Posted on 04/18/2017 11:54:41 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This takes the cake for the most flawed analysis proposed thus far. Simply based on economics, takes no account for the actual contract in place, nor for the history that is behind the various clauses in that contract regarding denial of boarding and the limit on required compensation (to protect the airlines) created in the aftermath of a Nader lawsuit decades ago.
No, the supersaver ticket did not have a different contract of carriage, it was just bought at a different time when the free market price allowed the passenger to save money. Likely limitations on cancelling the ticket or changing the reservation, but “reservation for space” was not disadvantaged, and once he was boarded United could only remove him for violations of its Rule 21, not even argued by United.
If United wanted to come up with a contract that clearly stated up front all the economic justifications this author suggests - it could do so. Likely would see a loss of ticket sales.
Soon, some of them would be throwing their friends and relatives off the plane for profit.
Sometimes your choices are stupid and right, or smart and wrong.
I have a friend who years ago was riding a bicycle and was hit by a dump truck.
He said he had the right of way, so he just went ahead even though he saw the dump truck start to move.
I asked him later why he didn’t just let the dump truck go. He told me you have to enforce your rights. You just can’t let them walk all over you.
He told me this while he was wearing a cast, holding a cane.
You are correct. Shame I had to wade through six replies before hitting the truth.
It doesn’t matter if United does this 1 time or 100 Million times.. this was absolutely wrong and United is paying and will pay a very very high price for it....
Not only that, but the idiot CEO’s initial response that he was “sorry” that some passengers had to be “re-accommodated”... just tells you all you need to know about that airline and its passenger.... Apparently to the CEO of this company bashing some guys head off an arm rest then dragging him off a plane is just a “re-accommodation”... Not only that but for days they continued to do things that had nothing to do with the incident... Oh, we’ll no longer overbook... well this wasn’t an open booking problem... Oh we’ll reimburse everyone on the flight their ticket price (as long as they agree not to sue us).... etc etc etc.. only last FRIDAY did they finally say we will stop bumping seated passengers for crew members.... which is what this was all about in the first place...
This wasn’t a one time incident, may have been an extreme incident but its clear from the attitude of the CEO on down that the paying customer is an afterthought to United. Fortunately, they are likely to have far fewer of them tow worry about for quite a while.... MORONS
Someone should ask him what HE would do if he was dragged off a plane to give space for a non-paying ticket.
The problem is that you had already bought that seat, so the property was thus “yours” for the duration of the flight. Reneging on the contract between the buyer and the seller, which is essentially what United did, undermines all of mercantile law.
It would suck, but you’ve got to pick your battles in life. The fact of the matter is airlines have a nearly absolute right to kick people off their planes, this was a battle he could not win. Best to leave the plane quietly and use his anger to get fat cash from United. Did he really think “if I throw a loud enough temper tantrum they’ll let me stay”? Haven’t we all learned better by the time we get to puberty? Once you start throwing a tantrum the airline kind of HAS to pull you off the plane, otherwise everybody learns the way to avoid getting bumped is being childish.
Amazing...this cr@p came from a Reason contributor?
Whether they should have had the right to bump him at that stage with the airport police goons—it was an idiotic PR and business move.
Obviously.
bkmk
They gave up control, not liability.
I guess we will find out who was right and who is wrong when we see if the passenger writes a check to United Airlines or if United airlines writes a check to the passenger.
Agreed.
I also find the rarity of such an incident to be very much in Dao’s favor. Look at it this way —
If this actually happened all the time, and someone suddenly complained, their neighbors and co-workers would say, “Why make a big deal out of it? So they knocked you unconscious, dragged you off the plane, and gave away the seat you paid for. Man, that’s happened to me dozens of times! It’s what they do! Don’t go whining about it!”
But no.
It’s not common. Because it’s not right.
So now when people hear about this, they gasp and they instantly say “That’s not right! I’ve never heard of such a thing!” Because it’s obvious that no sensible company would try to act like this policy made sense.
Most people would not need to be “dragged off of a plane.”
They would see it as unfair to them but would act with more decorum than this individual.
He acted as this was some sort of demonstration in the ‘60s for civil rights.
Give me a break...laying down in the aisle?
Clearly the guy was planning a lawsuit from the beginning.
More profitable than what he previously did with narcotics.
The case of being ejected from a seat is so extremely rare there is no good reason to not auction off seats to the lowest bidder with no cap on the funds the airline can pay out.. once people are buckled into their seats the odds of this happening is way less than 0.09%, so that even a 100k$ payout would not hurt the airlines, and only be fair,
I was removed from my seat after buckling in out of a flight of Dallas a few years ago. A two hour flight turned into a 12 hour delay arriving at my destination after midnight separated from my luggage... not fun, even with the free ticket voucher i was given , I would not have gave up my seat other wise but for fear of arrest.
The author is wrong, suggesting, in error, there was no legal question about United’s action, while in fact there is, plenty.
All other matters he discusses are side issues and don’t change the legal ramifications.
In other words, he offers another diversion from the essentials of the case.
“the airlines have been limited as to how much they can offer. 400% of your one-way fare, $1350 maximum”
Clarification - the airlines can take advantage of the limit they have to pay a person denied boarding.
They are free to go over the limit for denied boarding.
However, they were in a situation beyond the denied boarding - the passenger was on the plane and any question of his confirmed, reserved space was over.
The contract of carriage (COC) is very detailed, considering all kinds of scenarios to protect the airline in particular (how many times do you think someone’s antler carried in baggage comes up - but it’s in every COC). Either they can deny boarding and compensate in compliance with Rule 25, or they can remove a passenger from the airplane for a violation of Rule 21. They didn’t cover the situation where they needed the seats for someone more important in their view, for whatever reason. Thus it simply becomes a free market - and they needed to up the offer until someone took it.
A VA employee beat an old Veteran to death and that didn’t get 1/10th the attention this has.
This is a stupid article because it is mostly about overbooking when we know that the flight was not overbooked.
Also, the discussions of compensation and “bumping” are generally making no distinction between bumping a passenger at the gate and removing from their assigned seat and booting them off the aircraft. By virtue of the airline’s contract with the passenger, this is legally something very different.
The story is resonating not so much because the passenger in question is such a compelling figure or behaved particularly well, but because of public unhappiness with the Stalinist police state mentality of airline customer service especially in coach class. So many flight attendants appear to be either grumpy older women or very prickly gay men that the customer experience has gone down the tubes. The first way to fix the airlines is to hire different gate agents and different flight attendants. Employees who cannot muster a smile and be nice to customers should not be allowed to continue on the job. The airlines could easily fix this by sending undercover evaluators on their flights, but then they don’t really want to know, do they?
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