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’ll skip over the parade of authoritarians.
“They had to have known they needed extra seats for crew before boarding.”
Nope. I’ve been in situations in ATL where a regional flight has been held on the ground to allow the repositioning of a crew coming in late off another delayed regional flight. There were empty seats, so there wasn’t the need to bump, but there’s no slack at all in regional feeder flights — the part of the industry where the staff aren’t well paid and the service is barebones.
Anyway: airline bucks aren’t cash-equivalent, so it’s not really a fair comparison to the legal maximum for IDB. It’s just that management is generally not willing to make that offer.
@MickeyFreakinDougal – there were not available seats on other flights
NO.
United oversold, period. They breached thier contract.
We have schedules, connections, SURGURIES to make, and United chose greed over common sense. It’s not like we can just “magically” rearrange scheduals, especially flight scheduals (that are usually so close you have seconds to spare to get to your next gate).
United committed FRAUD. PERIOD. This whole thing reads more like a press statement from the same guy who wrote the tweet than a real examination of the issues at hand; Even a United contracted apologist couldn’t spin this story that well.
No matter how many passengers would have to get bumped by United’s failure to transport a crew to Louisville at a certain time, that problem and the consequences t derived from it, is United’s, not the passenger’s. Whatever impediments United faces in transporting its’ crew because of union contracts, etc., again, its’ not the passenger’s problem. The guy bought a ticket and declined an offer to deboard. If United is only able to transport three, rather than four, crew members, so be it–it is not the customers problem and not a basis to automatically remove a customer. Big business has to learn to treat customers better than this, particularly when the “scheduling crisis” is there own making. I get that the author, Gary Leff, is an expert on transportation, but he seems to be to close to the industry, to obsessed with the challenges management faces, to understand that customers should never be forced to get off a plane that they already boarded already paid for, to redress a problem in the company’s scheduling. If a fourth crew member cannot board because a customer declined an offer to waive the seat that they already paid for, so be it, United can deal with finding a way to get that crew member to Louisville. What the author of this article is missing is that United disrespected a customer and humiliated him because of its own internal needs. United, as is the case with most big business, did not see the human side of this decision to bump passengers and that is the problem. Customers, which without United does not exist, deserve better–fundamental decency, and not to be treated just a line on a computer screen.
United don’t want to loss their business, so pull down a passenger. In the same way, the passengers too don’t want to take off for the next day, so definitely they won’t like to leave the plane. This report is written in favour of United and this company need to be condemned.
It always strikes me as odd when people’s thinking is starkly black and white about these types of situations. Airline, police = 100% evil in contrast to passenger who is 100% benevelont. The author makes valid and logical points that rational people should be able to consider without loosing their minds.
You can justify the legalities all day long – yes, United had the right to throw the guy off the plant to get their crew to the city. Yes, United has the right to throw ME off of a flight to my mother’s funeral, if they want to. And I have the right not to fly United Airlines in the future – that it what I intend to do. Other airlines (notable Delta) have a better system of encouraging volunteers – including up to $1500 in CASH. United only offered $800 in VOUCHERS (although later reports say $1000). That is in exchange for having to wait an ENTIRE DAY or the next flight. All this went down AFTER the plane was boarded. Total cluster. I think most people believe that if United has upped the ante to $1350 in CASH (which may have equaled what they would have had to pay anyway), they might have gotten four volunteers. Perhaps they should have de-planed everyone and put them back through the boarding process without the four people allowed – at least then you would have had an old man shouting at the gate, not being dragged off the plane. Or maybe United gate agent should have worked more diligently to accommodate its passengers by putting them on the next available flight from a competitor. Instead, they tried to get by the cheapest that they could and it backfired. Then add in the stupid comments by the CEO and you have the result. Airlines don’t treat people like customers, they treat them like “revenue-producing units”. How would you like to go to a doctor, only to be told that the doctor scheduled too many patients that morning, and you will have to come back the next day – after you took the day off to go to the doctor?
Sorry, it’s not a “myth” that they sold too many tickets. If they sell all their seats but also plan to use their flights to transport crew members, that IS selling too many tickets. Either you can sell all the seats, or you can hold some of them for your employees. But if you do both, you oversold. That’s not hard to understand.
