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 ...
"...Here I am!..."
It did not get me much. Considering my 7 hour travel day turned into a 16 hour day.
This wasn’t some safety issue.... this was the airline wanting those 4 crewmembers there more than they wanted to honor their paying customers... Stop trying to spin this for them. Yes, the captain can do whatever he wants on a plane, but that doesn’t mean its a smart move.
United will pay dearly for this stupidity... Whether they had a “right” to or not is irregardless to the damage this idiotic act was. Need the seat bad enough, guarantee you put up enough incentive you will find 4 people willing to take it... deciding, whelp, $800 voucher is as much as we’ll do, so hey, 4 of you are getting screwed.... Just stupid... stupid stupid.
Honey Vs Vinegar. and if you think United won’t pay a very heavy price for choosing vinegar, whether allowed to or not, is beyond stupid.
Their CEO isn’t spinning like a top right now because they were in the “right”.. he knows damned well, 8 or 9 figures of revenues and brand value got flushed today, period. Pretending otherwise is foolish.
I am sure the fool who made this decision will argue to his boss, I did exactly what I was in my rights to do, and may even be what the company policy says to do.. but if you don’t think he or she didn’t just tank her career by doing it, you are equally being naive. Just because you can, or within your rights to do something, doesn’t mean its the correct course of action.
I understand the airline needed that crew somewhere else in order to service another flight, but that isn’t the passengers problem.. They didn’t oversell the flight, they didn’t cause that flight crew to be stuck... No one here to blame but United... And they absolutely obliterated decades of brand imaging in a few short seconds of video.
In the age of ubiquitous cell phone camera and social media, EVERY single act you have to assume will be videoed and shared.... video of a man being forcibly dragged from the plane for not taking a voucher exchange because you overbooked the flight, yea, enjoy having the public give a flying rats arse if they had a right to do it or not.
United “the friendly skies” absolutely destroyed decades of brand imaging instantly..... This was their crossdressing bathroom moment, and it will hurt them for a long long time to come.
Agree - one can see that a passenger was assaulted due to their inability to plan and their unwillingness to offer enough incentive for someone to volunteer to miss their flight. Cash vouchers are the best answer in this situation and I bet they wished they had offered one now! To see something this extreme is the height of corporate stupidity. At some point one would think that the Captain would have seen where this was going and told the gate agent to stuff it - offer more money.
Whatever.
I already conceded the point about bad PR way back.
You don’t know the whole situation and neither do I. However, I have flown a great deal and know a little bit about how airlines operate.
The 4 hour delay this caused already cost them a lot of money. They would have been better off to up the amount to $1500 and more people would have volunteered.
My understanding is that United assaulted and kicked paying passengers off a flight to make room for a United flight crew.
United is a business. Its their responsibility to make sure employees are in the right location not the paying passengers.
I agree on the condition that the airline have some sort of system in place which would allow you to 'check in' to confirm your seat.
Being able to do that 'check in' over the internet, say up to 24 hours in advance, would be even more outstanding!
April 10, 2017
“This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers. Our team is moving with a sense of urgency to work with the authorities and conduct our own detailed review of what happened. We are also reaching out to this passenger to talk directly to him and further address and resolve this situation.” – Oscar Munoz, CEO, United Airlines
American has their bad days but are my favorite along with Southwest. Delta has gotten much better in recent years but still can't match American or SWA.
Boy, do I ever miss the old Midwest Express of the 80's and 90's.
I do that all the time with American Airlines.
March 17, 2017
CHICAGO, IL, March 17, 2017 – At its annual awards gala in New York last night, PRWeek, the world’s leading public relations and communications publication, presented United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz with its coveted Communicator of the Year award for his efforts over the past year to better engage with employees and customers as he led a dramatic transformation at the airline, all while recovering from a near-fatal heart attack and subsequent heart transplant.
I think you’re right.
United was being a jerk, not the passenger.
He was being rational in the face of irrationality.
United reacted to him the way school teachers react to a kid forming a gun with his fingers.
I hope I have the good sense to act the way this guy did in the same situation.
Agreed.
Send their little special snowflakes on another flight rather then throwing paying passengers off?
A lack of planning on United's part should not result in their assaulting one of their paying passengers.
But apparently they are dumber then a democrat voter.
If I still flew domestically I would make it a point to avoid United.
So do I.
I also assume that by confirming my flight there is going to be a seat for me, or, if there isn’t, that they will try and entice me with gifts into voluntarily relinquishing it to someone else.
The last thing I expect them to do is to be a jerk about their inability to entice me off the plane.
I hope to have the presence of mind that this passenger did if the airline chooses to be a jerk.
You should go to the United page on Facebook. The CEO has posted a total BS non apology. There are 35,000 comments and its really ugly.
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