With the whole world melting down over a United passenger being dragged off a plane, United’s public relations response has been abysmal.
- They sought to distance themselves pointing out that it’s a United Express flight (operated by Republic Airlines)
- They apologized that customers has to be re-accommodated rather than that a customer was dragged and bloodied
- Their response focused on why the customer defied police rather than how a customer service problem became a law enforcement problem.
CEO Oscar Munoz Inaugurates United’s First New Boeing 777-300ER
As I wrote yesterday,
When a crisis event happens, don’t run from it run towards it so critics have nowhere to go.
Munoz shouldn’t say the customer was inconvenienced, he should say it was a terrible, horrible experience. He shouldn’t say it’s upsetting, he’s angry and he’s going to get to the bottom of it. Be active. Show actual concern, don’t be mealy mouthed.
Since United sought to downplay the situation — even as they’re hardly the only ones to blame here — customer outrage grew. Memes like this one spread over the internet, and customers the world over vowed never to fly United (many of whom weren’t already United customers and unclear how many of them will keep their word).
I’ve taken tremendous heat for saying that the police who actually bloodied the passenger deserve the most criticism. And also that the passenger, who was clearly getting hosed being booted from the flight, should have gotten off when the airline ordered him to do so.
I’ve taken that criticism for readers for much the same reason as United. To most people it doesn’t matter whether United followed the rules, that they aren’t the ones who hurt the passenger, or that the only real solution is a change to the culture of security where everything escalates to law enforcement. People are angry at United, and aren’t open to anyone suggesting that United’s blame is being overblown.
My role isn’t to make tell readers what they want to hear, and I’m comfortable with argument and criticism.
United, though, has taken the worst possible approach unless their goal is to stoke the flames of public criticism (which it cannot possibly be). They’re in a tough spot.
- United doesn’t want to throw its employees (or those of Republic Airlines operating under the United brand) under the bus. United’s internal procedures appear to have been followed, and they’re consistent with what other US airlines do and are following guidelines set by the Department of Transportation.
- That’s not an excuse because something awful happened to this man, it suggests that instead of blaming the individual employees on that night we should ask tough questions about involuntary denied boarding procedures.
- United doesn’t want to throw Chicago’s airport police under the bus, that will create a problem for them at a major hub.
There’s an old saying that one bad anecdote makes a regulation and two makes a law, we should be careful of rulemaking from public shock without understanding the consequences of changing the rules.
And we should understand what involuntary denied boarding is, why it happens, and how often — 75% less frequently than before deregulation and less often even as planes have gotten more full.
United needs to quell the hordes, both for their own immediate business needs and to avoid a reaction that brings about bad rules detrimental to customers and to their business.
So what Oscar Munoz should have done this this: offer a clear message of “We messed up. That’s not our employees fault. We need to look at our procedures to make sure this never happens again. We will learn from this, and we will do better.”
He should have said this even though United isn’t solely to blame for what happened, but they’re certainly to blame for their poor crisis communications response.
Now that we’re on day two of the story, and United’s response hasn’t helped, Munoz needs to up the ante and go on some late night talk shows — appearances which will be rebroadcast the next day — and take a lot of ribbing for it while talking about having the best employees in the business, being committed to the best customer service, and promising to ensure the incident doesn’t repeat itself.
Update: Oscar Munoz has a new apology that, I think, strikes the right tone:
The truly horrific event that occurred on this flight has elicited many responses from all of us: outrage, anger, disappointment. I share all of those sentiments, and one above all: my deepest apologies for what happened. Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard. No one should ever be mistreated this way.
I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right.
It’s never too late to do the right thing. I have committed to our customers and our employees that we are going to fix what’s broken so this never happens again. This will include a thorough review of crew movement, our policies for incentivizing volunteers in these situations, how we handle oversold situations and an examination of how we partner with airport authorities and local law enforcement. We’ll communicate the results of our review by April 30th.
I promise you we will do better.
Sincerely,
Oscar
Thank you for pulling down the earlier post. Says good things about you as a person that you realized the error and corrected it.
He’s on now because his crappy airline stock is down a billion or two in market value. He’s full of crap. He’s spinning to assuage shareholders. It’s his job but he’s still full of it.
Given your earlier post, I think you should just stop posting for a while. What you are doing is shameful.
