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 ...
then upped the offer to $800 plus a night at a hotel
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Amazing.
I would have taken $800 for a day in Louisville.
oops.Chicago.
How do they choose which passenger has to go as tribute?
Well said.
Until (lawyer) Ralph Nader got bumped and read them the riot act about them breaching their Contract with him, I think they didn't even have to put you on another flight. They'd just refund it to your credit card and tell you to have a nice day. Anything more than that was just how they felt that day.
Good for him!
I’ve beaten the odds over the years. The only time I was ever in a situation like this and didn’t jump at the chance was on a flight to New Orleans. We had tickets to one of Emerill Lagasse’s restaurants that night. Everybody else was staying put because they wanted to get to the big Jazz Festival. They worked it out soon enough.
Back in the early 90s I was on business in San Jose, California and had mildly similar circumstance. This is American Airlines.
1:30 flight back to Huntsville, AL.
Flight is delayed due to mechanical trouble.
2nd plane is flow in from Portland.
Enroute, it develops a mechanical problem.
143 passengers are standing at the gate waiting on the next move. They announce they have a bus ready to drive us up to San Francisco International to fly to Dallas. Got to leave NOW to make the flight. It is 5:00 pm.
Some quick arithmetic tells me we won’t get to Dallas in time to make the Connection to Huntsville. Last flight into Huntsville would leave Dallas an hour earlier.
American said “ we can put you up in Dallas or put you up here and catch 6:30 flight the next morning. “The coworker I was traveling with said let’s just catch the early flight here.
We stayed and asked, “Can we get an upgrade to first class?”.
American put us up in a local hotel and bumped us up to first class for the return trip.
I still look to American first when checking out flights. A good impression goes a long way.
I don’t care if he was a doctor, lawyer or indian chief. The reality is the price of the ticket and the ability for an airline to avoid these issues are both immaterially small compared to the cash-flow of a single plane, let alone the company.
There is no talking this out when the stewardess comes to take you off the flight. I have dealt with this airline for decades. I have 880,000 miles on them, the hard way, New York to Chicago, 793 miles a trip. While some of the employees are great. Many are complete jerks. I have had some of the worst client service in my life from United employees.
There was the time when me and my 10 year old son were not allowed on an over booked flight. I was Premiere Exec. (50K), and my son was nothing. They let me on but not my son. I was speaking to a room of 5000 people in Orlando. So I had to be there. But even though the seat next to me was left empty, I had to leave my son at the airport. The person at the desk (a manager) was making a point. She needed approval from the higher ups and they would not call her back. She was mad at them, not me. So, my wife had to come to the airport and pick up my son. Disney would just have to wait.
I have a million of them. Some happened to me. Some to the people I watched get mistreated. Only the cable company and the government get worse reviews than united. They need to go to Nordstroms, or Four Seasons to understand good service. Even Mcdonalds is better at service.
I grew up in NC and Flew Piedmont as a Child many times... it was a different era in the 70s... all around when it came to air travel, so I can’t speak much to it... and I was a youngster at the time.
Really not fair to compare anything air travel pre 80s with post 80s, deregulation changed the industry completley
While I agree from the seat/airline perspective it doesn’t alter that the Chicago Transport Police administered a beating that would make the Vegas mob applaud with respect and appreciation.
United will take the heat because people hate the airlines (not without some justification) but the cops were the ones who assaulted the poor sod.
You think folks won’t react to this, you are indeed naive.. the CEO of United is already in massive spin mode trying to deal with it... CEO $*$T their own bed here... massively.
United has spend decades claiming to be the “friendly skies”.. how friendly are you when you are dragging people literally from their seats?
United just in one small stupid move, harmed itself in a massive massive and avoidable way. It will indeed hurt them, and i guarantee you, they will be paying out far more than $800 and a hotel room, not only to this guy ... but the damage done to their brand by this is going to be in the many multiple of 8 if not 9 figures.
I agree. I would never fly from Chicago to Louisville if I could help it. I think its more like 6 hours. I am north of the city. But you leave your house an hour and a half before the flight. Its an hour and 15 minute flight if everything works out. Its a half hour from the landing to you getting to the rent-a-car desk. And then you have to drive wherever. So you are paying them lets say $200 so you can save an hour and a half. And of course you have to deal with them, the weather and their schedule. And you need to pay for the rent-a-car or taxis when you get there.
Why the hell would you fly from Chicago to Louisville anyway. You can drive it in 5 hours and you don’t have to get to the airport 2 hours early, get strip searched by TSA and then run the risk of the flight being late or as in this case, getting tossed off.
That’s why sometimes I wished we had a better train system in this country.
Airlines have a lobby to stop trains from ever being a real option.
It’s not really $800. That’s the problem. It’s “credit” that has limitations.
Yes, he is a doctor. and he did “plan ahead.” He had patients the *next morning*
I have been on flights that were overbooked and no one took the offer. The airline kept upping the offer..IIRC the bumped passenger recieved 4 vouchers for 4 roundtrip flights in exchenge for leaving the next morning. He got a hotel too.
The problem is that it is not really $800. It’s something along the lines of 800 bucks worth of flight credits. And those credits have limitations. You can’t just use them like cash. I found this out the hard way once when I gave up my seat. I’ll never do it again.
That’s my experience as well.
It’s the equivalent of a restaurant giving you a free meal, valued at x dollars.
Sounds like the standby crew was needing to get to Louisville to be the crew on another flight. They were “standby” only in the sense that no money exchanged hands.
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