A passenger on Frontier Airlines flight 1449 from Atlanta to Denver Friday evening says they were bumped from the aircraft after they had already boarded in order to make room for staff. She says she was “threatened with arrest” if she didn’t give up her seat, and she missed the wedding she was headed to. The flight wound up taking off without her.
[G]ate staff then essentially just laughed at her and refused to re-book her at all on any flight that would arrive before the wedding, they also refused to provide any hotels or compensation. Frontier’s chat support was also less than useless as usual.
The medical student rebooked herself on a Saturday morning Delta flight, but with Delta’s current operational mess she missed the wedding.
Frontier Airlines kicked a soon-to-be doctor (medical student) off of an aircraft after they’d already boarded, in order to accommodate their own crew that they needed to work another later flight. Where have I heard this story before?
- Frontier reportedly downgauged the aircraft. They used a smaller plane, so they didn’t have as many seats. When this happens they do not owe involuntary denied boarding compensation.
- However, while Frontier can bump a confirmed passenger from the flight (refunding their ticket or rebooking them, at the passenger’s discretion) they cannot do this to passengers who have already boarded.
Once a passenger has been accepted for boarding or has already boarded the flight, airlines are not permitted to require that passenger deplane, unless the removal of the passenger is required by safety, security, or health reasons, or the removal is due to the passenger’s unlawful behavior.
- Passengers report that this wasn’t a situation of an oversell, with more passengers than seats. Instead, deadheading crew reportedly took the seat. So it was for the airline’s operational convenience, so they could send crew to work another flight. That is exactly the situation in which David Dao was being kicked off of United where police wound up dragging and beating him. Here the passenger got off voluntarily, rather than being beaten by airport police.
Frontier, by the way, can provide passengers with assistance, but they are the only carrier not to commit to providing hotel and ground transportation when they cancel a flight for reasons that are their own fault.
Another reason not to fly Frontier.
So, why not book the crew on another airlines that could get them there in time to report?
“That is exactly the situation in which David Dao was being kicked off of United “–This is 100% untrue!
Let’s be clear on the David Dao situation. The United Crew had positive space tickets and the flight was oversold. It wasn’t like the flight was not oversold and then they tried to just put the crew on. They had positive space tickets that went into the boarding count and the flight was oversold.
Also, Dao was taken off the plane arrested b/c he broke security protocol and ran down the jetbridge onto the plane himself. He was never boarded by United and his actions after he was denied following correct procedures is why law enforcement got involved and he was dragged off the plane. It wasn’t like he just got on the plane normally and then United decided they wanted him off like this situation!
Now you can argue about positive space ticketing crew members and overselling flights, but don’t miss the fact that Dao broke the law and made a security breach when he had a tantrum b/c he didn’t like what was going on. Argue the policy all you want, but his actions should not be justified just b/c people don’t like what the policy is.
Everyone jumped on United for “dragging him off” b/c it was the cool thing to do. Lots of facts and missing pieces were also left out in doing so!
DOes it matters that she was a medical student?
Would this be less important if she was a janitor? Or a lawn mower?
So isn’t this a simple civil case of compensation and damages? Frontier’s actions were illegal and groundless.
@Minos – the parallel to Dr Dao
Wow, I never thought I’d encounter someone defending the treatment of Dao. Impressively puke-worthy.
(Also, important to note that Lisa’s account is untrue. Dao had been boarded and was in his seat when he was dragged off the first time. Concussed, he broke free and ran back onto the plane, where he was dragged off a second time. Lisa, you are a waste of oxygen).
Sounds like a clear-cut lawsuit, sometimes that’s the only way to make companies understand that they have to follow the law.
The last couple of days have included a major disruption in air travel and hundreds of delays and cancellations. There has been a system-wide breakdown. I thought this blog might have at least mentioned the most significant aviation news of the week. But instead, we get more ridiculous Frontier stories. I guess this is just the place to go for “news” about breakfast benefits, ULCC horror stories, and the latest exploits of Sierra Mist.
Wasn’t Frontier the airline that eliminated telephone customer service?
Lawsuit, I hope!
Amen to this comment “DOes it matters that she was a medical student?
Would this be less important if she was a janitor? Or a lawn mower?”
@Total: Put me on team defending treatment of Dao. We have laws. If you don’t follow the rules, at SOME point, the consequence is law enforcement is going to come and enforce the laws, and you might get hurt in the process. I much prefer the system where people who force their own removal by law enforcement are at risk of losing teeth than everyone else on the plane is forced to deplane every time someone pulls the “I won’t follow the rules” card. If the airline says get off the plane, you get off the plane, period. If they’re wrong, you get compensation after the fact.
Dao ran onto the flight. Dao refused to leave the flight. Dao got injured when he was forced off the flight. That was 100% all on Dao and he didn’t deserve a penny.
(Not to be confused with all the times law enforcement power trips on people NOT forcing an encounter.)
As for the passenger, she could have earned millions if she’s stayed put until law enforcement roughed her up a bit.
