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. Oh, and saying “denial of boarding is by a formula!” raises more questions than answers. Is this an actual list of priority involving each passenger, or are their “tiers” within which passengers sit? Maybe this passenger was on the bottom tier—I’d love to know how that was determined—but if he was at the lowest tier, who else was there with him?

    And, yes, it’s possible that others might resist. But, Gary, you’re a goddamned American. Your whole country is founded on Resisting Lawful Authority, and its most grotesque mistakes have been when it tells groups of people to sit down and obey their betters. That’s only exacerbated by the fact that the man’s a racialized minority!

    You’re presenting an American asset as a weakness, and it’s truly bizarre.

  2. @Fred —> Thank you for contributing such insightful comments to the discussion.

  3. @neil wilson – but the issue here WASN’T united selling more seats than they had available, it’s that they needed to then transport replacement crew for a flight the next morning so they didn’t cancel a whole flight on a plane full of other passengers

  4. Lots of interesting things I did not know, the unions and required sleep, the fact that they had not actually over-booked, etc. I think they first of all should have known how much they could offer and at least gone to that level, which they didn’t. Someone likely would have gotten off for $1,350. but they didn’t even try that before calling in physical force. And, yes, way too much force.

  5. @professorM – there were more passengers with confirmed reservations than seats available for customers. hence involuntary denied boarding.

  6. If this guy hadn’t refused and gone limp, as various Internet Warriors are asserting gives him the blame for all this, we never would have known that United was nickel-and-diming people with unacceptably low voluntary offers inevitably resulting into orcing IDB for a flight almost 24 hours later. Whether he meant to or not, this guy did everybody a service.

  7. I think it’s the victim-mentality coupled with a lynch-mob-mentality fostered by social-media. The feigned “OMG what a horror” and the internet’s ability to give anyone & everyone a soap-box to vent their self-perceived slights & injustices without having to know the truth or the detail.

  8. @ I don’t agree with you all the times but I am totally with you this time. You summerize what I want to say. It didn’t change the fact that United is a terrible airline.

  9. As a United 1K (for 7 years running now), I’ve always been amazed at how little United does to empower its employees. Certainly, they share some of the blame for not giving their staff the tools they need to de-escalate these sorts of situations.

    Also, as other posters have pointed out, implying that because the maximum required amount of compensation was some number, that United wouldn’t be expected to do more is false. It is on them what they decide, and the maximum required amount is irrelevant to that calculation. Finally, it is worth considering that the “compensation” in the form of airline vouchers may have a much lower value to passengers even than the cost to the airline, and therefore using cash in certain situations may be a much better way to get volunteers.

  10. So I’m a mere 100k/year guy, but I follow issues with policing fairly closely (friends with and train with a number of police officers), and for my day job I look at improving organizational outcomes and behaviors.

    I’ll flatly disagree with you on a number of levels.

    First, and most obviously, the $1350 payment is the maximum _required_ not the maximum _allowed_. Delta was just in the news for paying substantially more to a pax who was forced to miss several flights and then cancel out of a vacation trip.

    Next, if the issue is a potential time-out for crew over a 15 minute auction – it’s United’s (or their sub carrier’s) fault for cutting things so closely.

    Next, if United needs to move crew, I’d imagine that with some small effort they’d know that _before_ boarding the craft they needed to move the crew on.

    Finally, the airport police are either incompetent or wildly undertrained. Moving uncompliant people without throwing them around is a core officer competency, and while doing this in the confines of coach is tough (imagine if he’d been in a window seat), it’s certainly possible – and it starts by de-escalating the situation and working for voluntary compliance.

    This was a horrible miss by United Express’ team, and the Chicago LEO’s; your commentary on it is a miss as well.

  11. @Gary You don’t need hindsight to see that calling police to forcibly remove a paying customer from his seat for convoluted business bottom-line reasons won’t end well. Proper customer service would have found a way to make a solution with some passenger agreeable to both parties.

