Sunday’s incident where a man was dragged off a United Express plane and bloodied was terrible. It’s excruciating to watch the video of the incident unfolding, and later of the disoriented man mumbling “just kill me.”
#flythefriendlyskies @united no words. This poor man!! pic.twitter.com/rn0rbeckwT
— Kaylyn Davis (@kaylyn_davis) April 10, 2017
United is taking the bulk of the blame here, and that’s probably their own fault. Their PR response has been disastrous, with United CEO Oscar Munoz apologizing for having to re-accommodate passengers. As Jimmy Kimmel said last night,
“It’s like how we ‘re-accommodated’ El Chapo out of Mexico,” Kimmel said. “That is such sanitized, say-nothing, take-no-responsibility, corporate B.S. speak. I don’t know how the guy who sent that tweet didn’t vomit when he typed it out.”
This was a tough situation all-around for which there were no good solutions. And things turned from bad to worse when a passenger refused to get off the plane when told to do so by the airline and by police. And it became the source of worldwide outrage when the police overreacted, dragged him off, and bloodied him.
There are a lot of myths about the situation, and it’s leading people to some bad conclusions.
- This didn’t happen because United sold too many tickets. United Express (Republic Airlines) had to send four crew members to work a flight the next morning. The weekend was operationally challenging, this was a replacement crew, if the employees didn’t get to Louisville a whole plane load of passengers were going to be ‘bumped’ when that flight was cancelled, and likely other passengers on other flights using that aircraft would have their own important travel plans screwed up as well.
- United couldn’t have just sent another plane to take their crew even if they had such a plane it’s not clear they had the crew to operate it legally, or that they could have gotten the plane back to Chicago in time legally so prevent ‘bumping’ via cancellation the whole plane load of passengers it was supposed to carry next.
- If the passenger could have just taken Uber, why not the crew? because United doesn’t get to transport its crew any way it wishes whenever it wishes, they’re bound by union contracts and in any case they were following standard established procedures. We can debate those procedures, that’s productive, but United didn’t do anything out of the ordinary.
- United should have just kept increasing the denied boarding offer passengers didn’t willingly get off at $800, they should have gone to $1000 (would that have made a difference?) or $5000 or $100,000 — it’s not the passengers’ fault United didn’t have enough seats. Though the time this would have taken might have lost a takeoff window or taken time where the crew went illegal (and the whole flight had to cancel) or the replacement crew wouldn’t get the legally required rest.
More importantly, United didn’t do it because Department of Transportation regulations set maximum required compensation for involuntary denied boarding (in this case 4 times the passenger’s fare paid up to a maximum of $1350). So they’re not going to offer more than that for voluntary denied boardings, especially since the violent outcome here wasn’t expected and the United Express gate agent had no authority to do more.
I’m being called very terrible things in the comments that I won’t reprint here in this post. What happened to the man was terrible but it was a difficult situation all around, he should have complied when ordered off the plan by United and then by Chicago Aviation Police. It was a terrible situation for him, but one that at that point could foreseeably have gotten worse. I’m just glad he wasn’t accused of disrupting the flight as part of a terrorist plot that sort of thing can happen in confrontations like this.
The Chicago Aviation Police overreacted and appear to have used way too much force. One officer is already on leave because of the incident, the Aviation Police recognize some fault is likely there — and that’s a pretty high hurdle to climb considering the Chicago Police Department immediately stood up for an officer by claiming horribly that he had simply ‘fallen on his face’.
Is it possible that if circumstances were different — if different things had been done before Sunday — then the outcome would have been different? Sure. Although what those things are, what the consequences of those things would be, are debatable — and most people doing the debating don’t have much or even any information on which to base their judgments.
Fault here lies with:
- United for not having as many seats as they sold, although it wasn’t because they sold more seats than the plane held, it was because their operation became a mess and they needed to salvage that to inconvenience the fewest passengers overall. It wasn’t “to maximize their profits” although they certainly wanted to limit their losses by limiting passenger inconvenience.
- The passenger who should have gotten off the plane when ordered to do so. It sucked for him and wasn’t his fault, but refusing airline and police instructions unless designed to provoke a violent response for media attention to promote a civil rights cause is a bad idea.
- The Chicago Aviation Police shouldn’t have responded with the force they did. They’re the most to blame. If they hadn’t used as much force this whole thing would never even have been a story.
