There is a point where United should have decided that "the ship had sailed" and made other arrangements. For example, what if the plane had backed out and was about to start to taxi? Would they have re-parked it in order to pull off 4 passengers in order to put their crew on board? If not, what would they have done? I think they probably would have let it go and they would have made other arrangements. Once everyone had boarded, and there were no takers, they should have regarded the plane as already started on its flight. Instead, they chose to immolate themselves as a company.
‘Instead, they chose to immolate themselves as a company.’
I read an article that quoted a top executive at a big PR firm. He said United may never fully recover their reputation. One of the most unsettling videos got 6,000,000 views within hours of being posted—and new/more people are watching it all the time.
“Once everyone had boarded, and there were no takers, they should have regarded the plane as already started on its flight. “
Uh no. That’s when they go to bumping people. Which isn’t a new policy or practice.
People can like it or not, but they aren’t going to say “oh well, that whole other flight that needs to be staffed is just going to have to be cancelled because we are short one seat on this one to get the staff there”.
Other people took the offer. No they were not happy, but they still did it. This was the one person that they had to bump.
Once everyone had boarded, and there were no takers, they should have regarded the plane
as already started on its flight. Instead, they chose to immolate themselves as a company.
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There were takers, 3 out of the needed 4 had already agreed to deplane. Now they may should
have went on down the line offering more, etc to get the 4th taker. Their Contract of
Carriage speaks to the process and will become a part of any court action.
Contract of Carriage - February 17, 2017 — United Airlines
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx