Posted on 04/10/2017 7:37:53 AM PDT by BulletBobCo
“No, this is wrong,” a woman shouts at security officers in the video.”Oh my God, look at what you did to him!”
A disturbing video was uploaded to Facebook by Audra Bridges Sunday night. It shows a full United flight sitting at a Chicago airport and bound for Louisville. But there was a problem – United had overbooked the flight, they needed four seats for their stand-by crew and no one was volunteering to give up their spot.
That problem led to a violent confrontation as security forced one passenger off the plane, who said he was a doctor and couldn’t take a later flight because he had patients to see at his hospital in the morning.
Bridges, a Louisville resident, told the Courier-Journal that United announced in the terminal Sunday night that the flight was overbooked and offered passengers $400 and a night at a hotel to give up their seat and opt for a flight at 3 p.m. on Monday. No one volunteered, and passengers boarded the flight. United told the full flight that they couldn’t take off without the four seats, then upped the offer to $800 plus a night at a hotel, but still no one volunteered.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Back when I was in college at FSU I would occasionally fly home to Fort Lauderdale on Air Florida. Flights were $75 each way (back in the early 80’s).
I was going home for the summer. My flight left on a Thursday. I didn’t HAVE to be home until Monday for my summer job.
While we were boarding they announced that they had overbooked and were looking for volunteers. They promised a seat on the afternoon flight. When they offered $50 voucher plus the flight, I stepped up.
That afternoon they had overbooked again. They made their announcement - but the next flight was in the morning. Curious, I asked what they were offering. They would put me up in the downtown Hilton overnight, $20 towards food, taxi ride there and back, plus a $100 voucher. I took it.
This basically repeated itself until Sunday morning. I racked up $450 in free airfare, stayed three nights at a very nice hotel, ate like a king. It got to the point where they approached me before making the announcement.
Is it a wonder that Air Florida is no more?
I like your idea. I've always thought that overbooking, which is essentially advertising and selling a product the company doesn't actually have to sell, is false advertising and thus fraud. At least if those at risk of bumping were informed at the time of purchase then they would know what they were getting into. The complication, though, is that others could cancel their reservations in the meantime which could change the equation.
person came up to where I was sitting and said I was in her assigned seat. I, er, let out a long smelly fart and she said ..never mind.
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Your first comment was about leaving a pile or a puddle on the seat before you left the air plane. I thought, well he says he’s a Marine, don’t judge him. Butt, after this comment, I hate to say it, but I think you may have a problem, or you work in the medical field. lol lol.
The guy managed to break loose and ran back onto the plane, described as bloodied and disoriented. United really is facing a lawsuit if this part of the story related by passengers is accurate.
person came up to where I was sitting and said I was in her assigned seat. I, er, let out a long smelly fart and she said ..never mind.
__________________________________________________
Your first comment was about leaving a pile or a puddle on the seat before you left the air plane. I thought, well he says he’s a Marine, don’t judge him. Butt, after this comment, I hate to say it, but I think you may have a problem, or you work in the medical field. lol lol.
I was on a plane that had a similar situation up in Prudhoe Bay. They needed 3 people to get off the plane. At first, no one was going to go....so the airlines kept upping the offer. Eventually the offer was too good to pass up and 3 guys got off. United should have followed the same procedure here.
United...
Fly the Ghestapo Skies
What a great point!
Maybe the guy, as he was at the door, heard ‘I’ll take the voucher!’ and ran back because he *really* needed to be in the office at 7am today.
I agree. Badly handled. Optics and personal circumstances abound, plus all sorts of hypotheticals that tend to embody one’s preconceived ideas.
I don’t know about ‘queens’ and what not. I was more concerned about my own circumstances that were clearly beyond my control but it never once prompted me to act like a screaming little b!tch when I didn’t get my way.
YES! I understand inconvenience and I understand perceived rights. I also understand actual rights covered in contracts, implied or delineated by word that can be accessed by anyone any time.
Undoubtedly, there will be a lawsuit here and who will prevail, and we shall see who really is/was a ‘doctor’ with patients waiting who were irreparably harmed or not.
People would complain about that too (being charged whether they get on the plan or not). All of this is longstanding practice and if you look at the terms of agreement on your ticket it clearly states that you may be bumped.
They don’t have to offer anything. They do that so that they don’t lose customers. Over long experience they have found a formula for dealing with no-shows vs overbooking and it usually works fine.
There is nothing wrong with overbooking, because folks don’t show up etc... but when you overbook you can’t FORCE people off the plane and beat them... This is going to crush United in so many ways...
Whoever decided that Randomly forcing removal of passengers rather than upping the offer to leave voluntarily for compensation is beyond an idiot.
United LITERALLY just destroyed their brand.... Never seen such stupidity.
I used to come to Free Republic to get the news. Now I get all kinds of mis-information and suspicions. Why not do some reading and find out what happened?
If I want the news about this I go to reddit. If I want the news about an airline, specifically United, I go to flyer talk.
BTW for those who think United had a right to do it, go to google and look up Contract of Carriage. Also look up compensation and the 4x multiplier applied to your fare if the airline wants to fly you to your destination the next day.
Being bumped and being forcibly removed from the plane by police are completely different things... United just absolutely destroyed their Brand....
Fly the friendly skies? Try Fly the Ghestapo Skies.
The damage this one stupid incident has done to the United brand will be measured in 10s if not 100s of millions of dollars when all is said and done.... Just stupid as all get out.
Agreed. This was the height of stupidity.
The fine print of your ticket says they can bump you, and says they can remove you from the flight for any reason.
The woman who was ‘so upset’ about how they were treating a “doctor” who said he “had to be somewhere” — did she volunteer to take $800 so the doctor could fly? Apparently not.
Why didn’t the doctor say “give me a minute”, and turn around and explain the the other passengers his situation, and offer say $200 more to keep his seat? Maybe some passenger would have taken the deal.
I’ve been on flights like this, and you are hoping someone else volunteers because they WILL kick someone off the plane, and having a ticket doesn’t help you — unless you paid a LOT MORE for a ticket that guarantees you a seat.
I smell a newly minted MBA as far as that "whoever," looking to shave overbooking cost to improve the bottom line. I suspect his or her star won't be rising at UA much longer, but it's the higher ups who green-lighted this that are the real idiots.
I would have made sure the cupid stunt with the big mouth was bumped from the plane.
ping
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