“To most people it doesn’t matter whether United followed the rules, that they aren’t the ones who hurt the passenger…”
Maybe United didn’t physically hurt the passenger…but are you saying it bears no responsibility for mis-managing crews, not having policies to empower gate agents, or for CALLING THE POLICE? Those actions directly led to a bloodied passenger.
“He should have said this even though United isn’t solely to blame for what happened, they’re only to blame for their poor crisis communications response.”
REALLY? You think they deserve blame ONLY for their PR? Wow.
Gary, how very disappointing!
By bringing up the guys past your about as classy as UNITED!
But unlike them, who have now appeared to apologise quite late in the day, you need to apologise to your readers and the Doctor for even thinking that mentioned the guys history, in the same breath as this ghastly situation, would be of any benefit to anyone.
Well done old chap! Awfully good of you!
Mark Smith
Gary you should tell these hypocrites to shove it. They will all continue reading your blog AND continue flying United. Soooo many keyboard justice warriors, none of whom will boycotting ANYthing longer than next shiny object news-cycle. I wish United would beat down more self-absorbed fools who misbehave on flights and in lounges.
Gary, you missed couple of things:
1. That wasn’t a denied boarding — it was refusal to provide services, which is infinitely more tricky and not so easy to enforce
2. In its attempt to enforce it, the crew violated United’s contract of carriage, which lists several rules for the refusal of carriage and none of that are applicable
And yes, the flight wasn’t oversold, it was sold out, so the fact that 4 additional employees showed up unannounced is a lack of planning, not a oversold/denied boarding situation. The only thing you can implicate passenger with is that he didn’t follow orders. But those orders weren’t legal in the first place.
He was forced to issue the latest letter. Wall St and his Board demanded him to do that. We all know it is fake since he expressed they way he feels on the first letter so this is like lipstick on a pig. Corporate BS!!!! That doc will make more money from this than he ever dreamed of.
Gary, of course you’re right. Only children and the feeble-minded are incapable of separating a passenger who refused a request by police – and all that led up to that situation. Yes. UA effed up in letting it get to a point where police were called. But once they were, it was the assshole who refused to leave that escalated the situation. An adult would have gotten up, left his seat with dignity and grace, found another flight, filed his complaint and got on with his life.
Gary –
Love your stuff, but add me to the list of people who think you’ve been largely wrong in your commentaries about this situation.
This piece is better, but you still managed to trip over yourself at the end when you said “United isn’t solely to blame for what happened, they’re only to blame for their poor crisis communications response.”
That’s just flat out wrong. Republic flies for United pursuant to a very complex commercial arrangement, out of United’s HQ hub airport at O’Hare. United could have and should have handled basically every element of this differently, from ensuring that Republic never has crews so badly out of position that they have to remove paying passengers, to the rules for volunteers, to providing management personnel on an immediately available basis at ORD who could circumvent standard VDB rules, to providing guidelines for when law enforcement is called to remove a passenger.
And that’s before you get to their unconscionably poor PR/crisis management response. That can and should be laid directly at the feet of Oscar, because they clearly learned nothing from the “leggings” incident. Their “chief storyteller” [gag] should be sent packing back to Oprah, because a 3 year old would know that she sucks at telling stories.
It’s OK to have opinions different than the majority. I respect that, but when you do, you have to be more thoughtful about articulating them, and look at the big picture, otherwise people will torch you like a Cherries Jubilee
Everyone who opposes the mob — which is what the criticism of UA has become — faces its wrath. From a purely business standpoint, Munoz is right to grovel here. The mob is big.
That said, there really isn’t any good solution to this problem. When an airline employees tells you to deplane, you should probably deplane. When they bring in the cops, you’d better deplane. What will undoubtedly happen now is that more idiots will defy crew member instructions. “What do you mean I can’t sit in that seat?” And then when the police come, they’re more likely to say they can’t do anything. And then you’ll have more delayed and cancelled flights. It’s a lot like hating on the police in a crime-ridden neighborhood.
Meanwhile, there will now be an attempt to “fix” the involuntary denied boarding system. As Gary correctly points out, this is not a big problem in commercial aviation. The current system works pretty darn well. “Solutions” are just as likely to cause more problems. Like when the Feds decided to fine airlines for long tarmac waits. What happened? Lots of flights got cancelled. The solution was worse than the problem.
