[cba123]

This story is pretty big right at the moment, but this was the first I (think) I heard that a UA employee was on the flight, so the paying passenger was bumped?

I am not sure of this. But that is what I (think) I just heard on television.

Anyone know if this is true?

[Darksheare]

Not just one United employee, but four.
They overbooked the flight and voluntold four people to leave.

[Fhios]

Not so fast.

Employees and family fly on standby. Meaning a seat has to be available.

Employees on duty fly priority.

It seems shitty, but you know what, When told to get off a plane get of the ‘effing plane.

[StolarStorm]

From what I understand (and was a former employee..) the 4 employees were not flying for free (non rev). They were needed to crew another flight. If they had not made it to their destination an entire plane (and the passengers) would not have gotten off the ground.

Not excusing it, as in the days I worked there they would have handled it differently (like increasing the voucher amount until someone did take the offer to change flights).

The actions of the police officer was also out of line. He went way too far and should be fired.

Complete failure of overbooking analysis, crew manpower planning and customer service. I would have fired all involved. But I don't work there anymore and it's since turned into a turd.

[Swordmaker]

Not exactly true. . . they pulled four paying passengers off, three who they pointed out to “volunteer” and the one they hauled out so they could seat four employees on standby, waiting to board.

[pepsionice]

The story told....I won’t say it’s true or not....is that four crew members were being sent to the destination to take over for a flight or two that required a new ‘rested’ crew.

The mistake made here is that they’d allowed everyone to board the plane before making this decision (badly executed). Every occasion that I’ve seen over-booking...about 30 min before the boarding...they start to offer deals. In mornings and afternoons....they never have a problem in getting people to take the deal. After 7PM, it’s like a root canal and no one wants to accept these deals unless you throw in a free hotel for the night and $300 in vouchers.

[Blue Jays]

Thank goodness you started this vanity thread about the United Airlines situation.
Nobody is talking about this story and there is nowhere on FreeRepublic to post this insight.

[Helicondelta]

Yes. Flight was overbooked and paying passenger got pulled to make room:

[JParris]

How would you like to be the “employee” that sits in the seat where the guy just got beat up so you could fly?

[XHogPilot]

They offered $1000 for volunteers to leave.

[BeauBo]

I heard a report that he was a doctor, who said that he had patients in the the morning that he could not miss, so he could not take a later flight.

[blueplum]

There were four aircrew that needed to get to the destination. Nobody wanted to give up their seats. The doctor was on-call or had patients (surgery?) the next morning so he couldn’t stay overnight. The airline held some sort of random choosing thing, and ordered those people off. When the doctor refused to give up his seat, they should have just picked another number and asked that next person to leave. And they should have done it before they loaded. Or, even better, they should have put the aircrew on a different flight - or a private flight if necessary. Their scheduling problem, and nasty habit of overbooking 10+%, shouldn’t have resulted in a passenger being dragged off a plane unconscious and in shock.

Airlines I think are frozen in what they can offer monetarily - 3 times the one-way ticket I think. So, now they get to offer this passenger a few million and free flights for life. And they’ll have plenty of seats for their air crew; as people cancel their tickets and go with another carrier.

[Yaelle]

[Ken H]

Chicago PD says =>
________________________________________________________________________

...a Chicago Police news affairs officer — not the aviation cops — initially released a statement to an unnamed media outlet saying that a “69-year-old male Asian airline passenger” became “irate” aboard the flight and that aviation officers “attempted to carry the individual off the flight when he fell.

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/video-appears-to-show-passenger-being-removed-from-united-flight/

_______________________________________________________________________

I’m guessing that statement was released before the video went viral.

[Doogle]

UA screwed up big time....instead of stopping the madness...they added to it.
Supervision up and down the line dropped the
ball....it quickly got out of hand,and now
UA will pay,.....good!

[anton]

What matters here is the fact that they put these people on the plane. United’s fault. So, did they look for a solution? Between American Delta, and United, there are about 20 or more flights per day to Louisville. I can drive it in 5 hours.

And, if it meant physically dragging a paying passenger off the plane, someone should have put their 4 man flight crew needed at SDF in a van (if that was the issue) and they would have beat that flight to SDF, delayed as it was for a cost of maybe $1000.

They are morons. No other explanation.

[AlaskaErik]

United is taking a page out of the DNC handbook. They're trying to make this out as an overbooked situation, which is total BS. If the plane has 118 seats and 122 people show up at the gate, only 118 are getting on the plane. Requests for volunteers to get a voucher are done at the gate, not on the airplane. I've seen it plenty of times.

What really happened is that United needed to reposition a crew to another airport and chose to try and get volunteers to disembark that had already boarded the flight. This is a bad time, as luggage has already been loaded and they're not going to unload it for disembarked passengers. I know, because I just went through this two months ago. My baggage was not unloaded and was never returned to the point of origin, but showed up at my intended destination two days later.

United created a bad situation and made it much worse. Piss poor planning on their part did not constitute an emergency for the passengers. And now the CEO is doubling down, which is only going to make matters worse. I'm just glad United never figures in my travel plans.

[Larry Lucido]

Yes. And in other news, the in-flight fish dinner was poisoned, and they couldn’t find a doctor on board to treat the passengers.

[raybbr]

Yes, and there are several FReepers, based on yesterday’s thread, that thought it was cool and the right thing to do.

[DAC21]

United was ferrying another crew to Kentucky. In other words if they had not done this an entire flight would be canceled putting 120 passengers in the cold, not four as in this case.

So United had to put four non paying employees on the plane for four paying passengers and give them $800 and a night in a decent Hotel. One couple on this flight pocketed $1600 by being two of the four bumped Passengers. It's a practice most Airlines employee (over booking) Its not a good situation but I'm sure the Swamp will be holding hearings ASAP with no doubt higher prices for 100% of Passengers being the outcome.

[duckman]

Yes, Fox reported yesterday that an employee was needed at another airport so United chose to bump a passenger. What I didn’t realize is that a domestic passenger could get up to $1350.00 an overseas passenger could get up to $5000.00 if they are bumped. United offered this guy $800.00.