United’s statements backing their employee, refusing to name the victim, or acknowledge that the police really did hurt him are deplorable.
But the situation itself lands mostly at the feet of the police, who appear to recognize this based on actions thus far.
So what do we do to prevent this in the future? The truth is there’s not very much. Running an airline is hard. Weather and mechanical problems and back luck and IT problems cancel and delay flights, so they work hard to recover.
Maybe the maximum denied board compensation should be even higher, though that’s not clearly an issue. When the Department of Transportation began regulating denied boarding in the 1970s, there were about 150,000 involuntary denied boardings in the U.S. per year — and now with many more passengers the number there are in the 40,000s. As flights have gotten more full, the percentage of passengers denied boarding has gone down.
The real solution here is to change the culture of law enforcement in aviation. As soon as there’s even a misunderstanding between passengers and crew, that can trigger law enforcement. The assumption is that the passenger is always wrong, the airline backs its crew, and there’s tremendous risk to the public. Not every customer service situation is a crime.
This is in no way limited to being a United issue, it’s endemic to American society and aviation as a whole. It’s a function of the growth of the security state in response to 9/11. We’ve come to accept it, and indeed we get it from the TSA day in and day out. Until that changes, incidents like these are likely to repeat themselves.
I agree. The guy apparently reacted strongly(can’t say if it was overreacting) and should have complied with the order to deplane. Perhaps he should have stated his case(Is it verified that he is a doctor?) and appealed to the other passengers to “volunteer”
That said, this appeared to be more than necessary force. On the bright side, if he were Middle Eastern he might well have been shot.
From what I heard/ read, United DID NOT offer the max compensation of $1350. They didn’t even get as high as $1000. If not him, maybe somebody else would’ve grabbed the offer.
Just to confirm, is the “maximum” truly a limit on how much the airline can reimburse the passenger? If United provided more than $1350 to end the situation amicably, would the government actually stop them?
No, it’s the maximum required.
“This is in no way limited to being a United issue…”
Looks like Delta figured out how to handle similar situations:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2017/04/09/why-delta-air-lines-paid-me-11000-not-to-fly-to-florida-this-weekend
Based on that, I think this is in every way a United issue.
What’s more interesting is the number of travel bloggers being United apologists. It would seem being called terrible names in comments would be an indicator that it might be better to take the other side, if only for the health of your analytics.
@Miles Junkie – they offered $800 for voluntary, and apparently the involuntary was $1000 at least per United’s last statement yesterday (the calculation is 4x the passenger’s fare UP TO $1350 for an involuntary)
the use of the word maximum distracts from the reality of the situation, as you acknowledge here in the comments.
@Robert Drummer — and a passenger was dragged off a delta flight in december…
Why do you keep on saying denied boarding? He was already in his seat. How can that be denied boarding? United refused to transport and that is covered under Rule 21 of United’s Contract of Carriage. It spells out very specific terms for the removal of a passenger from an aircraft. Getting a crew to a location is not a valid reason in their contract for the removal of a passenger.
I completely understand how someone could not know all the airplane law that we know. This type of situation doesn’t make sense and its unreasonable to assume that a lay person would know that they have zero rights when they enter an airplane (or maybe the airport).
(Dupe of comment made on pizzainmotion)
Well, Wall Street is the king here. United shares are melting like chocolate in the desert. Increasing their stupid voucher price would have been a much cheaper solution. Mr. Munoz must be polishing his resume right now.
@Gary 8:17 comment, no the calculation is 4x UP TO as much as gets the job done, legally required minimums are not relevant to the discussion of a passenger who will not get off the plane
Gary, I completely disagree with this one part: “The passenger who should have gotten off the plane when ordered to do so.”
NO! I am so glad that finally a passenger refused to leave a plane when so-called “ordered” even though that passenger had done nothing wrong up to that point. He took the approach of “let’s see what happens if I don’t fall in line with this BS system.”
And now we know what could happen: a violent reaction by law enforcement. This atrocious result may force change to this rotten system. UA should have kept upping the offer of VDB until they got a couple more takers.
Instead, UA cheaped out — and now they are getting the PR nightmare that they deserve.