Hopefully, we will soon all return to our regular programming — or the next twitter incident will go viral.
If you don’t agree to be re-accommodated, Oscar will use the giant scissors on you.
To the people who still think the passenger was an a*hole for not giving up his seat: how would you have reacted?
You bought a ticket, you checked-in, you board the flight and you sit down and wait. There is an announcement: we need volunteers. You don’t want to volunteer as you have work the next day. So you wait and wait and wait even longer. Then a gate agent/crewmember comes up: -‘Sir you have been randomly selected to be offloaded.’
‘Wait? What? Heu?! Me? Why?!’
-‘Sir come with me you need to get off the aircraft’
‘Hell no, find someone else’
-‘Sir, if you don’t get off the aircraft we will call the police’
‘Okay, call the police, as I am done talking to you, I have a seat, you boarded me.
Then all hell brakes loose…
I would not know what to do but I would not give up my seat like a tame sheep. Remember this is not hours of conversation, this is someone demanding you to give up your seat or we will call the cops. BEFEHL IST BEFEHL!
This guy is a human, not a robot. You cannot just say he is an arse for not following staff orders. Because the order: ‘Get off the aircraft’ is not something he would expected. He acted as a human being.
Well, the response from Munoz is something he should have said right off the bat, when it would have been believed. Two days later it comes across as way too little, way too late – the “I’m sorry because I got caught and have to say I’m sorry and it’s time for some damage control” kind of apology.
The man was on the plane and the contract says they can deny boarding. It seems once he boarded then they are in breach and had no right to remove him per the terms of their own contract. United may believe boarding applies to anytime before the plane is in the air, but somehow I think a jury would disagree since they did not clearly define the term in their contract. United screwed up in soo many ways and its rather insulting that you try to play it off like they don’t really share blame here. People are saying the flight was overbooked because that is what United said in their official statements at first! That is a mistake by United. They never reached offering the maximum amount of compensation that they are allowed under the law. Instead they decided to call the police and forcibly remove a paying passenger who did nothing wrong. Again that IS United’s fault. Why not at least try to exhaust all remedies before resorting to calling law enforcement? What isn’t being explained is why wasn”t their crew properly positioned? Why at the last minute do they need to take four paying passengers off a flight? Seems to me that United is at fault for not properly managing the logistics of their airline crews. AGAIN United is at fault. The CEO coming out and trying to blame the passenger? Again United IS at fault for that. I’ve been on United flights and I have seen firsthand how quick the staff is to threaten people with being thrown off the plane. There is a major problem with their training in the way they handle customer disputes and that too is the fault of United. Clearly the police used excessive force (and it appears they may have lied in their reports) and as such I hope there are criminal prosecutions, but to somehow suggest that United doesn’t bare a significant portion of responsibility here is insulting. I have found your past couple articles to be heavily biased towards United and really minimizing their role in this when in reality they set the entire stage for this to happen with their incompetence and created a situation where a violent confrontation was much more likely. There are also legal arguments that they may not have even been legally justified in doing this.
Facts: UA (let’s get real Mr Munoz, a subsidiary controlled by UA with the appearance of UA is UA) followed procedure and the police overreacted HOWEVER, everyone is missing the conspiracy angle:
Why did the gate agents not offer up to $1300 cash up front + flight + hotel for re accommodation per the law? They immediately went to calling police after $1k (I assume voucher). Is there a mandate from corporate to not go above $1k and pay cash from the airline? That is the real issue besides Munoz and the Legal and PR teams being absolute dunces.
The problem with “fixing” the IDB system is that it’s not obvious this incident falls under that category. In fact, UA’s COC pretty much says this doesn’t. In part 1, notice the word “oversold”
1. Rule 25(a):
Denied Boarding (U.S.A./Canadian Flight Origin) – When there is an Oversold UA flight that originates in the U.S.A. or Canada, the following provisions apply
2. Rule 1, definition of “oversold flight”: Oversold Flight means a flight where there are more Passengers holding valid confirmed Tickets that check-in for the flight within the prescribed check-in time than there are available seats.
3. Rule 1, definition of “passengers”: Passenger means any person, except members of the crew, carried or holding a confirmed reservation to be carried in an aircraft with the consent of the carrier.