  12. United could’ve provided a car to the employees. It’s a 4.5 hour drive from Chicago – Louisville.

  13. Not sure I’m buying a number of points here.

    Point 3 – union contracts, if an airline were to offer staff a bucket load of money to be transported I’d a different way what is the union going to do? Complain that in an emergency situation United paid staff extra. Perhaps they would ask for a new “emergency clause” so future staff got healthy pay outs? Private contracts can be varied it just costs. Perhaps there was a regulation issue around journey/turnaround timing but you relied in “contract” for some reason.

    As for “United didn’t do anything out of the ordinary” that is a terrible argument. In other industries staff have done things they and colleagues didn’t consider “out of the ordinary” and staff go to jail and employers get massive fines. Normal practice is a very weak defence.

    Added to this the response of the firm (and the “convenient” arrival of negative irrelevant stories about the passenger) suggests the $1bn kicking the stock is getting may not be enough.

  14. It’s the passenger’s fault? Nope. Public opinion rules when it comes to matters like this. Poor planning and bad management is to blame. The proof will be in the loss of revenue. Inhumane treatment, a lack of passenger rights, and terrible PR are the main culprits. Finding excuses for terrible customer service is the norm these days.

  15. Someone could have made an “executive ” decision to raise the bounty. Even if it went against the rule book the consequences for rule breaking would have been a lot less than the mess United is now facing.

  16. Whilst it’s interesting to get an industry perspective on this, the article seems to ignore some of the fundamental issues:

    1. Why did United board passengers when they knew they would have to remove four. That action, taken after the crew became aware that there were no willing volunteers, created a situation where there was a good chance passengers might have to be removed by force.

    2. At what stage did United become aware that they would need a replacement crew on the flight and why was it needed?
    Was it due to a logistical error or a last minute emergency? Could pre-emptive steps have been taken? For example, why not try and contact passengers (via phone and email) to try and identify volunteers before they reached the airport.

  17. There have been times I’ve been on a plane when missing that flight would have had very serious consequences for me. Most of us have. Arriving a few hours before your father dies is one. Making a connection – plane, ship or land connection – that is totally time sensitive. Returning to caregiving responsibilities. Work – at home or away. Yes, somebody else could have gotten off instead of the guy for whom this was extreme hardship. Giving him a HEAD INJURY is simply inexplicable. But the kicker is Oscar saying this is all SOP at his airline – never again, United.

  18. I do not think it’s a good idea to let United staff come before customers. You create image that United’s own workers are more important than customers.
    Further, do not tell people to go off the plane, but prevent them from boarding altogether. Much simpler.

  19. This is yet another example in America of no one being empowered to override the policy manual. We see it all the time, particularly in retail situations or on the phone where the consumer is just flat out told “no” at a certain point instead of saying, Let’s see, how could we solve this problem? The policy manual here says 4 times the fare or $1350 and yet for some unknown reason they don’t even go past $800. Maybe that’s what the United policy manual says. The pilot could have stepped in and gotten creative but he/she didn’t. I blame United. As Trump has found in the health care debacle, it’s hard to take away something the consumer already has (in this case, a seat on board). You’ve got to make it worth somebody’s while. And a doc who knows if he’s not at work tomorrow he will at the very least inconvenience 25 patients who are maybe taking time off work to see him is not going to be tempted by.even $800. But go past that, and even on a weekend when a lot of people’s travel plans were probably already screwed up, somebody is going to take the money.

  20. I’ve been on flights that were overbooked and they asked ALL of the passengers if there was anyone willing to give up their seat for whatever amount they are offering. I have never been on a flight where they singled out a person as in this instance.

  21. Fu**k you Gary. Let that happen to you & your family then we will see how “Neutral” the views are. Your livelihood depends on airlines & related banks.
    #Never United.
    The Crew can go & fu**k themselves too.

  22. I haven’t read all the comments, but the regulation states the maximum *required* compensation and doesn’t (I think) bar an airline from voluntarily offering more than $1350. i suspect that the real problem with “offer them more” is that the gate agents (and probably their immediate superiors) didn’t have authority to go above the regulatory maximum, and that — under the pressure of time — they didn’t figure out who they should go to to get authorization.