@Total: And just saw your follow-up…. who is confused about being dragged off a plane?
Small claims court. Slam dunk win for the plaintiff. The judge will only have one question. Did the airline follow its written guidelines. I would be spending <$100 and filing tomorrow. Just for the fun of it.
@Lisa If Dao “broke the law and made a security breach” then why did United pay him millions to have him quietly go away?
Frontier Spirit and Sun Country – save a few dollars for a good chance at the most horrible service EVER.
@SAN Greg.
B/C just like every other company that backs down to the woke mob who try to cancel everything, they wanted it to go away.
They aren’t the first to do it and they won’t be the last and sadly people know this and now are even baiting places and people for bad reactions to get their payday.
It’s ridiculous how some people in this country act!
@total the FACTS are United did not remove him from the plane, POLICE did after he broke security rules.
so everybody is agreeing it would have been better to keep the deadheading crew from picking up another flight? so that means no crew for the other flight they would have to cancel and incovience lets say 180 folks instead of inconviencing one person,,,yes they are due some type of compensation for this. im sure they refunded the ticket. sometime it just sucks. dam if you do dam if you dont
@Lisa
Why spew lies. If you read the incident report you will see that the 4 employees weren’t reassigned to the flight until 19 minutes before departure, after the passengers boarded. Dao attempted to reboard confused after being knocked unconscious, having his nose broken and teeth knocked out. Then the next day the CEO tried to lie his way out of it. I hope it cost them hundreds of millions of dollars. All because they wanted to cheap out on their poor planning and delay people 21 hours.
@SAN “If Dao ‘broke the law and made a security breach’ then why did United pay him millions to have him quietly go away?” Yeah, because no corporation has ever settled a lawsuit, paying out big bucks, to settle a PR problem. I’m not assigning fault; I object to this being considered proof of fault.
Well, she was flying out of Atlanta. Maybe Frontier was trying to give her a Premium Delta experience at a lower price.
@Joe D
That’s the problem. The airline can completely fail to provide a service you’ve paid the for and regardless of expenses on the customer all they have to do is refund your money that they have been drawing interest on for some time. That’s the reason we need protections like the EU has. Not a single US airline is ranked in the top 20. There’s a reason for that.
“DOes it matters that she was a medical student?
Would this be less important if she was a janitor? Or a lawn mower?”
I agree … what’s the relevance of this affect passenger’s career choice?
@Lisa, what you’re saying is clearly a lie, and I don’t understand the point of your lie. Dao was boarded normally. He was chosen to be involuntarily unboarded to accommodate UA crew. He did refuse to follow crew orders to deplane, which you could say is illegal, and was forcibly removed by police. I hope you were simply misinformed and not intentionally spreading a lie for god knows what reason.
They can do what they want with us. we’re just a number in the cattle herd.
Thank you for the clarification regarding Dao on the United flight. He absolutely was in the wrong !
He refused to get off the flight after a security breach. The media blew it so far out of proportion that United had no choice but to pay him. Hope the money he received was worth exposing the reason the father and grandfather lost his medical license. He was caught writing illegal scripts for his male lovers.
You are the one who is misinformed, Jake
@ Dana & Lisa, you chose the wrong forum for your misinformation, lol. Go post your nonsense on a flat Earther blog.
This is standard procedure for American (and probs others too).
Sorry folks, staff takes priority because flights must fly; deal with it, or revert to the wagon trains
is it time the break a few flight attendants and peelots heads , they are worse than crooked cops
According to United’s own incident report that they made public, the crew were added to the flight 19 minutes before departure, leading to the “overbooking” that caused them to need to remove passengers from the flight. Dao was already properly boarded at that time. After the removal by police or aviation security officers, or whatever they were, he ran down a second time.
While United’s individual employees were probably just following policies, the policies were all sorts of F-d up and put them in that position, which United later acknowledged.
If there were empty seats, passenger could have moved.
The flight was a full flight and had been boarded when the 4 crew members were added. They offered $400 and accommodations eventually going $800. Nobody accepted because the delay was 21 hours. Dana and Lisa would know all this if they read the report which is easily available online. One of them must have been the idiot employee that cost their employer 10s of millions of dollars.
Garbage airline. I will never fly it if I can avoid it, nor will folks on my work team.
Totally inexcusable. I hope she sues them into bankruptcy.
@Lisa is trying 2 steer this using dog-whistle words like “cancel” and “woke” 2 something it’s not.
Frontier Airlines violated Federal Law. Period. End of sentence. From 14 CFR 250.7:
§ 250.7 Provision to implement the Transparency Improvements and Compensation to Keep Every Ticketholder Safe Act of 2018.
(a) Boarded passengers. A covered air carrier may not deny a revenue passenger traveling on a confirmed reservation permission to board, or involuntarily remove that passenger from the aircraft, once a revenue passenger has:
(1) Checked in for the flight prior to the check-in deadline; and
(2) Had their ticket or boarding pass collected or electronically scanned and accepted by the gate agent.