This whole problem started when United decided to remove boarded passengers for its own crew. If the pax was never allowed onto the plane, this would not have occurred. Shame on United for poorly managing the fact that 4 employees needed to be on the flight and only addressing it after the plane boarded. How would you react if you were seated, needed to get somewhere, and were told to leave because they need the seat for someone else?
“United should have just kept increasing the denied boarding offer passengers didn’t willingly get off at $800, they should have gone to $1000 (would that have made a difference?) or $5000 or $100,000 — it’s not the passengers’ fault United didn’t have enough seats. Though the time this would have taken might have lost a takeoff window or taken time where the crew went illegal (and the whole flight had to cancel) or the replacement crew wouldn’t get the legally required rest.”
“More importantly, United didn’t do it because Department of Transportation regulations set maximum compensation for involuntary denied boarding (in this case 4 times the passenger’s fare paid up to a maximum of $1350). So they’re not going to offer more than that for voluntary denied boardings, especially since the violent outcome here wasn’t expected and the United Express gate agent had no authority to do more.”…
“So what do we do to prevent this in the future? The truth is there’s not very much.”
Oh please, Gary. It’s unclear from your analysis whether United could have offered more for a voluntary de-boarding. If they could have, simply let the free market rule (you generally favor that, right?) and keep upping the offer until someone accepts it. If the rules prohibit it, then get United’s and other airlines’ lobbyists to dig into removing the compensation caps they probably helped put into the regulations to begin with, so that compensation can be far higher for both voluntary and involuntary “re-accommodation.”
And by all means, make the compensation in actual funds the customer can use however s/he wants, rather than some bogus vouchers that they may have no use or desire for, and which at the very least are a hassle to deal with. Many folks would justifiably vow never to fly United again under such circumstances. Limiting the use of the compensation to United adds insult to injury.
Did the police and/or the passenger act unreasonably? Quite likely. But they were both put in a very difficult position by United’s policies and actions. This case just dramatizes an airline industry problem and attitude that simply doesn’t exist in many other fields: We’ll take away the product we sold you at our convenience.
Have you ever missed an important meeting or appointment or hotel booking or whatever by virtue of being bumped? Please let us know how that worked out.
But even if you have, please accept that you (and some of us here) are far more adept at dealing with such matters than the vast majority of passengers. And even if you took it in relative stride, please accept that it doesn’t invalidate the indignation that most folks would feel at being treated that way.
I expect that they did not offer above $800 because the maximum required for IDB in this case was less than $1350. The regulation is that they must pay 4x base fare for the flight. I’m guessing that the base fare for this passenger was not over $200 (.5 RT fare – taxes and fees). In that case, the required IDB compensation would only be around $800.
And another thing which can be done is to restore passenger access to the courts in disputes against airlines. Congress has completely preempted all lawsuits against airlines relating to their fares and services, and has basically left passenger completely without remedies in abusive situations like this. Stuff like this doesn’t happen in places where consumers have legal recourse.
You said
“If the passenger could have just taken Uber, why not the crew? because United doesn’t get to transport its crew any way it wishes whenever it wishes, they’re bound by union contracts”
What if the passenger was under an obligation to be somewhere at an exact date and time?
I can think of so many that would fall under that category that I will not list them.
I know the rules but I think it is high time some of them are changed.
How many times have we all had to eat a fare 100% due to something that was out of our control ? If this was a security issue then it is completely different. But we all know it was not.
The man was Asian, perhaps he didn’t understand what was going on. Perhaps he thought it was just another slight that he suffers in the US as a non white. Would his injuries be worse if he were a black man? Sorry, not enough about the selection method used, to conclude that racism hadn’t played a part in the selection and, or, the beating.
No one should get a pass on this one. Oscar Munoz needs to go pack to hauling freight, he is out of his league.
Gary,
While I agree with your conclusion that the issue is law enforcement in aviation, (I would add the totally one-sided nature of the contract)…..however I still think you are wrong on the compo part.
UA offered $800 in vouchers, which is worse than $500 cash. Nobody trusts the airlines, hence the vouchers are discounted as people suspect they will have a hard time using them. If UA offered cash (or Amex GC like DL does), I reckon they would have got takers….certainly at $1k
@steve
the rules clearly do not “prohibit” any payment whatsoever, the wording of the article simply misstates as fact that there is some arbitrary “maximum” payment that’s allowed. no, 1350 is the highest MINIMUM payment that’s allowed and using the word “maximum” just makes the situation even less clear.
even if united had offered 1350 (they didn’t), that was THE ABSOLUTE LEGAL MINIMUM, the basest required amount offered to “denied boarding” passengers, which by the way it’s not at all clear that’s what the pax was in the first place.
