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 ...
Sounds like a lawsuit for a multitude of reasons in the making
One person was not United.
I would have taken the $800
I would have pushed you out of the way for the $400. :-)
Was she flying, First Class....?
The company would’ve been better off buying tickets on a competitor’s flight to transport those employees. Or offer more money. They don’t make management like they used to. What boneheads.
$800 and a free night’s stay? I’d have taken it....assuming it was a good, secure hotel. I wouldn’t want to be shot in Chicago.
Fly the thuggy skies...
No kidding. Imagine if he was a doctor that had a surgery in the morning. They better hope that isn’t the case.
Airlines are pretty sleazy. Are we sure the offer was for cash, or more likely for just a voucher for the chance to get another undersized seat on a flight that would probably also be over booked and late to boot?
I used to volunteer for such deals all the time in grad school. Slowly they got trickier and less valuable. I don’t know what it is like now but I would hazard a guess that the $800 is really an $800 coupon for one person to take one flight with no residual value. I’ve also had Untied offer my a ‘hotel’ but it required a half hour taxi ride to get to. If anyone has better recent experiences please correct me.
This is standard procedure.
I have gotten off of plans and taken the monetary offers half a dozen times over the years. Not that big a deal. There were people on that plane who did not desperately have to get to their destination and could have found another flight or delayed one day.
United should have kept upping the offer until someone took the deal. One time I got $1000 plus a night in a hotel and a voucher for food of about $50.
Everyone thinks they are so important now.
The airlines have to overbook because all the cancellations make it unprofitable if they don’t. Perhaps they should up the penalties on cancellations but there would be an uproar about that too.
Well done, United! You’ve made your competitors very happy! Way to trash a brand!
Checked out the article, going to try to catch another report. All it says is that “he said he was a doctor”.
Wonder if that was on his ticket, or if he is a doctor.
I agree that United should have handled this differently (say, by making one of their employees take a later flight after two rounds of negative response) ... but screaming? a violent confrontation in an enclosed airplane? ... com’on, man! Way overblown and not very well handled by the “professional” as well (who now still must take a later flight despite their misdemeanor.)
Can't the computer system tell United who were the last 4 people to buy tickets to the flight and have them removed? Once a flight has been filled Airlines should be forced to tell further ticket buyers that they are purchasing tickets for an overbooked flight.
I guess the word "standby" doesn't mean what it used to mean.
United is always overbooked. One of the crew was 15 minutes late for my first leg flight a few weeks ago. We backed up from gate 10 minutes late and had an instrument problem. 30 minutes later we took off - landed in Denver and I ran to the next gate just in time to see them pulling the stairs from my next flight. 11 hours later I made it to my destination via two more flights.
They gave me a $10 voucher for lunch - what a trade! Pretty sure if the crew member was not late I would have made it for the direct flight to my destination, but they gave away my seat anyways per the gate agent. I usually try to avoid United, but most of them do the same thing.
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