I am not sure of this. But that is what I (think) I just heard on television.
Anyone know if this is true?
Yes. All 4 seats were for united employees
In ‘75 -’76, I and a friend worked behind the scenes at a local doughnut shop franchise and our motto was “F*ck the customers, we work here.” We were Juniors in high school. Now almost 40 years later, it looks like it’s caught on...big time!
Correct. 4 UA employees (probably pilots that were scheduled to fly out of this flights destination) were the reason 4 paying customers had to be taken off the plane. No one volunteered to give up their seats so they had to select 4 themselves. I am assuming that 3 others went peacefully. But this guy refused.
It was reported to be a UA flight crew that bumped the paying passengers. I suppose this is how the airline gets flight crews from where they are to where they need to be in order to maintain scheduled flights — ie. ‘dead-heading’.
The problem was the overbooking and how it was handled.
BUT....if you are asked to remove....you do it. It's their airplane and I'll bet there's a removal clause in your "buy ticket" contract.
Four employees who had to be flown to the plane they were going to be manning.
This not surprising as United’s customer service is non existent. Vouchers generally are not worth the paper they are wrote on as United know the majority will never be redeemed. Myself and a co-worker was stuck in Trinidad because of United’s mechanical failure. Fair enough but they gave us hotel vouchers to a hotel without any rooms available, the food voucher were for $10 US per day and they claimed they could not get us a flight for 3 days which was a lie. We managed to get out on our own. Now they think they are doing me a favor by offering a $200 voucher.
This not surprising as United’s customer service is non existent. Vouchers generally are not worth the paper they are wrote on as United know the majority will never be redeemed. Myself and a co-worker was stuck in Trinidad because of United’s mechanical failure. Fair enough but they gave us hotel vouchers to a hotel without any rooms available, the food voucher were for $10 US per day and they claimed they could not get us a flight for 3 days which was a lie. We managed to get out on our own. Now they think they are doing me a favor by offering a $200 voucher.
This not surprising as United’s customer service is non existent. Vouchers generally are not worth the paper they are wrote on as United know the majority will never be redeemed. Myself and a co-worker was stuck in Trinidad because of United’s mechanical failure. Fair enough but they gave us hotel vouchers to a hotel without any rooms available, the food voucher were for $10 US per day and they claimed they could not get us a flight for 3 days which was a lie. We managed to get out on our own. Now they think they are doing me a favor by offering a $200 voucher.
This not surprising as United’s customer service is non existent. Vouchers generally are not worth the paper they are wrote on as United know the majority will never be redeemed. Myself and a co-worker was stuck in Trinidad because of United’s mechanical failure. Fair enough but they gave us hotel vouchers to a hotel without any rooms available, the food voucher were for $10 US per day and they claimed they could not get us a flight for 3 days which was a lie. We managed to get out on our own. Now they think they are doing me a favor by offering a $200 voucher.
This not surprising as United’s customer service is non existent. Vouchers generally are not worth the paper they are wrote on as United know the majority will never be redeemed. Myself and a co-worker was stuck in Trinidad because of United’s mechanical failure. Fair enough but they gave us hotel vouchers to a hotel without any rooms available, the food voucher were for $10 US per day and they claimed they could not get us a flight for 3 days which was a lie. We managed to get out on our own. Now they think they are doing me a favor by offering a $200 voucher.
There really isn’t a “lighter side” to this situation, but some of these are pretty funny:
https://twitter.com/hashtag/NewUnitedAirlinesMottos?src=hash
Along with Jimmy Kimmel’s video from last night:
This not surprising as United’s customer service is non existent. Vouchers generally are not worth the paper they are wrote on as United know the majority will never be redeemed. Myself and a co-worker was stuck in Trinidad because of United’s mechanical failure. Fair enough but they gave us hotel vouchers to a hotel without any rooms available, the food voucher were for $10 US per day and they claimed they could not get us a flight for 3 days which was a lie. We managed to get out on our own. Now they think they are doing me a favor by offering a $200 voucher.
In years past, UL would have reacted to belligerents by pulling the full plane from the gate and parking it out on the tarmac for 10 hours, until there is nothing to drink, and the sewage tanks are full. Then take off.
It was a 5 HOUR DRIVE (one way car rental, about $100) - the airlines should really start requiring passengers to prove that they know how to drive and rent a car, if they intend to act up in this way.
...and then the conversation devolved into blaming the filmers:
United Airlines incident video could have broken flight provider’s rules, but not the law
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!
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.