4. Rule 1, definition of “ticket”. It’s six lines long, I’m not quoting it here.
Gary can debate whether “members of the crew” applies to crewmembers operating that flight, or crewmembers period. I’m surprised the COC isn’t more clear on this. We can debate whether or not must-ride employees hold “tickets”.
But that doesn’t change the fact that these guys presumably didn’t have confirmed reservations within the prescribed checkin time. It’s *really* hard to make that argument when the flight has already boarded.
Sorry, Gary, you’re still wrong:
“He should have said this even though United isn’t solely to blame for what happened, but they’re certainly to blame for their poor crisis communications response.”
He should not have said United isn’t solely to blame. That’s just not relevant. It doesn’t matter if it’s true (and it isn’t true: United/Republic never f—s up about the crew in the first place and none of this happens, ergo United is solely to blame for creating the situation).
He should not have said, “what we did wrong here is communicate badly” except to >add< that after everything else they did wrong. they also communicated in a tone-deaf, inappropriate manner.
He should have said:
"We messed up — big time." Not, I am "disturbed by what happened" as if some exogenous force caused it to happen.
He should have said:
"We won't do this again and we apologize. First, to Dr. David Dao, who was horribly mistreated. And second, to everyone who flies United, works for United, or simply had to see what transpired. In the end, our brand was on the plane and we spent a generation earning your trust as the airline of the friendly skies. Nothing friendly — or acceptable — went on yesterday. We are already investigating what happened and taking steps to ensure this kind of thing never happens again. We will be revisiting how we handle overbooked flights in the future to make sure no customer ever experiences what Dr. Dao did. I have personally reached out to him and will take all steps necessary to correct this wrong. Personally, I am devastated that this happened. As CEO, ultimately responsibility lies with me to ensure a great experience for our fliers and we could not have failed much worse. I will not rest until it's made right."
And if the lawyers said no, he should've sent it anyway.
Interesting news report today. Could this case get any weirder?
“The Vietnamese doctor who was thrust into the international spotlight this week after he was dragged from an overbooked United Airlines flight against his will was convicted of multiple felony drugs charges in 2004. … According The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Dr. David Dao is a pulmonologist in Elizabethtown who was arrested in 2003 and eventually convicted of multiple drug-related offenses after an undercover investigation. … According to documents filed with the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure, Dr. Dao was involved in fraudulent prescriptions for controlled substances and was involved with a man whom he arranged to trade prescription drugs for sexual acts, the New York Post reported.”
@Dan
EXACTLY. But Gary seems unwilling to actually look into the details for some reason, and continue to defend United. I don’t get it.
Also, were you aware of these facts (from CNN article: http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/11/opinions/i-got-bumped-from-a-flight-then-i-sued-opinion-stone/index.html)?
The rules provide that a passenger who has a reservation and who is asked to give up their seat because the flight is overbooked is entitled to a lot of money and the airline is required to fill them in on their rights right away. In writing.
Compensation depends on how quickly the airline can get one to the next place one is booked to, and can reach 400% of your paid fare or up to $1,350 if they cannot get you to your next destination within four hours. If they can get you somewhere you are booked to within an hour or two, the compensation is much less. And if you’re flying on a free ticket, you’re entitled to compensation equal to the ticket cost in your class of service. So if you’re in coach on a free ticket with miles, you’re entitled to compensation as if you had paid full price.
Judging from the video, which may not tell the full story, it doesn’t look like the people who escorted the United passenger off his flight gave him the immediate written instructions they are required to do by law. It also does not look like they told him about his compensation rights.
@Andy — Yes, it CAN get weirder. Dr. Dao is apparently also a World Series of Poker champion!
http://heavy.com/news/2017/04/david-dao-poker-united-passenger-doctor-world-series-winnings-kentucky/
Obviously not your typical doctor. But did anyone really think he was? It’s the odd ducks that cause odd problems. I’d guess 99% of pax would have gotten up and left when the police showed up.
@Dan
EXACTLY. I’m not sure why Gary keeps digging himself a bigger hole, and not looking into the details of this situation.
Also, per a CNN article – did United do all of these things and follow legally-required protocol:
“The rules provide that a passenger who has a reservation and who is asked to give up their seat because the flight is overbooked is entitled to a lot of money and the airline is required to fill them in on their rights right away. In writing.
