Posted on 04/13/2017 11:44:28 PM PDT by SteveH
Like all airlines, United has a very specific (and lengthy!) contract for carriage outlining the contractual relationship between the airline and the passenger. It includes a familiar set of provisions for when a passenger may be denied boarding (Rule 25: “Denied Boarding Compensation”).
When a flight is oversold, UA can deny boarding to some passengers, who then receive compensation under specific guidelines. However, Dao was not denied boarding. He was granted boarding and then involuntarily removed from the airplane. What does the contract say about that?
It turns out that the contract has a specific rule regarding “Refusal of Transport” (Rule 21), which lays out the conditions under which a passenger can be removed and refused transport on the aircraft. This includes situations where passengers act in a “disorderly, offensive, abusive, or violent” manner, refuse to comply with the smoking policy, are barefoot or “not properly clothed,” as well as many other situations.
There is absolutely no provision for deplaning a seated passenger because the flight is oversold.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
What you said sarcastically says it all of what's wrong with the Republican Party. I'm a FReeper, and a conservative, but not "righteous". I'm a Deplorable, and proud of it!
No, this incident has every airline in the country revising their policies on how to handle this in the future. There will definitely be higher/better compensation (compensation that is actually an incentive) to surrender a ticket. They’ll go out of their way to make sure that they have these issues settled BEFORE any passenger is seated and buckled up. That is a good thing.
As the law prof pointed out, their own guidelines provided no grounds upon which to ask/order him to deplane at that juncture. None.
That was a good post. I hope Dao marks a turning point when it comes to abusive treatment. I’ve thought from the beginning that the purpose of the TSA was to teach Americans that they have no rights. The airlines, United in particular, are just working off that principle. If things fundamentally change as a result of this shameful episode, Dao will have a valuable legacy.
This is just like the Rodney King incident, where a drug-infused criminal needed to be controlled. A view moments of a video stir people up who don't have all the information.
There's also lots of assumptions by people who hardly fly. Having flown nearly a million miles on hundreds of flights, it's clear this guy was a belligerent, uncooperative passenger who was a danger to himself and others. It's possible he saw an opportunity to stage an incident to set up lawsuits.
didn’t the UAL CEO and/or some other UAL spokesperson retract that and issue an apology to Dao?
I wonder is United’s board members still think Munoz is worth his multi million dollar salary?
I would seek as part of the agreement the ouster of the CEO, plus the equivalent of a year of his salary and bonuses.
Nothing less will change the culture of disdain for customers at UAL IMHO.
Then United should have left seats open, or gotten them there earlier. What do you call it when you sell more of something to more people than you have? Fraud.
And I haven't flown lately but I did work in the travel industry at one time and flew a lot. Many great people work for airlines, but I've also encountered many lazy, jaded employees whose attitude is what I described, especially in unionized airlines.
At a minimum there was some sort of poor planning by UAL concerning the four employees that needed to go to Nashville. The 4 employees should have been moved to Nashville earlier that day or the previous day, or there should have been a separate jet for the 4 employees, or else room on the plane for four employees before anyone got on the plane.
Maybe UAL is trying to save more and more money for rich upper management by more and more chiseling of customers. the latest-1 chisel might have been to toss employee routing and customers together in the same priority scheduling band (eg by bean counter N+1), and the latest might have been to try to give employees higher scheduling priority than customers once they were tossed together (eg by bean counter N+2), where all the bean counters had been acting under orders by UAL management to squeeze the last nickel that they could from the system. In turn the UAL management skims off the top 50% of savings from each bean counter idea and sticks those savings in their own pocket.
That’s why IMHO customer service has gone downhill year after year and decade after decade at UAL.
That’s also why IMHO the UAL CEO needs to be taken out.
And that is exactly how airlines view us, as a deplorables!
IMHO Munoz is worth firing after his disastrous interview. The guy was clearly choking on his words because he was not committed to customer satisfaction so much as something else... maybe lining his pockets.
I wonder if several other unsatisfied UAL customers are going to be coming out of the woodwork in the next few days, also with stories to tell. This one just happened to be videotaped.
hee come the entitlement police! only certified protected minority groups are allowed to be real protected minorities!
http://www.tmz.com/2017/04/14/rosa-parks-niece-united-passenger-dr-david-dao/
I thought boarding wasn’t complete until door was closed.
Sounds like what I am coming to understand. Probably in the REAL world, they could have kept upping the ante until someone bit. Everyone has their price.
I have a friend who just a month ago was already on a plane from Vegas back to Florida. The crew kept increasing the amount of airline credit given to two volunteers to wait until the next flight.
Finally, that number hit $1000 and two guys jumped up. United should’ve done the same.
Once you are on the plane, though, isn’t it true that they cannot remove you unless you’re breaking a rule? Finding this out is what has made a change in my mind. I agree he was being a jerk.
“he faked everything and made a drama queen production”
Yeah; when someone’s trying to get attention there’s no better and easier way than knocking out a few of his own teeth and inflicting a self-induced concussion.
Even if his screaming might’ve been over the top (which it may, or may not, have been), I’m glad he did it because it brought much-needed attention to the thuggery of the airlines. And if that eventually makes a path to investigating the overreaching abuse of the TSA, then so much the better.
As I understand it, the plane was not “oversold”. There were airline employees who wanted to fly stand by. They had not bought tickets. Their employer had not bought tickets. The plane was not “oversold”.
Probably the airline employees needed so desperately to get to the next destination due to Union rules and FAA rules and for no other reason.
The article seems to try to knockdown a strawman fake news created.
Whomever wrote this is the usual know-it-all idiot that forgets the facts and the law.
Pilots are in command and can remove ANY passenger for ANY reason. Period.
BS
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