The author just assumes that the airline’s needs should take precedence over ours, with the pseudo-populist, pseudo-caring justification that more passengers down the line will be inconvenienced if the crew doesn’t get to work. Well, guess what? A lot of people will be inconvenienced if we don’t show up for work too. If the airline screws up, their customers down the line SHOULD be the ones affected, not the customers of someone who bought a ticket. All the airline is doing is sloughing off the inconvenience on people they don’t have to deal with (their passengers’ customers), so they don’t face the consequences of overselling their flights.
Oh My! Mr. Leff, respectfully, you should stick to commenting and advising on “field of miles, points, and frequent business travel” per your bio above.
1. “he should have complied when ordered off the plan by United and then by Chicago Aviation Police” It is very easy to say this from afar. How would YOU react when you are told “the computer said we have to deboard (or whatever stupid made up word they used that moment) now”? Would you say “not me, i’m a respected expert on field of miles, points, and frequent business travel; pick another, less important person”? What if they chose you and not your travelling companion? What if you had something important and time sensitive at the destination (as I must assume every passenger had)? No sir, saying what he should or should not have done has no lace in this PR fiasco.
2. This is you most disappointing conclusion: “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.” No, no and no. While a separate issue is the force used by the PD, and the fact that they used force “because a gate agent told them to”, UNITED AIRLINES turned an administrative/customer service issue into a criminal matter. That someone is not following the rules is a problem, but NOT a crime. When you call the police, it is because of a crime. The police (in a criminal situation; they will 100% be held accountable for getting involved in this non-crime) have 1 process: Increasing use of force, up to deadly force. You say (again, critiquing form afar) if they hadn’t used as much force…. So what do they do: “please leave Mr. paid customer”, and if he says “NO”, leave? The police use force; verbal commands, then come along techniques, then non-lethal force, then lethal force. UA will soon learn that painful lesson that “the police did it” has not been and will not be any defense.
Would you expect the police to ask him, and when he declined, immediately seat Dr. Phil next to him to talk about it? No, they are POLICE!
My employer has policies. If one is broken they have a process to address. If I am late is an option available making that a crime? If a customer breaks a policy can we make them a criminal? Because that’s what calling the police is, and there is no grey area.
What if “the computer” selected your minor child? Maybe you will suggest that your minor child deserved it as he/she did not comply (because all 7 year olds know to comply), I am pretty comfortable how I would react were it my child, or travelling companion.
It seems others disagree with you based on UA’s stock price……..
By the way, everyone is saying that the attention span of Americans is so short that by next week this incident will be forgotten. Do you remember the 1993 Jack in the Box e. coli deaths? I do, and I have never eaten at a Jack in the Box since.
One thing that seems to be overlooked is United personnel did not drag the passenger down the aisle. They called authorities to assist in removing the passenger. What resulted is on the shoulders of the passenger and authorities. The company memo was for employees only not the public.
One thing that seems to be overlooked is United personnel did not drag the passenger down the aisle. They called authorities to assist in removing the passenger. What resulted is on the shoulders of the passenger and authorities. The company memo was for employees only not the public.
Everyone is all over United for this, but were United personnel really in charge here? The flight was operated by Republic Airlines, and presumably it was their staff (or an outside contractor) that was making decisions on the ground. Does anyone know if under the regional contract between Republic and United, United is the one who makes the calls on compensation, grounding, etc.? Or was United the victim of bad judgment by Republic (which by the way just got their bankruptcy reorganization approved)?
An idiotic response. The man paid for a service and fulfilled his side of the contract. United then, for their convenience, and for no other reason, decided to break the agreement. They then chose to do so by violently assaulting their paying customer.
To try and excuse their conduct by saying that United had entered into obligations to third parties or had procedures is risible. What agreements United have with their staff, regulators, and even other passengers is of no concern to the passenger they assaulted. They are paid to manage these things and provide the contracted service. That they had procedures is even less of an excuse. All procedures are are rules made up by the company if they are idiotic that is the company and only the company’s problem.
What is at the heart of this is an utter contempt for the customer. In no other industry would a supplier be allowed to get away with such behaviour (even without the assault) air travel has been given special consideration amd exemptions from normal business behaviour for too long and it needs to stop now and revert to normal contract law like everyone else.
The fact you seem to have absorbed the ‘we have obligations to others’ and ‘we had procedures’ excuses to pardon what elsewhere would be a serious crime just shows that those in the travel industry need their protections stripped away.