Gary – So, if United had chosen to pay more than 4x the fare / $1350 – e.g., if they’d decided to offer $5000 or $10,000 to get a willing volunteer – would they have been allowed to do that by the regulations?
That’s pretty easy going on a company one has business dealings with. “Running an airline is hard”, Gary writes. Is that an excuse or what? Puzzling to say the least.
Nice post but you didn’t even debunk the ridiculous claims of racism, etc.
One very key point that people are missing here on the voluntary offers is that that it’s not cash, its voucher bullshit. I’m not saying those vouchers are useless but they definitely are not as flexible as straight up cash. $1000 cash & they would have gotten a taker or 2 I guarantee it.
“4 times the passenger’s fare paid up to a maximum of $1350” seems like the MINIMUM required by the government for IDB. To say that United was unable to provide vouchers at that threshold or above for VDB seems odd. More like unwilling? Also seems like providing vouchers of $1500 would be preferable for United versus cutting a check for $1350? Why was that not an option?
@gary You really need to clarify the $1350 max thing. I have a hard time believing that United would be breaking the law for offering $2K
@DaninMCI selecting the passenger clearly wasn’t racism, involuntary denied boarding is done by priority list based on fare paid and status. I have no way to evaluate whether racism played a role in the police (over-)response.
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/united-cites-wrong-rule-for-illegally-de-boarding-passenger/
@Rick Moreno – I have never been paid by United Airlines other than as a disserviced customer.
@R.Dave the regulations do not forbid that, the gate agent isn’t empowered to do it, hence I write in the post that we can have a discussion about changing norms around involuntary denied boarding although it’s hardly clear that’s needed considering the decline in IDBs over the years.
I think your current assessment is a good one, Gary. It’s also apparent that a good percentage of the public won’t understand why it’s accurate. This incident has taken on many of the elements of mob rule (ill-informed people thinking they know more they know, and acting on emotion rather than facts).
In hindsight, UA could definitely done things better. We don’t know why all the passengers were allowed on the plane before they knew how many seats they needed. Were there late arriving passengers? Did the gate agent think he had enough seats? I’m not sure we’ll ever get that information from UA.
There’s also the issue of how Munoz reacted when the story exploded on social media. I’m sure Munoz now wishes he was more empathetic, but I’m sure his initial belief was that his employees did nothing wrong, and he wanted to back them up.
I also agree that this is primarily a law enforcement/use of force issue. We don’t know why so much force was used to remove the passenger. It seems, more likely than not, that the force was excessive. That said, it’s not easy to get an individual off a plane who doesn’t want to get off. Cops aren’t in the business of being overly nice to people who refuse to cooperate with them. That said, I’m sure this will become a training topic for all airport police in the future.
@Graham it’s not a misstatement.
Gary: I have read your blog for many years and I generally enjoy it. I must say that your response to this crisis has been oddly biased toward the airline to a degree that is truly off putting. I will not descend into the nasty and silly language of some of your readers from a related thread. However, you should take a step back and review your statements. You are too caught up in the legalese and not in common sense. You are blaming the victim and not the absurdly idiotic UA system that allowed this to escalate beyond what was needed. We keep discussing “denial of boarding”. The Passenger had already boarded. We keep discussing “over sold”. The crew that wanted to board did so at the last minute and they did not have confirmed seats. This is totally different than if they had been boarded first and then the flight became “oversold” BEFORE the PAX were boarded. Frankly, your apologist attitude toward this situation has lead me to determine that I prefer other Blogs with folks that stand up for the passenger and not the airline. You have as much of a PR problem here as does UA. You are eroding your readership due to your inability to find the correct tone. I sincerely think that you need to take a step back and determine which side that you are on. For now, I am taking a hiatus from your Blog. There are plenty of other places for me to get my fill of reviews and aviation news.
@Five million miles – I get that the passenger was inconvenienced too, I’m looking at the options available to the airline at the time the incident happened. The discussion can center around what policy changes would change those options, but at the gate on Sunday United certainly followed their own rules and standard industry practice given the situation faced.
