Posted on 04/11/2017 12:09:34 AM PDT by cba123
OK.
Sorry for the vanity.
I am just checking however, recently UA by way of the police, pulled (physically) a paying passenger out of a flight recently. He was actually dragged off the plane.
The plane was over-booked. The airline did some sort of lottery, and the guy lost.
Now I get that things happen, and I get that the flight was overbooked (not a good thing, from my view) but I think I just heard a report that this was partly due to a UA employee reservation, being kept.
On a nationwide, live news program.
So the guy was pulled out of the plane, so a free/discount employee could fly?
Is that true?
I double checked and found 4 hours 48 minutes from Chicago O’Hare to Louisville, confirming your comment. So the drive is 2 cups of coffee with one bathroom break. Very doable.
Jury....
People tired of being treated like hostages and its people who make up juries not contract writers.
If you really understood the reality of law you would understand that the fine print in contract is overthrown all the time. Consents (which this is a form of) are written to encourage people to think they have no leg to stand on so they will not resist. When it gets to court the companies settle. Just spend a little time looking at the malpractice awards where the consent clearly spells out the risk. If a jury wants to award money they will.
You are confusing someone being asked to leave for cause and someone being asked to leave and then assaulted because an airline wants to save money.
Really. So passengers shouldn’t be removed from a plane if they refuse to leave. Pretty sure that you agree to all the airline policies when you purchase the ticket. If they ask you to the leave the plane, you can refuse all you want. Police will be called and you will be forcefully removed. This isn’t something new. The difference in this is that the police officer used excessive force. Regardless of how you feel about the situation, the passenger was wrong as he refused to leave the plane when asked. The circumstances that brought about the request for him to leave the aircraft are not relevant, especially if they are within the policies of the airline that you agree to. The doctor was wrong and still is wrong on refusing to leave the plane. The only sympathy that he deserves is over the amount of force the officer took to remove him from the aircraft.
The plane was not overbooked, there were four UA employees that the airline needed to get to Louisville and they bumped paying passengers to do it. No one would volunteer at the level of compensation offered so they “randomly” chose four people to eject. One of them didn’t cooperate, and UA has been thoroughly embarrassed and is in my opinion facing a big settlement.
Before you get your undies in a twist, the four employees were not just getting a free ride...they were a flight crew, needed at the destination for another flight.
Yeah, an inconvenience for the four rebooked paying passengers, but I don’t have any sympathy for a damned doctor with a God-complex.
United has a business to run. They needed that flight crew for the other flight. This self-important bastard of a doctor believed he was more important than the folks on the next flight that needed the crew.
Yeah, I suppose it could have been better handled, but our “me-first” society forced the situation.
I’ll tell you...if he was my doctor, he wouldn’t be, now!
...a Chicago Police news affairs officer —
If it wasn’t part of Star Alliance with several truly great airlines I’d not have flown with UA as much as I did. The deterioration in service over the years was noticeable. But then again, I cut my teeth on Pan Am 747 trans-Pacific Clippers in the 80’s and started out spoiled.
No! I paid for my seat and my time is valuable. Not my friggin’ problem if the airline can’t run their business properly. Lay a finger on me and will show you a vulgar display of violence.
Except United?
Last Thursday I had a flight out of Newark (United Hub) that was delayed two hours due to weather. It was severe clear at the originally scheduled departure time, but I could understand that the crew for my plane might have been delayed. Then, they delayed the flight for another two and a half hours. So you would think the great schedulers at United had a crew for a plane they scheduled to leave three hours later at their hub. Then they moved the departure time UP an hour and made us walk three quarters of a mile to a different gate. Fifteen minutes after this departure time, the finally started loading us all onto the plane. Half an hour after that they kicked us off the plane. They said the crew had "timed out."
It was still severe clear (for five hours now) but United said the flight was canceled due to "weather."
ML/NJ
Agreed. The CEO made another major mistake after the fact, too. In business, it’s always better to be smart than right.
They ask for volunteers, don’t get enough.
Increase the offer until the reward is commensurate with the inconvenience up to the point when its cheaper to hire a car and driver for the employees.
The gate agent’s computers select which passengers get involuntarily bumped, likely the ones who paid the least.
Sounds good, was it really done? Did everyone pay different amounts or were there lots of customers at the same cost? Can that be done anytime the airline gets a chance to make/save money on a few seats?
The passenger resists when denied the flight.
So let me get this straight...when an airline decides its in their interest, not public saftey or an emergency they can tell you to get up and get off the plane and if you say wait a minute I have patients who will be waiting for me in the morning...the attendant doesn't feel like a debate even though the airline's actions are manifestly self-serving and in breech of the expectation of paying for a ticket..so the attendant calls thugs to rip the passenger out of his seat, give him a concussion and leave him bleeding...expose young children to a violent episode and this is fine.
The police are called as per standard airport and airline protocol. If something doesn’t go well between the passenger and police that is absolutely not the airline’s fault at all.
Now this is where it gets really funny, when someone gets hurt in the course of a crime everyone involved is subject to prosecution even if they didn't cause the injury. Most people are incensed because this was an assault on an elderly man and the attendant set it in motion as did the supervisors and policy setters. United is completely culpable for exactly that reason. They overreacted and used a protocol designed to protect the public from dangerous situations and terrorists to go after and subdue and elderly man for profit, convenience and because they could.
Furthermore you proved my point with your response; you are part of the problem not an unbiased observer.
Yeah apparently he was able to get back on the plane, later.
I’m not sure what the deal was.
That seems to indicate the lawsuit won’t be as bad as originally thought.
The circumstance of why one is being asked to leave are exceedingly relevant. The procedures are being misused and the airline industry deserves to be disciplined if they don’t discipline themselves.
UA had no justification for pulling the guy off the plane once board.
Having said that, he tried an order given by flight crew. That is a felony. He should be charged, tried, and convicted as a potential terrorist.
By refusing to obey an order changed the situation from one where he was in the right to one where he is guilty.
Apparently he was knocked out. The “cops” left him in the gateway on the ground unsupervised while they went to get a stretcher. The gentleman came to and rushed back on the plane in a daze saying “I need to go home”.
They probably could have chartered a plane to shuttle them down there for less than what they were willing to pay, certainly much less than what this is going to *cost* them now.
He still was beaten and bloodied, reportedly with a concussion. I’d heard he managed to reboard but was still removed. Beating him up and then allowing him back on the plane makes it worse from a lawsuit perspective in my opinion. There was no pressing need to remove him in such a manner, if so.
They were needed the next morning. It was a 4 hr drive. United’s decision to cut back the usual redundancy network. Cost of doing business, not for the passengers to make up for United’s incompetent management.
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