Compensation depends on how quickly the airline can get one to the next place one is booked to, and can reach 400% of your paid fare or up to $1,350 if they cannot get you to your next destination within four hours. If they can get you somewhere you are booked to within an hour or two, the compensation is much less. And if you’re flying on a free ticket, you’re entitled to compensation equal to the ticket cost in your class of service. So if you’re in coach on a free ticket with miles, you’re entitled to compensation as if you had paid full price.
Judging from the video, which may not tell the full story, it doesn’t look like the people who escorted the United passenger off his flight gave him the immediate written instructions they are required to do by law. It also does not look like they told him about his compensation rights.”
I bet in hindsight United wishes they offered someone $50,000 to voluntarily give up their seat …. as it turns out, would certainly have been the best $50K they ever spent!
This is interesting:
[The Transportation Department says airlines must “give all passengers who are bumped involuntarily a written statement describing their rights and explaining how the carrier decides who gets on an oversold flight and who doesn’t.” There’s no evidence United did that. }
– from http://finance.yahoo.com/news/uniteds-real-mistake-173844672.html?hl=1&noRedirect=1
Gary – please watch this.
This is a former head of DOT saying United did not follow any of the federal procedures.
https://youtu.be/O7-8pECwfd0
Do you still think United is still “hardly the only ones to blame here”?
Given that this was not an “overbooked” situation but rather a case where they wanted to fly a crew into Louisville to avoid a cancellation we need an amendment to the current $1350 maximum saying something like:
“If an airline needs to remove passengers to accommodate its own employees, an airline must obtain volunteers and they must continue to offer higher and higher compensation until such volunteers are obtained.”
Under no circumstances should the police be called because an airline is trying to get its employees somewhere, they need to up the “ante” until they get a volunteer. Does anyone believe if they offered say $5,000 in vouchers they wouldn’t have gotten more than enough volunteers?
@W_Man – it’s not a former head of DOT, it’s a former Inspector General, and you should never listen to Scary Mary (her track record as a commentator is deplorable)
Next flight was at 3:00PM the next day….would you have taken $800 to have to wait until then for the next flight? No wonder people didn’t “volunteer”.
AOL NEWS
Troubling details have emerged about the Kentucky doctor who was dragged off a United Airlines flight at O’Hare International Airport on Monday.
Dr. David Dao was charged with 98 felony drug counts in 2003 for illegally prescribing and trafficking painkillers such as hydrocodone, OxyContin and Percocet.
According to a criminal complaint filed against him, Dao also allegedly solicited sex from a male patient in exchange for drug prescriptions. He was eventually convicted on six felony counts of obtaining drugs by fraud and deceit.
Dao was placed on five years of supervised probation in January 2005, although he surrendered his medical license one month later. The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure allowed Dao to resume his practice in 2015, but only under certain conditions.
Gary, really disappointed in your handling of this from the beginning. You must really enjoy the perks United shares with you. Apparently it is sufficient to color your judgement. You’ve become their “unpaid” spokesman with no accountability. Sad that you asked none of the tough questions of United and their handling of this situation.
On the other hand, it shows that passengers are powerless against the air carriers in these days of “heightened security” where their only obligation is to secure your money.
Oh my, Gary – so now just a kiss less apologetic ? Right now the less you write the better for you. You still don’t get.
@those posting comments in several of Gary’s posts who think it’s ok for a large corporation to use state police to violently take care of a corporation’s business miscalculations….. (and also @Gary, who is correct about the benefits of overbooking, and is rightly concerned about government now stepping in to create bad bureaucratic regulations as a response, but is perhaps misguided about the political and economic consequences of allowing a large corporation to so easily deploy state force to settle what is essentially a contractual business dispute).
I would direct readers to a few opinion articles from the los angeles times and reason magazine, if Gary does not mind the outside links:
https://reason.com/blog/2017/04/10/why-should-police-help-united-airlines-c
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-united-video-20170410-story.html
The point of contention here in all of the back-and-forths should not be whether the man had the legal right to just hang out on United’s plane (or Republic Airlines or whatever). Of course the man does not have a right to sit on the plane indefinitely. It’s United’s plane. If he had any rights before the forcible ejection, his remedies were most likely in common law damages (money for their breach of contract), NOT equity (requiring United to fly him). And the point of contention should not be about overbooking polices – which is a great concept that keeps prices low in general (but which also should require airlines to accept the economic consequences – market value of the bump – if the overbooking results in too many people showing up, a point that United failed to do here).
