“In Tuesday’s New York Times story on the fracas, United’s CEO acknowledged, this was not technically an overbooked flight. And the reason for that equivocation is also clear. The four airline employees who needed the seats, presented themselves to the gate agent after the flight was boarded. Further, they were not fare-paying passengers, therefore not “booked.””
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In this case equivocation=lie.
First, United Airlines messed up big time when they allowed people to board the plane in the first place. This is why their Carriage Provision Contract (or whatever it's called) is null and void. There are no provisions for de-planing a customer once they've been seated unless they meet very specific criteria, which Dr. David Dao did not.
The rest of this whole fiasco that I "know" you could write on a postage stamp. At this point it's pretty meaningless anyway.
I will say this about the lawfirm that's representing him however: Kenneth Quinn of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw law firm is as top-notch as they come. He doesn't take cases unless he knows they're going to (a)set a precedent and (b) doesn't have a personal 99.9999999999999% degree of assuredness that he's going to win.
By the time Ken Quinn is done with United Airlines AND THE CITY OF CHICAGO we will be talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in settlement.
Those who think United Airlines is the only one in trouble here, think again: there's a second set of big, deep pockets here and it's the taxpayers of the City of Chicago.
Yes, it is the City of Chicago that DEMANDED they control the Chicago Aviation Police at Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports. It is they that did the "dirty work" for United Airlines in removing Dr. David Dao from the aircraft. Republic Airlines (a subsidiary of UAL) was REQUIRED under Contract with the City of Chicago to call the Chicago Aviation Police to remove Dao.
Now, the untold story in all this will be as always: why did the City of Chicago demand control over the Chicago Aviation Police and WHO got kickback/graft for that?
While Chicago's Alderman rant and rave about United, they themselves put the City of Chicago taxpayers on the hook for any damages caused by the "aviation police."
We're not even done talking about this yet. Not even close. Dao's gonna walk away with a big cash settlement (this will never see fruition in court) and the ramifications to airline travel going forward are gonna be YUGE.
The days of airlines treating us all like cattle are over. Viva la Demanding Passengers, Unite!