Posted on 04/13/2017 11:44:28 PM PDT by SteveH
A KEY FACT.
Dr. Dao wasn't ALONE on this flight. His WIFE and DAUGHTER were with him.
Let's say it was YOU and your WIFE and DAUGHTER. Your Wife doesn't speak ENGLISH and your Daughter is a little scared of flying anyway.
The AIRLINES could have picked SOMEONE Traveling ALONE to remove from the flight.
But they PICK YOU.
Would you leave the flight, and leave your daughter and wife alone on the flight ?
What if it had been just you and your daughter ?
WHY did they pick someone to remove who was traveling with FAMILY ? IT MAKES NO SENSE.
If he had elected to get off the flight, would the airline offer him the same 'deal' for his wife and daughter (compensation) ?????
They had their chance and didn't, so I'd say the answer was NO.
To me, boarding is a concept that applies only to passengers and not to crew. crew are always special cased since they help operate the passenger vessel. passengers are conveyed by the vessel. The passengers have to board the vessel at the embarkation point and then they are conveyed by the vessel to their destination.
in the case of a stolen ticket, there might be ambiguity. there would be legally boarded and illegally boarded, i imagine. but that distinction was moot in the case of dr. dao. his ticket was issued to him.
i think there is passenger boarding and there is a vessel boarding process. the process is a number of ordered steps defined in a procedure. passenger boarding refers to what the passenger does. he is holding a ticket which reputedly allows him and only him to board. his process starts when he gets the ticket and then is issued the boarding pass. then he goes through a gate and steps into the passenger transport vessel. It is an individual procedure.
Maybe it is analogous to an individual right in contrast to a collective right. One can always attempt to blur boundaries to something meaningless by re-interpreting an individual right as a collective right. But is that the correct thing to do?
Say your concept is correct. Then what happens when the doors are closed and then opened again to allow another person in or out, before the plane departs? Does that re-interpret the status of each individual’s “boarding” on the plane? Does each person’s boarding status flip flop every time the door is opened and closed? (No, I would assert that it obviously does not do so.)
What am I missing?
As one poster put it on another blog => ‘I’ve been trying to come up with how this could have possibly been screwed up worse. The only thing I could think of would have been to set the passenger on fire.’
——————————————————————————————My dog just came over and stared at me because I broke out laughing so loud. That is hilarious, and true.
Why? Their priority is supposed to be paying customers. In this case it was already seated passengers on a sold out flight. If customers really came first they would've (1) rented a car or small charter plane for the employees or (2) booked them on another airline.
The point here is that NO ONE, except a lot of other passengers, gave a damn about passengers.
We've become slaves to the corporate elite. This shows that even paying for something doesn't assure that consumers are any more than an inconvenient nuisance in their decision making.
You will be even less sympathetic when you you have to pay $50 more per ticket for a ticket that protects you from refusal of service. Of course you will end up buying the lower class ticket which does not protect you because you are really most interested in the lowest price. You will risk the 0.0009% chance of being involuntarily bumped. But you will be less sympathetic at the same time. Ain't life's contradictions great.
As I understand it from accounts I have read so far, only Dr. Dao’s wife was with him in the airplane.
As to whether it matters legally, I do not see any way that it does, at least based on the issues that have arisen so far, since everyone regardless of marital status has free will and will act according to their needs, desires and consciences.
As to the daughter, I do not know that she was with her parents on the airplane. But again, I do not see how it would matter based on the issues that have arisen so far.
The doctor had already been permitted to board by UAL staff, was already seated and was behaving himself quietly sitting in his seat patiently waiting for the plane to take off BEFORE the UAL GOONS and neanderthal Chicago cops began to beat him unconscious and drag his lifeless body off the plane.
Simply put, UAL criminally broke the contractual law they and the passengers are supposed to abide by. UAL is going to be sued for tens of millions of dollars, maybe even more and they are going to lose, it's a foregone conclusion.
Good post. Great one, actually.
If it was you, and your wife and child were on the plane, would you deplane or would you argue with them for wanting to remove JUST YOU ?
Remember, you will be stuck at the originating airport, your luggage will end up at the destination airport, as well as your wife and child who will be stranded there and possibly have no where to stay and no funds to use to eat.
WHY did the airlines choose a passenger who had FAMILY with him ?
If I was on his jury he would own United.
He had a boarding pass and was seated. That’s acceptance of the contract by both parties.
I understand that employees were required to be in a certain city by a certain date but that is not the problem, fault or responsibility of Uniteds customers.
“I thought boarding wasn’t complete until door was closed.”
The CEO stated:
“On Sunday, April 9, after United Express Flight 3411 was fully boarded, United’s gate agents were approached by crewmembers that were told they needed to board the flight.”
Pretty clear, whatever anyone might think in trying to justify United’s actions their own CEO admitted the passengers had boarded the flight. The contract was drafted by United, if they even tried to argue what the term “board” meant it would be construed against them - the common understanding of the term as SteveH explained is actually getting on the plane.
I have not seen definitive word on this specific case, but I know for a fact that "non-rev" employees flying standby are never given priority. The 4 employees were most likely a flight crew on the way to be positioned for their next flight. Flight crew gets priority.
I understand the anger at the situation, but let's try not to turn the mole hills in this mountain range into Mt. Everest. UAL clearly was not following their own policies and promises, but the 4 employees would not have been simply on standby - they had to have been flight crew.
I don’t understand what you mean. Am I mistaken that the man would NOT have had a leg to stand on (no pun intended) if the airline had NOT allowed him to board?
Hopefully this will alert every crew now to NOT allow boarding until the overbooking is solved.
I am not worried about “refusal of service”. I think the standard practice of the airline ought to continue because of what you mean by the very small chance of the bumping.
From my understanding it wasn’t the “refusal of service” that was the issue per se—it was the fact that they ALLOWED people to board and then tried to force them off (instead of bribing them :))
*snort*
:-)
Did they taze him?
‘As one poster put it on another blog => ‘I’ve been trying to come up with how this could have possibly been screwed up worse. The only thing I could think of would have been to set the passenger on fire.’’
Bol! That’s hilarious!
‘Yea, but he had purchased the seat at a discount.
United’s computer algorithm to pick who to boot apparently is designed to save the company money by choosing people who paid the least for their seats (to save refund costs).’
That applies at the gate, when the agents are booting passengers due to overbooking. As the article explained, if you read it, that doesn’t apply once a passenger has boarded and been seated.
I believe that's the "core issue".
The longer it drags on the worse it is for United's brand image.
The sooner they can make it go away the better for them.
"It was their job under federal regulations?" Really?
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