Rather, the point we should all be debating is about how incredibly easy it was for United to be able to deploy government police to further their bottom line – i.e. forcibly extract a customer from their property after a customer paid money and a disagreement occurred as to the terms of the contract. This is a scenario that most small businesses and regular Americans who contract with other people do not have a right to – the instantaneous backing of violent force by the police. Most of us have to go to court, for example, to evict forcibly a nonpaying tenant. And, that is with good reason. Civil legal disputes in a democracy are settled peaceably in court. It’s unfortunate that United subtly gets to use the underlying fear of terrorism and the enhanced security measures in place since 2001 to settle economic disputes in their favor. At any rate, United had so many other options before resorting to calling the police (offering more money; or cancelling the flight and then as soon as everyone got off the plane, just letting on those people United wanted to let on). Perhaps other people think it is appropriate for large corporations to have access to police to settle business disputes instantaneously that the rest of us do not have. Personally, though, I find United’s actions arrogant and disturbing and yet another example of the fraying of social norms in this country.
There’s a lot of bad behavior out there in the air (I’ve witnessed it), and a lot of people bring it on themselves (including those United customers who wore the leggings). This guy was not in the right in terms of remaining on the aircraft. In an ideal world, he should have gotten off the plane and then sued in court. But, neither was United in the legal right to offer such poor customer service and poor compensation. And then, to send in the Chicago police (a department with a less than stellar human rights record)….. Gary, I think you make a lot of great points on a good many things, but it’s unclear to me why United is the least responsible here.
How much did they paid you.
Sorry, I am joining those who say you are still missing up because this was last United’s fault through and through.
As to improving involuntary deboarding just pass regulations that it is passengers in the first row of economy who are removed first, starting with seat a. Then the order is clear and those who don’t want to risk it just reserve sears several rows back and those who don’t care put themselves in the front row.
Carlos Munoz should resign as CEO
$200 Million dollars drop in market should cost him his job.
i wish this would happen to his dad or family member
way to go United.
Carlos Munoz learn how to use your PR team and Legal Team before you open your mouth.
What a shame to replace with airline employees. BIG MISTAKE.
Board of Directors should definitely ask him to resign. Big lesson need to be learned. I sincerely wish the doctor will sue and take bankcrupt airline out of business
Carlos Munoz should resign as CEO
$200 Million dollars drop in market should cost him his job.
i wish this would happen to his dad or family member
way to go United.
Carlos Munoz learn how to use your PR team and Legal Team before you open your mouth.
What a shame to replace with airline employees. BIG MISTAKE.
Board of Directors should definitely ask him to resign. Big lesson need to be learned. I sincerely wish the doctor will sue and take bankcrupt airline out of business
I see Lucky and TPG have now both apologized, credibly and meaningfully, for their initial posts on this topic, which – like VFTW – wrongly minimized UA’s errors and placed much of the blame on the victim.
Gary… You might be a huge huge hypocrite. An entitled, opiniated beyond your intellect, hypocrite?
You posted initially no outrage and even in the title called the violent actions to the passenger unavoidable.
Unavoidable.
Only when people (normal people with empathy) showed outrage did you change your tune. Why don’t you go back to bashing Hillary also?
Are you a hypocrite Gary?
@Gary – can you please comment on this story? Do you really still think there is nothing wrong with United’s business practices?
http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-united-low-priority-passenger-20170412-story.html
Gary,
Long time blog reader, but will pile on the other commentators here, say that you are wrong, and you should take heat on it until you post an apology, like other bloggers.
Headlines like “Beating Up a Doctor on a United Flight Was Terrible… But Maybe Unavoidable”- really? Battering a customer is unavoidable?
Likewise you put up a post about the Dr’s past that has nothing to do with this incident. Yes, you have realized that is wrong and pulled it down, but you still did it, and it still shows up on all your RSS feeds…
As for the solution, it’s simple- enforce the current terms of United’s CoC. Prior to boarding the plane, Rule 25 applies, and you can deny boarding to anyone if you need their seat. After boarding, Rule 21, Refusal to Transport, applies, and if you want someone’s seat, you have to have a valid reason to do so- it can’t just be that you want their seat back.