The write’s comment about “maximum required compensation” is ridiculous. Sure, the maximum ‘required’ amount is $1350 but United could, of course, simply have offered more (and enough more) so that a few people took the offer. That would have taken 10 minutes max to get settled (assuming they didn’t have to go through five levels of United management for approval) and the plane would proceed as scheduled, minus four original but now happy (or at least satisfied) passengers. This is entirely United’s fault and I hope they pay, pay and pay in various ways. As for that idiot Munoz, his recent “CEO PR award” should be revoked.
https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights
DOT in its Fly Rights brochure says:
1. Involuntary bumping happens before boarding and when the plane is OVERSOLD . Not applicable.
2. Voluntary bumping happens before involuntary bumping before boarding and when the plane is OVERSOLD . Not applicable.
The plane is not oversold. And the passengers have boarded and taken their “confirmed reserved” seat. Therefore bumping of any kind does not apply. In fact the condition to exercise bumping does not exist at all.
In all of my flying, I have not encountered a passenger being bumped after he has boarded and taken his confirmed seat.
Whatever business problem United tries to solve, kicking customers off (please don’t use “bumping” anymore because it is not the case and automatically creates confusion) the plane should never happen. They have no right to kick a non-disruptive customer off the plane, civilly or brutally. Even in United’s Contract of Carriage, Rule 25 spells out that bumping applies only in Oversold situations (https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx#sec25).
So what situation does United have here? A complex situation of its own aviation operations that is entangled with flight crew scheduling and transporting, flight cancellation risks, etc. Whatever it is, United has no right to misrepresent facts and ask the police to forcibly remove a passenger in order to solve it’s own business problem. In this act, United may have breached contract, violated trust, and broken laws.
An interesting thing is United did not activate Rule 21 of the Contract of Carriage, which describes Refusal of Transport. If the passenger was “disruptive and belligerent” as its CEO first tried to lead the public believe, United could have used this portion of the contract to remove the passenger and give no compensation is return. It is because none of the conditions for refusing to transport was met.
I travel a lot. I don’t worry much about turbulence or maintenance issues or even pilot errors. The system (in the US) has many built in redundancies for these risks and i accept them.
I worry about 300 of my closest friends (that I have never met from Adam) being stuck in a tin can flying at 35,000 feet at 500 mph with barely enough personal space to blow your nose. In that situation everyone is vulnerable and risk is taken very seriously. I’m sorry, but If they let that guy stay on my plane, I would have left it at my own expense for my own safety.
Everyone makes (or ought to) a social contract to get along and be safe on a plane. By refusing (that many times and against that many separate and escalating authorities) he failed the basic test … can I trust him? If I asked / told / demanded that he stop doing something on the plane that endangered me, would he? Would I be prepared to use force if he decided that he needed some fresh air and went (to attempt) for the emergency door release? Sounds extreme but my contract with the airline is to insure that they head off risk before it happens and air isn;t the only thing under pressure up there. I can almost guarantee you if you took (an honest) poll the people on that plane that night, most would have wanted him off their plane.
Follow that damn rules and do what your told I say … you can have your liberties back when you get back on the the ground. Air travel is a team sport!
Okay, I call bullshit.
A few notable points: Do not claim that the victim was “denied boarding”. This is not only false, but a lie. He had *already boarded the plane and was seated* when this happened. We’d be having very different reactions if he’d been stopped at the gate.
Do not hide behind the fact that United wasn’t required to go past $1,000. The maximum required compensation here is irrelevant — there’s nothing keeping United from offering more, and they *should have*. If time was the issue, well, they should have raised the price more quickly.
United is responsible for “their operation becoming a mess”, as you put it. This happened on their watch, and they not only allowed it but encouraged it.
I’m not going to deny that the culture of law enforcement in aviation needs to change… but it’s not the “real” problem here. What happened here was a systemic failure on multiple levels, and had virtually anyone in a position of authority acted even remotely responsibly, this never could have happened. As the lawyers say, res ipsa loquitur.
@GaryLeff
As to your pompous, snarky “the stock price has recovered” comment….you apparently aren’t watching the volatility. At this moment UAL shares are trading roughly $1.10 off their morning high – or roughly $625 million in market cap. They have clearly damaged their already diminished brand with this incident – and so, regrettably, have you.