  23. Putting the late-arriving United crew on an alternate flight with another carrier to the destination is of course the right answer: you simply DON’T force seated passengers to get off the plane if you can avoid it. Any combination of persuasion and money could have been tried (only United itself could possibly have limited the gate supervisor’s authority here—- what a penny-wise PR mistake). On another blog, someone said there was an AA flight available in an hour. In any case, Cincinatti airport is a short drive away, as are several other destinations; a union contract provides for a grievance to be filed, but does not stop management from ordering employees to take a given positioning flight and be prepared to work their schedule. Nobody at UA’s hub apparently has the authority or gives a damn enough to figure out the best solution, the one that doesn’t screw up 30 years of paying millions to message “Fly The Friendly Skies”.

  24. Probably the most balanced story yet on the issue. Regardless of any other problems, you never win by resisting the police and refusing to follow their orders. As to United, terrible airline, but not because of this story.

  25. One alternative I have not seen discussed–am I to believe no other airline was flying from Chicago to wherever the United crew had to go? This speaks mainly to the issue of why anyone needed to be bounced.

  26. I can think of one reason it is in the airline’s interest to offer more money than the amount required by law. When someone chooses to take the voucher, they’re usually pretty happy. They get thanked a lot, did a solid, and get a chunk of change. Plus maybe an upgrade on the replacement flight if they ask. At worst, they’re content and they won’t complain on social media or to their friends. At best they’ll praise the airline and come back. When you IDB someone, even if they get $1000, they’re going to be pissed. There’s some good reason they didn’t take the offered money. My guess is the PR cost is more than zero for the airline, especially when there’s a tiny chance something like this happens.

    I also don’t get why they couldn’t put the crew or passengers on another flight from a different airline (I guess Louisville doesn’t have a lot of evening flights to it?).

    Also, are the rules for compensation different if a passenger hasn’t been denied boarding but is thrown off after already being boarded? This doesn’t seem like “denied boarding”.

  27. United should keep four empty seats available on every flight in case they mess up again. Passengers are being screwed enough by the airlines to take this kind of abuse on top.

  28. No, just no! That article has so many flaws… this is not another side of the medal, it’s a poor attempt to justify their faults.

    1. Only in the US they can overbook flights (bump passengers for staff). Here it’s not allowed. If Airlines want to frequently move staff around free seats need to constantly be reserved for staff. This is the most customer unfriendly thing imaginable.
    2. The selection system is discriminating. Ppl who have paid the least for their tickets are told first to leave. Frequent flyers and business class will never be told to vacate their seat.
    3. When a flight is overbooked, passengers will be asked to volunteer to vacate their seat before boarding. It is highly unusual to ask a boarded passenger to leave. This shows very poor planning.

  29. the United Express gate agent had no authority to do more.

    That’s the root of the problem, in my opinion. When it’s a question of ejecting a customer or getting a volunteer, ops agents and gate agents should have the company’s blessing to go as high as they need to go. If nobody volunteers, cancel the flight and eat the loss. Tolerating passengers’ refusal to be ejected would ensure many repetitions of this scenario.

    Look for exactly these changes to policy.

  30. The voucher problem isn’t how much they offered, its that airlines have made vouchers all but worthless. They are nearly impossible to use, and are treated like frequent flyer miles rather than money, which is why no one takes up the offer. I’ve received vouchers from airlines in the past, and the process of using it is terrible. Giving a passenger a voucher is closer to offering them free frequent flyer miles than it is reimbursement/compensation.

    I get that there are technical issues to running an airline, but the fact that United keeps calling him a “volunteer”, when he didn’t volunteer for anything, but was rather being kicked off the plain for doing nothing wrong, is also a problem. Between the increased hassle with security and the worst treatment of customers by airlines over the years, flying is already stressful. Is it any surprise when it boils over once you start kicking customers off the plane?

  31. I’m a business owner. I lay out the rules for my people. I explain that if the rules aren’t followed, then they’re not rules at all, but guidelines, which is next to worthless. That said, I CLEARLY state that if someone sees a reason for an exception, just ask a manager, since managers are empowered to do what’s needed to stop or fix problems. That’s what any manager does. This ain’t rocket science, but apparently the concept is a little too complicated for United.
    As to Munoz’s “apology”, surprisingly enough, it’s a good bit more insulting than saying nothing. For someone who claims to want to improve the wretched United culture, he needs to own up, say that United screwed up horribly in many ways, apologize to the guy publicly, and actually try to fix the problem rather than point fingers.

