plane was already boarded and then United decided it was in their best interests to put their employees on the flight. That is fine, but United needs to bear the cost of that decision, not the hapless passenger. Pay what it takes to get passengers to voluntarily deplane or arrange another aircraft or ground transportation for the ground crew.
This was a civil dispute about performance under a contract and United Airlines had no right to bring law enforcement into their customer service issues. It is telling that United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz now says United will abandon this practice.
The passenger did us all a favor by bringing long overdue attention to United Airlines abysmal record of consistently failing to do the right thing for customers.
United Airlines second value listed under the “Shared Purpose is “We Fly Friendly…Warm and welcoming is who we are….” Do you feel United stuck to their shared purpose in this case or did they cravenly focus on minimizing the cost of their mistake, customer be damned?
@Ben…I have a little bit of trouble with “customer be damned”….in that the customer was involuntarily displaced. If they don’t get him to his destination within four hours, by law he’s entitled to four times his ticket cost…up to a max amount. So in that view, he’s not damned if he gets off the plane. Perhaps I can agree on “happy customer be damned.”
Do I think they were trying to minimize cost? Of course they were! Just like you and I or any business would do…or as this passenger (likely) did to get himself in a position to be randomly selected….cheapest ticket he could get. Isn’t that what we all want? This goes back to my first post. None of us knows all the details of what went into their decision to do this. Maybe there was a mistake made with those four employees. Or, maybe they were late arriving for their connection because something earlier in the day was overbooked. Maybe, the least cost option was to upend and offend these four customers rather than upending 200 people on the flight those four were trying to get to. If they cancel the next flight, then there’s 200 people damned…or crammed on to another flight. I can’t confirm any of these points, by the way…just making a case that they may have been choosing between 4 upset customers and many, many more. As I’ve said, the public appearance makes it seem like they had plenty of ways around this, but there may be other factors or laws that come into play that forced them. If they do it wrong enough times, they won’t be in business….so I feel like that takes care of itself. Everyone can choose not to fly United if they believe United was totally in the wrong. I’m not defending them…only stating that I don’t feel I’m in a position to judge the choice they made.
We’ll have to let a legal team decide the actual terms of the contract. My interpretation is clearly different from yours, and that’s ok. I could be wrong. With that said, if it’s not an agreement to get you from A to B, then there’d never be a way to adjust anyone’s schedule due to mechanical problems, weather, a different seat, exit rows, whatever. If you were buying a seat, they’d be free to screw you over by having a mechanical failure and then not transporting you at all. It’s not good business…but hey…it’s a contract! Sorry you bought that seat!
The other point where we differ is in the interpretation of his refusal to move. I’m understanding that you, too, would have been upset but gotten off the plane so maybe this is just beating a dead horse. Myself, I can’t get over the fact that this is their plane and their business decision to piss this customer off. Sucky, but that’s where we are. This person is now present in someone else’s property without permission. In other environments, it’s carjacking or trespassing. Sure, he has given them money…which they’re going to give him back. Does/should that matter? I would again point to a situation that happens mid-air. We’ve all heard of passengers becoming unruly and the plane making a landing to have them removed. Those people had boarded, been in their seat, and even taken off. Do you think they got their money back? Do you think they should have?
Again, let me stress how much I’m enjoying this respectful discussion and thank you for it. I do appreciate how you’re doing that. And, I hope that this incident has brought awareness to the issue and, hopefully enlightened people on what behavior or airlines they might want to avoid.
In order for businesses to be successful, they must make a profit.
In order for them to be successful they must plan accordingly, this includes many areas including customer service.
This is a prime example of “poor” customer service and planning.
A failure on your part to plan does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Key here is: once these passengers were boarded, there was no danger constituting the need to disembark one, any or all of the passengers. It was purely to remedy a failure on the part of the airline, to either plan ahead or make alternate plans – as the plane was already loaded. Remember they can put their people on other airlines as well if needed and have done so.
I have volunteered my seat several times in the past – due to overbooking (not the case here) but would’ve been less inclined if I’d already boarded the plane. If motivated by price, yes in this case I can be bought, but if the circumstances don’t work for me I’m going to say no.
A poor example and execution of customer service here and it doesn’t matter that the police were the ones to hurt the guy. They aren’t employed by the airline, they were called by them to enforced what the airline wanted. Can’t hide behind “it’s not our fault the police ruffed him up”. Business doesn’t always get it right, but that is part of the price you pay to be in business. Sometimes you make it, sometimes you have to eat it.
Learn from your mistakes so you don’t repeat them and in this case admit to it cause most of us can see you went very wrong here.
I do agree it is fortunate that he wasn’t hurt worse, but he was far from being “lucky” – really?, that is pretty tacky that you said it.
Perhaps you worded it wrong and meant to say it like I did.
I’m curious, do you work for the airline? Because this article is ridiculous. Airlines overbook because of greed. Doctor’s offices do the same thing, and the bottom line is greed. If you not only book a seat, but get all the way to the plane and sit in your seat, you shouldn’t be ordered off because the airline doesn’t know how to book their flights. If the airline wants to get folks off the flight, they should, one-by-one, ask for volunteers and offer cash or a free flight. What happened here, and with a family not a month later, should never happen. This was inhumane and really a horrible thing. If I was that doctor, I would sue the airline for all I could get.
I think that airlines should not overbook. I think they should do what Broadway theatres and concerts do. If you buy a ticket and don’t show up, you forfeit the cost of the ticket and the seats go empty. This would solve the problem very quickly.
QUOTE: “Delta supervisors, who had previously been restricted to a $2,000 cap on vouchers offered to bumped passengers, can now go all the way up to $9,950.”
So you were wrong.
Delta CAN afford to offer more money when they bump a passenger from a seat.
P.S. “~ $300 with UberX. These options are all bad but it’s better than being dragged off by cops and bloodied.”
You’re wrong here too. Getting bloodied allowed the doctor to file a lawsuit & eventually settle for over 1 million dollars compensation from the airline. So in other words:
– Demanding your rights under U.S. Consumer Protection laws (bought a ticket which the business refused to honor) and US Criminal Law (assault & battery) will net you a large financial award. That’s why these laws exist….. to protect the customer from moralfree megacorps & overzealous police
..