Why the fk extra people got into the plane. If they had to be dropped dont let them board. This analysis is sickening
The guy should have just gotten off the plane and dealt with the issue at the gate. I agree completely with the author. A doctor is no more entitled stay on a flight to get back to work than a clerk at 7-eleven. Yes, united should have offered a larger compensation. Every passenger has a price point. But I expect my fellow customers to comply with cabin crew instructions. I’ve been involuntarily bumped. If sucks. But airlines are required to compensate. He should have just stood up like a grown man and walked himself off the plane and dealt with his anger/frustration at the gate. It was not the time or place for nonviolent resistance.
1) Yes, United DID oversell. They needed four seats for crew members, so they shouldn’t have sold those four seats.
2) The federal maximum of $1350 is not only irrelevant, it’s misleading. It’s irrelevant because they didn’t offer it. They offered $800 (as you said). I’d sure as hell be more likely to bump for $1350 than for $800. But that quote-unquote “maximum” isn’t a maximum at all, as you know very well. It’s the maximum REQUIRED. United legally could have offered more than the max. But let me repeat … they didn’t offer the legally REQUIRED max at all. They went straight to brute force.
3) This should have been handled before boarding.
4) When the CEO doubled down TWICE about the incident, whatever small defense United might have had vanished. He didn’t really apologize until their stock plummeted by a billion dollars — making it crystal clear what really matters to United (hint: it ain’t the passengers).
5) … and this is the truly damning point … Have you been reading the conversation about this? Everyone has a story of United treating passengers like crap. Everyone. I have one of my own — and it’s notable that the exact same thing happened on the other end of that trip of mine, but it was with Delta instead of United and they literally took care of it before I even know it was a problem.
I’ve flown a fair bit. Experienced lots of things: lost luggage, missed and canceled flights, hours on the runway or sitting on the plane at the gate, etc. Things happen, I get that. But with one exception (Alitalia), I have always been treated courteously *except* when I fly United. And from what I’m seeing around the internet as a result of this incident, my experience is at least common if not universal.
Quit making excuses for an airline that has a pattern of treating passengers like voiceless cattle.
Pompous, snarky and entitled – yes, for sure he has damaged his ‘brand’. Stunningly spineless!
@Steve you can choose whatever you want as the benchmark point of comparison and of course attribute whatever reasons you wish to movements that do not speak for themselves.
I agree they have damaged their brand. It’s unclear how much or how long lasting at this point.
@RickMoreno – as to “entitled”, Gary is entitled to his opinion and our respect — even when many including myself don’t agree with this particular opinion.
“Spineless” doesn’t fit either – spineless would have been not addressing this shit show at all.
I would like to see a law that restricts airlines from over booking to begin with. If a ticket is sold, it’s sold. Forget this idea that some people may cancel…that way you at least minimize the cases where this occurs.
I keep reading on this blog that the passenger should have complied, because the crew asked him to get up and leave. There are limits to having to listen to the crew, simply because they are the crew. What if they asked you to hand over all your cash? What if they asked a woman to take off her top? Come on, you have to admit that there are some situations where you wouldn’t comply just because the crew asked you to do something.
Much of the general public and customers are siding w/the passenger because his actions don’t seem that unreasonable. Great that United needs crew on the ground the next morning and wants 4 seats on a full flight to do this. OK, did this occur to United 1 hr before boarding, 30 min before boarding, even 10 min before boarding? Because then they could have prevented 4 passengers from ever boarding the plane in the first place. Which of course is a much easier situation to handle– denying entrance to the plane at the boarding area. Instead, they insisted on 4 volunteers deplaning, or having to remove 4 people from a flight after they are already seated. So… from a passenger’s point of view… what’s up with that? This lack of planning, lack of foresight, doesn’t seem like United is taking this problem too seriously, so why should the passengers? Also, United obviously didn’t convey much sympathy for the cause– perhaps people would be more willing to volunteer if there was a malfunctioning plane or a medical emergency with the crew or something. Instead, sounded like poor planning on United’s part.
Some reports say that this man and his wife initially said he would go willingly, but when he found out the time of the next flight, he said he couldn’t, he has work and patients the next day. From everything I read, even with his shady past, he doesn’t seem to be lying about this. So he is probably sitting down, thinking, “pick someone else.”
People relate to him because they would probably do the same thing and object to being removed involuntarily. They would be sitting there expecting United to solve their own problem with their 4 crew members needing to work the next morning (have a lot of hours to take care of this problem), and besides, if it was such a problem, why wasn’t this problem addressed much earlier, before people boarded the flight? There is something that feels irresponsible about what United is doing, and many people would object too, I believe.