@Mak – I largely agree with that and have been writing about it since Northwest v. Ginsberg was decided
@Lexy Green – United reports the IDB compensation at $1000
@Playalaguna: “The man was Asian, perhaps he didn’t understand what was going on.”
The man practices medicine in the United States. What does his being Asian have to do with his ability to understand what was going on?
The irony of your statement is amazing, considering that your point is that maybe racism played a part.
@Felix he was not permitted to fly based on the number of seats United had available for customers, that is an involuntary denied boarding (it’s a term of art that has nothing to do with entering the jetway and crossing the plane’s doors)
@USChair – I am not blaming the victim, I am blaming Chicago Airport Police and I am blaming a culture at airlines and law enforcement that treats customer service issues as criminal.
You article is legally right. United employees followed the book and did everything right including calling the police. People saying that United will get sued are wrong, maybe the Chicago aviation police get sued but that is a high bar – probably depends on what court the suit would go to and demo of jury.
But that said, Delta got good press from going way above and behind what was legally required last weekend in compensation. United got 10X more press and all negative. You say United didn’t raise the offer since why would they go above the amount they would have to pay for IDBing customers? Why, to avoid this sort of PR nightmare. You have to price all externalities and factor in both monetary and non-monetary costs. This might well cost United some booking over the very short term – say until its out of the news cycle tomorrow. Then people forget and happily buy a ticket on United rather than paying 10 bucks more for a refundable ticket on southwest.
@Toni that ‘public interest lawyer’ doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
@Gary Do you honestly think that an incident where a woman ran past a gate agent without presenting a ticket (and pleaded guilty) is the same as the United issue?
That hurts your credibility more than standing up for United.
Hi Gary.
Saw you on BBC News last night about this issue. Sad, but yes, the issue COULD have been handled better…..but while United is “partly” to blame, in my opinion, the passenger should have complied when the company said he had been selected. Not sure if United has a bad rap on the vouchers, but every flight I’ve ever seen people are JUMPING at the chance to give up their seats for cash or future compensation airline tickets. The fault is the passenger who refused to submit to instructions and apparently the officers who got rough with him. I haven’t seen any video of them hitting him though, it is quite possible he hit his face against something while they were dragging him, I didn’t see any direct blows but there may be some. I can’t imagine the officers weren’t on their best behavior with 100 cell phone cameras filming the incident and watching every move.
Regardless of why who deserves to be treated worse than an animal? United s contract blah blah, he refused blah blah.. who made the call to treat this man like an animal and drag him off?
@USChair — “The crew that wanted to board did so at the last minute and they did not have confirmed seats. This is totally different than if they had been boarded first and then the flight became “oversold” BEFORE the PAX were boarded.” This seems to be a common theme among people who are outraged by this incident. Honestly, the “confirmed seat” thing doesn’t matter. People seem to think it matters, but it doesn’t. What matters is that UA had too many people to fly and too few seats. Everyone on that flight could legally have been bumped (and paid the legally mandated compensation). And UA could have simply cancelled that flight, and given absolutely zero compensation to them (except refunding their fare).
Gary, keep up the good work. Haters gonna hate.
I think the comment that this blog has been too focused on the legalese and not on common sense is pretty accurate. Gary, I understand every point you’re making but the bold comes across as completely missing the forest for the trees. United put its interests in front of its passengers. Then they put him in harm’s way. Then he got bloodied. Then United’s response was reprehensible.
You can keep writing blogs that say “but it’s more complicated than all that,” but many of us are not buying what you’re selling.
Your argument about the maximum compensation for IDB is disingenuous and frankly sleazy.
The airline can pay whatever it wants. You must know that. My son and I were each given $1500 to get off a flight from EWR to NAS and take an alternate route with only 4 hours delay. The GA said he might get in trouble for it. But he *could* do it.
You knew the max compensation argument was BS when you wrote it. So why did you write it?
Airlines need to review their policy and just tell employees who are in a situation like this to automatically offer the maximum compensation to the passenger. I would place a bet that someone would have been willing to be bumped for $1300. They could also offer vouchers for food at the airport on top of that. Everyone has their price. Now what is it costing United in loss revenue because of all of thi?. Hope they learn their lesson, but I doubt it.