Also noteworthy — once their ticket or boarding pass is scanner, it’s a done deal. Federal Law says the air carrier cannot deny them boarding. Even if they have not taken one step toward the Jetway. Again, once their ticket or boarding pass is scanner, it’s a done deal.
The passenger has every right to sue Frontier for violating Federal Law.
Regarding some of the responses about the Dr. Dao…
Oscar Munoz was interviewed by Rebecca Jarvis on Good Morning America a few days after the Dr. Dao incident. Here are some of her questions:
1) “What went wrong in this scenario?” His response, “It was a system failure. We have not provided out front line front line supervisors, managers and individuals with the proper tools, policies, procedures that allow them to use their use their common sense. They all have an incredible amount of common sense and this issue could have been solved by that. That’s on me. I need to fix that.” I feel his response showed a lot of wisdom in saying, “We need to empower our employees properly.”
2) Even more important is when she asked, “Do you think he’s at fault in any way.” Oscar Munoz said, “No. He can’t be. He was a paying passenger sitting on a seat in our aircraft.”
There has been confusion regarding the Dr. Dao incident. Specifically:
1) It was not IDB (Rule 25). Once he was on the plane IDB does not apply. The only item United could have tried to use in the CoC was Refusal of Transport (Rule 21). However, none of the stipulations listed in Rule 21 applied here.
2) Several eyewitness accounts say that the ASOs deliberately smashed his face against the armrest.
3) In addition, there is a little button that allows you to raise the armrest on the aisle seat. All armrests (both on his side and the side across) should have been raised to minimize the change of injury.
4) The GA (Danielle Hill) escalated the situation because of her rude, belligerent and unprofessional behavior. Instead of being polite, she came on and was rude and belligerent saying, “Four crew members need to get to Louisville. This plane’s not going anywhere until four people get off.” Horrible, uncivilized behavior.
5) The reason Dr. Dao re-entered the plane after he was dragged off was because he was disoriented by the concussion. (Due to the ASOs use of excessive and unreasonable force.) Please do not say he did this deliberately. Again, he was disoriented due to the ASOs use of excessive and unreasonable force.
6) Numerous attorneys say United was wrong. Including Brian Cunha, Craig Copetas, Arthur Wolk, John Banzhof, and Justin Green. Also, Judge Andrew Napolitano says so.
@ Lisa Johnson
Wow. There’s not a line of that tirade that’s true.
We all owe Dr. Dao a huge debt.
He was boarded.
He didn’t “run down the jetway”.
You get what you pay for…
Frontier is clearly not a “premium” airline
Has anyone been fined or jailed by the courts for refusing illegal actions by the flight attendants in cases such as these?
Better a woke mob than a January 6th one. Anyways, yes, Dao tried to beach security protocols by attempting to reboard the aircraft AFTER United initially and improperly attempted to involuntarily deboard him. He was bloodied in the original attempt to deboard him when he rightfully refused to leave because he had already been normally boarded. So arresting him may have been technically justified for the second offense. But it never should have gotten there because United was so so very very wrong in the first instance.
But I guess if you think a “woke” mob unfairly targeted United that means Democrats (or Republicans) can violate every single one of our rights and when we beach “security protocols” by exercising second amendment rights, the most important principal to defend is that we follow those self serving “security protocols”. And condemn Donald Trump for being woke since he called the incident “horrible” and criticized United Airlines.
But @Lisa, you do you, and go ahead and make United Airlines Great Again.
@Jim Baround. But nobody will listen. Dao boarded normally, wouldn’t leave when told to, was dragged off, ran back on, and was removed again. So, those saying he was only removed after illegally boarding are wrong since his first boarding was )egit. Those saying he didn’t board illegally (i.e, storm aboard without permission) are also wrong.
They could have let the person ride in the bathroom, even though on Frontier that would be considered an upgrade.
“Dao was ultimately convicted in late 2004 of several counts of obtaining drugs by fraud or deceit and was placed on five years of supervised probation and surrendered his medical license.” Exact printed quote from the Florida Times-Union,11 April, 2017.
Si, no, the dude wasn’t any plaster saint…..goes around, comes around.
Why are so many tediously re-arguing the Dr. Dao case? Frontier’s actions this week are the issue here. They forced a person to miss a wedding because of their illegal bumping of a passenger already seated in her seat. She deserves a nice settlement; the staffers involved need mandatory retraining; and the airline needs to be given a significant fine.
They said in the news that Frontier downgraded the aircraft assigned to the flight to a smaller one. News spoiler alert: Frontier does not have smaller airplanes their fleet is all Airbus A320/321.
@DaveS
We’re talking about Dr. Dao because it was referenced in the OP… .and because it was the seminal case that finally staunched the tide of illegal, abusive, absurd airline behavior.
United was wrong then– and paid him a reported 9-figure settlement, while looking pretty damn stoooopid.
Frontier is wrong here– so the back=sliding by the scumbag airlines has begun.
Even if this passenger sues and prevails? Frontier’s one bad quarter from Chap 11 again, so the judgment will likely not even be collectible.
Who gives a shit if they are a med student?