And that is why the general public is horrified to see how it all went down. Despite his shady past, what people resonate with is this elderly grandfather 69 yrs old being violently removed from the flight. That is unbelievable, and for most people, we never imagined this could happen.
Context is very important here: of course, please do what it takes to remove people who are drunk & assaultive, committing terrorist acts, etc. If a violent drunk passenger got removed like this, w/bloody nose, a lot of people may not object so much to it.
However, somebody who bought a ticket, has generally been cooperative, is now seated on a flight, and doesn’t want to leave– seems reasonable to object. Of course the Aviation Police shouldn’t have acted the way they did– if he really refused, get the Chicago Police and arrest a passive resistor like him.
The United CEO and industry in general are not using common sense when thinking it was fine for him to be bloodied and violently removed on the way out. Just think about it: a homeless man sits in Denny’s for too long. Denny’s wants him to leave, saying it’s private property and they can refuse service. Denny’s certainly doesn’t have a right to push him physically out the door, or have his head slam to the ground or the table on the way out with their ‘removal.’ If a store doesn’t want a customer in it, the employee or even security guard can’t physically push the person through the store and out the door, and cause a head injury along the way.
I believe another aspect to this that will be closely examined is what did the United Airlines supervisor tell the Chicago Aviation Police? Did he/she misportray the situation and make it sound like he was physically violent or belligerent or dangerous? There is a big difference between this and if he was just yelling back verbally that he wasn’t leaving. That is the only reason I can see for the great use of force used by CAP. Unfortunately, if this was the case, there are ~70 witnesses that can say whether he was physically violent or not. Probably not, as most of the social media accounts do not mention this. Anyway, United holds a lot of responsibility, for asking for the forced physical removal of this passenger.
@Jackie – JetBlue does not oversell flights, but its involuntary denied boardings still shot up last year because of aircraft swaps. Selling more tickets than seats isn’t the only way this happens. And it isn’t the way this happened on Sunday night’s United flight either…
@Gary. I understand things like that…but United and others do this as a practice. I like JetBlue…you cant avoid some things…but lets not buy trouble. Jackie
Great article!
While United did not handle this situation with much grace, I agree that more attention should be paid to how the aviation police handled this situation.
The biggest issue people seem to have is about how the man was bloodied and dragged off the plane, which IS a very big issue, but it is important to note that it was not a United employee, but rather the aviation police.
United is most appropriately getting lambasted by the media, but it should not be faulted for something that it most certainly did not do.
Lesson to passengers: $millions await you if you’re willing to suffer a bloody lip.
Lesson 1 to airline: forget those worthless vouchers. What are they really? They are an empty seat that was gonna have no revenue for the airline. Voucher cost to airline is zero.
Lesson 2 to airline: offer a later flight and compensation in $US–nice green bills. Count out those hundreds for all to see. There will be takers.
I fly a lot for work on multiple airlines and I can tell you with all airlines they overbook and have standby issues. United just happened to go to the extreme.
There is now audio of Dao telling the police: “You have to drag me off, I am not leaving.” The officer tells him if that is what your force us to do – we will. Dao again indicates he will have to be dragged off. What do you want the officers to do at that point? Disembark all the other passenger and leave Dao? Because he clearly stated his intention not to leave without physically force.
I wonder if this would be front page news if the passenger was a working class white guy?
NO one heard of small commuter plans for work crews? booking them on a maintenance flight or a small air carrier for hire? cheaper than buying out a bunch of passengers? I used them before to ship band gear around and technical people…SO yeah..i’m not buying it.
Airport abuse is why i stopped flying altogether too,, Too many bad experiences even observable happening to other people and arrogant ignorant security people and employees..
I wouldn’t scapegoat the police, there are risks to remove someone by force and I doubt the United staff fully briefed the Policemen with what was going on. It doesn’t look like he was beaten Rodney King Style and I wonder exactly how someone is supposed to be forcibly removed from a plane with such cramped conditions. I can’t see from videos that I saw if the officer slammed the guy’s head against the armrest or if doctor pulled free from the officer slamming his own head against the the chair. One way seems excessive the other way seems unintentional.