  32. United knows it needs crews to operate its flights. It knows how many people its planes can hold. United filled a flight that it needed to transport a crew, thus, the plane was over-sold. This is an avoidable logistical mistake made by United.

    And then there are those violent cops acting as hired muscle for United, which was disgusting.

  33. Stop victim shaming,
    United was totally wrong
    In the future they should up the price until people deplain

  34. Gary – you continue to miss the point. Good lord.

    STOP with the technicals and regurgitating what “defines” overbooking. Here, let’s do some simple math: Total seats available on a plane = 150. Total seats sold: 150. 150=150 so not “overbooked” by the letter of your definition. Oh but wait, Total available seats suddenly is 150-4 = 146. You can do the math from here.

    Here is where you start making excuses:

    “United couldn’t have just sent another plane to take their crew”

    BS. You, me or anyone could call up a private jet in 15 minutes. It only takes money. STOP MAKING EXCUSES AND THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. You sound like the CEO – constantly spouting the “rules and regulations” and what could and couldn’t be done. Why couldn’t they book them on another airline? I’m sure you have a reason – but where there is a will, there is a way.

    “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.”

    YEAH, this is the point – they did NOT go up to the max $1350. And you said yourself in a previous post that United could compensate above and beyond the legal max. Why do you think they didn’t do this? Why didn’t the gate agent have the authority to do more? Who sets the rules for what is allowed and not allowed? Uh, management. STOP MAKING EXCUSES.

    “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.”

    MY LORD – I AM GLAD YOU WERE NOT SITTING NEXT TO ROSA PARKS. HAVE YOU HEARD OF HER? THIS IS WRONG – THE MAN SHOULD NOT HAVE TO GIVE UP HIS SEAT TO ANYBODY.

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

    You are missing the forest for the trees – and not focusing on the real SOURCE of the problem. You keep spouting off what should of happened given current rules and regulations – WHAT EVERYONE IS OUTRAGED ABOUT AND QUESTIONING IS – THE RULES THEMSELVES.

  35. Just another case of DYKWIA. It is being reported that he had anger-management issues and almost had his medical license revoked due to a drug related felony.

  36. Certainly United was to blame in many, many ways. But a greater share of blame rests with the law enforcement officer(s) who beat this passenger. We are in real danger of toppling completely into a police state…and this is just another example of authoritarian abusiveness.

  37. @nsx

    I agree – the real problem here is the culture at United. For many years now, through their actions and operating procedures (such as what is allowed and not allowed), United has prioritized money and profits and their employees, over customers. It’s very clear – read the letter from munoz – “employees followed established procedures” (who set those?) and “emphatically stands behind his employees”. The only mention of customers was calling the passenger “disruptive and belligerent”.

    The reason why the gate agent wasn’t empowered to do anything is because management set very strict rules that are financially driven and will produce the financial results they desire. The CEO is ultimately responsible for setting these procedures, which indirectly define the culture of the firm. You see this all the time in Wall Street banks – and companies like Enron. Do you think the big banks and Enron were done in by a couple rogue employees? No, it’s the CEO and management that sets the tone and it filters down.

  38. Gary – to all of the people criticizing you and saying they are going to quit going to your blog, I wouldn’t take it too hard.

    It’s commendable that you aren’t jumping on the emotional bandwagon of self-righteous victimhood, anti-corporate venom.

    As Andy said, “I think it’s the victim-mentality coupled with a lynch-mob-mentality fostered by social-media. The feigned “OMG what a horror” and the internet’s ability to give anyone & everyone a soap-box to vent their self-perceived slights & injustices without having to know the truth or the detail.”

    I come to your blog to understand the nuances of travel and airline management whether I agree with all of it or not. I value your blog because you don’t simply adjust your viewpoint to reflect the pervasive emotional sentiment that we can find everywhere else.

    Just one part of your post I don’t totally agree with:

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

    Why shouldn’t United back its employees? The gate agents probably followed the book on this whether we agree with “the book” or not. They need to get the flight out as close to on time as possible. Change the policy if necessary but don’t throw your employee(s) under the bus.

