Sounds like a lawsuit for a multitude of reasons in the making
One person was not United.
I would have taken the $800
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...
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.
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.
The video will make a GREAT COMMERCIAL!..........................for their competitors..............
Overbooking - that should not even be legal. Period!
United should have taken their “standby” crew to Louisville on another flight, or rented a Cessna for them or something.
Wow. What did they do to his face? And, dragging him down the isle? This was not your average ejection.
Even First Class?
I would have accepted the title to the airplane.
No less.
I get that overbooking is a tool to make up for last minute cancellations and that if they didn’t overbook, flights would be more expensive. I also get that airlines are not hugely profitable so they have to do things like overbook. I also get that once they overbook, someone is going to have to take another flight whether they like it or not. So in that sense, once they had all the people on the plane, someone was going to be taken off one way or another. The incredibly stupid thing that the airline did was allow extra people on the plane. That was a huge mistake and they should get a lot of bad PR for that.
” . . . The passengers United will not be divided . . . “ - social justice warrior