The fault is almost solely United’s and involuntary bumping policies. I hope legislation comes from this preventing involuntary bumping. Everyone has a price tag, the airlines charge $1,000+ for a last minute flight, if you take someone off a flight last minute, you should pay market value for their seat. The market is your plane’s passengers and the airline has to buy a seat back at whatever the market determines.
I love planes, but hate flying, how miserable can we really make things? Stressful travel conditions with rules like this make things worst.
United agreed to a contract it couldn’t honor, then used force to remove itself from the consequences of that contract. That’s basically warlord level of behavior.
Oh, they were in a ‘tough spot’? Boo, fucking hoo. Hold them to the same standard you’d hold the doctor to. It would be nice if someone else decided to help you out of your conundrum, but if no one wants to you still are responsible for how you handle the situation.
“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.” WTF. he did nothing wrong. Period. He is a victim. If someone is mugged and they decide to try and defend themselves I’m not going to try and tell them what they “should” have done.
Excuse me, but he and his wife DID get off. After he called his attorney, he ran back on and then refused to get off…more money ????…..greed !!
You completely failed to mention the fact that United could have sent its employees on another airline’s flight that night. Easy solution for which there is already a discounted process in place.
@Toto – how about the other two people that were asked first to get off (and also refused) before the Doctor was asked?
You are likely the type that just follow orders, even if they are illegal – way to have a moral compass and a brain of your own. As a long time flyer of United – I am happy someone finally stood their ground and exposed their ridiculous tactics and DGAF attitude toward customers – even long-time continental/united Frequent Flyers. This needed to happen a long time ago.
@Chryssa — what other flight had seats available?
@Gary “Stock price has recovered”
Uh…no it hasn’t. It’s gone down, again…..man, you REALLY are in bed with United aren’t you? You that desperate to be “proven” right?
United is taking the bulk of the blame here, and that’s probably their own fault. Probably United’s fault? Probably? Such an apologist article on behalf of United.
I fully agree with your article. Finally some unbiased words. Shame on the guy for not deplaning, as the airline had the right to remove him. I wonder what America is coming to when such people act like babies, especially from a “Doctor”. His blaming it on race is even just as pathetic. If it was so important that he was there at his destination in a matter of hours, why did he choose the last possible flight? He seems to lack common sense or integrity. United Airlines did not do anything intentionally, in the sense that they would prefer a smooth flight and all passengers’ revenue. The officer was not a United Airlines employee, yet the airline is getting the blame. Yes, one thing led to another but the passenger’s childish behavior is what instigated the “Incident”. If it wasn’t for that, none of us would be reading about it today! Thank you for a good article and great job well done!
@Anna
Shame on the guy? Ok, so if they told you to get up and jump off the plane (or a bridge), you would?
What’s clear here is that United didn’t follow protocol – they have to provide an overview in writing that explains how they were selected and what compensation they are entitled to – THIS IS FEDERAL LAW.
How you and others point to this guy standing his ground when his rights were violated are beyond me.
The initial Order to leave must come from a person authorized to actually “order” as opposed to request. My understanding of that is the Captain of the plane, not other flight crew, not gate crew, must first order the man to leave. Then and only then is the order valid, then and only then can law enforcement proceed. For it to be otherwise, law enforcement would have to know individual company policy as to who is and who is not authorized to issue an enforceable “order” to leave. Law enforcement cannot be placed into that ambiguous situation to first determine whether the order is valid. I cannot go to my local police and order them to arrest someone on my word. Not every gate attendant can order security to arrest someone. Start your research into facts to find out who has the legal authority to order a man off the plane, and did that actually happen.
United violated their own Contract of Carriage in this incident. Even if you try to claim it was Involuntary Denied Boarding (which it wasn’t; “boarding” isn’t defined in United’s Contract of Carriage so it retains its ordinary English meaning), United wasn’t allowed to do it in this situation.
@Anna
TROLL DETECTED
I bought a ticket to a UA (United Artist) 3D film, went into the theater and took my reserved seat. The theater was full. Just as the previews were done and the main feature started, a clerk came in and told me I would have to leave because the popcorn stand had closed for the night and the popcorn girl wanted to see the movie from my seat. I declined to leave, so the clerk called in the Pinkerton guard and he tazed me until he could get hold of my feet and drag me out. As I briefly blacked out, I had a horrible dream about some kind of orange cones dropping down in front of my face from an overhead bin, and the cones were suspended from plastic tubes. I must have hallucinated that I was in some other UA universe.