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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fault here lies with:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Gary Leff

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

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Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  35. I’m unsubscribing from your blog.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  36. Gary,

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

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

  37. This does not appear to be correct:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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