    Why should United name the victim? Is it really anyone’s business? Did the victim ask for the world to know his identity? Did the victim as for the people who filmed him to blast his humiliating circumstances for the world to see?

    On a final note, it’s a shame that the people at United will suffer from this. It’s easy to see United as an evil faceless corporation. However, United employs over 80K people. The policies for dealing with too few seats for too many passengers is the same at all of the major airlines. One could argue that one (or two or three) gate agents could have done more, but one could also argue that the blame should be on the police officer for using excessive force. Also, there is no denying the fact the guy in question chose not to get off the plane when advised by the officer (and several other people earlier) that he needed to leave the plane.

  39. Yes, whenever the police ask you to do something, you should just do it. Agree. But why was the man seated in the first place if United knew it would have to kick off 4 people? That’s the main sticking point for me. Once passengers are seated, it just gets exponentially more difficult to get them off – which should translate to more and more money. I’m blown away by the fact that no one would take $1,000 (our news is reporting this was offered) for a one hour flight. My ass would have been off that flight so fast I would have left skid marks.

  40. @Gary

    You actually have one important thing wrong. DOT establishes maximum payout you are legally entitled to at $1350, but there is no law that says they can’t offer whatever amount they want to offer.
    United could keep raising the payout until someone was willing to take it. Not to mention, there are reports suggesting someone asked for $1600 and the GA just laughed at them. I think $1600 is little less than the 1 billion stock value United is estimated to lose today.

  41. Oh, so the guy should have obeyed orders? Screw that. A free country doesnt use the local police to attack people on an airplane. United screwed up and doesnt have the grace to apologise to the guy. They are arrogant scumbags, no one cares about their scheduling problems. Hope they are boycotted.

  42. Gary, it seems you’ve misrepresented yourself and your blog with this post. As ‘one of the foremost experts…’ and a ‘thought leader in travel’, you completely missed the mark here. However, that said, you came very close to getting it with this statement:

    “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.”

    However, while being a security state played a role, the chief reason is that what is endemic to American society is capitalistic greed. American society is driven by the pursuit of wealth. Most companies and individuals sell their integrity to the devil for the sake of money. It determines motivation and behavior both of individuals and entire organizations. It’s a culture mindset. As a result, this passenger was forcibly removed and bloodied.

    UA, like every other corporation (and frankly all of us as human beings) need to some serious soul searching. We are in this TOGETHER. While you would waste time arguing ‘by law, UA has the right to…’, it entirely eliminates the fundamental business case of serving the customer in the best way so they will do repeat business with you. UA has abandoned these fundamentals in a disgustingly dramatic way, and you know that it is not defensible. The customers are saying ‘enough’ and you say, ‘but wait – legally you…’.

    Be a thought leader and think outside the box and look at things from a 60,000′ level – above where you typically fly. Indeed, we all should and if we want to change it, we all have to employ that change within ourselves and how we treat fellow human beings every day.

  43. @Gary: Why didn’t they just follow Pakistan Airlines and let the people stand in the aisle?
    How about offering their PetSafe animal hold?

    I don’t see anyone complaining about the couple that was bumped and got off the plane.

    @Craig Bamford: This isn’t the Revolutionary War. The inability to distinguish one point from another seems to run through the threads on this site and Lucky’s.

    The FAA should double down on this by fining the passenger the $25,000 maximum and seeking the potential year in jail. That would divert attention from United.

  44. Why did they suddenly not know they needed to transport 4 crew members until after the plane was boarded??????? It is completely unacceptable to do business this way. Now everyone is distracted by the victim’s sordid history rather than the fact that this is 100% a result of United’s poor planning and execution.
    Had they had their act together they would have bumped the 4 poor unfortunate passengers prior to boarding. The Aviation police would not have been called in to beat the hell out this guy. Yes… this is United’s fault. Had they done a better job of planning their resources and how to transport them where needed, this situation would not be a news item.

  45. Simply solution would be for a credentialed, licensed physician should be “opted-out” of an IDB list. Such information would have to be part of his passenger profile.

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