To me, the best analogy is a hot restaurant, where it’s tough to get in, they have walk-ups, etc. You’ve booked an important family dinner and prepaid $400 for your reservation. But prior to seating you, the restaurant can still tell you what they want, offer you a refund because they have booked the restaurant for a private function, have taken too many walk-ins, etc. I’ll be unhappy, but I understand that literally isn’t a table for me.
But after you are sitting down at the table, waiting for your food? Sorry, the only reason why you can ask me to leave then is because I am disruptive, a threat to others, etc. You can’t ask me to give up my table just so that a group of employees can eat, regardless of what you signed in their union contract, or regardless that people might not eat later. Once you’ve seated someone, it’s their seat (again, unless they violate the rules of carriage, eg Rule 21)…
$800 in funny money that expires is not getting me nor 70 other folks off a plane for a 26 hour delay.
Don’t be cheap like United, Delta heads straight for $1200 Amex gift cards lately. Extra $400 bucks but mentally it sounds so different when they announce a great opportunity for those with flexible schedules. “Onneeee-thousand two hundred dollars”.
Shame on Gary. Facts state that this wasnt an involuntary deboarding. The pax had already BOARDED the plane. Far be it from the facts to get Gary to apologise and admit he was wrong.
The guy was traveling with his wife and has five sons of whom four are doctors like him. That’s so solid it far outweighs in any fair person’s eyes any dalliance he had with an office worker he might have supplied drugs to. Bad, but not something that outweighs being a dad that raised four doctors, and doesn’t even slightly relate to what happened to him.
This man was terrorized by storm trooper thugs at the behest of United whose supervisor is reported to have been snarling.
This doesn’t surprise me because after the merger I noticed that United staff became very belligerent and easy to irritate just by asking routing questions. If you dared to question their rudeness they acted like they were reading from a card written by…..Oscar Munoz?……that said “If you say another word I’ll have you removed.” I had never heard this in forty years of flying but heard it repeatedly when I flew United (and sometimes American or Delta) and it drove me to Alaska and Jetblue more because they wouldn’t dream of saying something like that.
So the fish rots from the head and he put on a global rot fest yesterday that lost nearly a billion dollars in stock value, which is exactly what I predicted the PR damage would be from this. If they don’t stop with the bullying nonsense and do a 180 now they will not survive, and shouldn’t.
It’s posts like the ones over the past two days that’s makes me glad Gary runs a blog shilling for credit cards and airlines and not something that matters. I’m a regular reader, but this is ridiculous.
Oscar Muñoz will be on Good Morning America on Wednesday. He’ll probably apologize profusely for having to “re-accomodate” passengers. As a 1K member I’m very disaapointed in United, it’s subsidiary, and all those who demonstrated their incompetency that day. In all these discussions, no one mentioned the pilot. Where was he/she in all this? Having to cancel a flight sure sounds a lot better than the PR fiasco United is finding itself.
Sorry Gary, I believe you are still wrong about this.
Based on lawyers looking at this, this might not be a case of “denied boarding” because the passenger was allowed boarding and was in his seat already. Sec21 of the CoC requires different reasons for removal of passengers and “we need a seat for staff” is not one of them! Here is the article: http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/united-cites-wrong-rule-for-illegally-de-boarding-passenger/
I’m not a lawyer either, but this is not as clean-cut as you suggest and you might want to do a more detailed analysis before defending your position.
TPG and OMAAT have issues apologies and/or clarified… might be good to sleep on it and do the same…
Don’t bite the hand that feeds…This is an airline that Gary flies on 25% of the time? I’d like Gary to make a statement on this that United or it’s retained third-party PR firm hasn’t offered him any form of compensation on this topic. I’m sure bloggers that bad mouth them will at a minimum not get invited to any special events for a while. Maybe that’s more detrimental to us readers in the future?
@Mike Jones – I have *already written* that I have never received any payment from United Airlines (other than as a disserviced customer), and I fly United less than a quarter of the time as well. I have no allegiance to them, they don’t much like me and have complained often of my coverage of them.
@Rupert – that lawyer isn’t a regulatory lawyer or an aviation attorney, and they are simply incorrect about how the DOT regs apply. As a fellow professor who works with that attorney wrote yesterday, he’d go with my take over his colleague’s on this issue any day.
@David please see my latest post, it covers the situation of the customer downgraded to economy when a flight went mechanical and the plane was replaced by one with a smaller first class, United was actually right here, tell me what they should have done differently?