Don't fly United

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are there regulations limiting how much the airlines can offer? I'm just curious. I have been booked for flights where they repeatedly begged people to take $200 voucher (which we all know is worthless).

Of course not. Their cheapness is what limits them.

[Anonymous]

The rule in overbooking situations should be to offer a voucher of increasing value until someone says, "sold". That's what I've seen at the gate for oversold flights before. That shuold have been what they did here.

I understand they need to be profitable but the greed is leading to situations like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The rule in overbooking situations should be to offer a voucher of increasing value until someone says, "sold". That's what I've seen at the gate for oversold flights before. That shuold have been what they did here.

I understand they need to be profitable but the greed is leading to situations like this.

Exactly. See an airline that does this right:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2017/04/09/why-delta-air-lines-paid-me-11000-not-to-fly-to-florida-this-weekend/#3be275254de1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing in either video appears to suggest that the man's head hitting the armrest across the aisle was an intentional act by the officers, but merely incidental to the man's removal from the seat and his subsequent toppling over across the aisle.

As has been said earlier in the thread, noncompliance with an officer's request, then order, will lead to use of force. If, in the course of a struggle against lawful use of force the resisting party sustains injuries, even serious/potentially life-threatening injuries merely incidental to the lawful use of force (such as a head incidentally hitting an armrest during the course of detainment), then that liability is on the resisting party...NOT the detaining officer in the course of his/her official duties.

It's no different than if, in the course of the use of lawful and non-lethal self-defense during a street encounter using a hand-to-hand technique, the offending party happens to be tripped over by the defending party and incidentally smacks his/her head on a curb, causing death by severe head injury...Courts (at least in the U.S.) generally hold that death or great bodily harm resulting incidentally to the use of non-lethal defensive methods against an offending party is not the liability of the defending party, as the defending party generally would not have reasonably known that the use of a defensive method established by law and precedent to be "non-lethal" would have resulted in death or great bodily harm.

I think part of what's disgusting about your defense of the airline and police actions here is that the police were acting at the behest of the airline, to protect their financial interests. This wasn't an unruly passenger who was a danger to others, this was a paying customer randomly selected for removal, because the airline refused to increase the incentive for being bumped. He was taken off to save the airline money, and the police were used to enforce United's corporate interests. That is disgusting, we should all be appalled, and their position is not defensible.

So the passenger who refused to comply with the crew's orders is going to comply with all their other orders when he's up in the air? Is he going to put his seatbelt on when requested; not smoke, etc? How do we know that, given he's already shown he's not willing to comply with one order?

Oh FFS, you are making a textbook strawman's argument. How much is United paying you to shill on this site? Or are they simply not threatening to beat you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:United has a lot problems here, so does the Chicago PD for this happening. However, there comes a point when the passenger has to take a little responsibility for this. No matter how unfair it was he was kicked off the plane (and it was unfair, wrong, and completely mishandled), if he has been chosen to removed from the plane eventually he needed to understand that it was going to be him no matter how wrong, terrible, or bad it was for him. They were not going to take someone off in his place because he refused to obey the order to deplane. He needed to get off the plane before it got physical.

The people who 'arrested' or removed him, or whatever the right word is did a lousy job of it. But under the circumstances facing him ultimately he ran out of alternatives. He either had to get off the plane and take out his anger and frustration with someone in authority at UA at the airport, or risk being hurt, arrested, and/or several other bad outcomes on top of those. There are other threads on this site that detail people being removed from planes for bad, wrong, or immoral reasons, not many of those people took the dispute to the point that the airline had to physically remove them from the flight.

I hate what happened, but both sides have some blame to share for it to get to this place, 90% United, 10% passenger.

I hope the passenger gets just compensation for his injuries, and I hope others don't put themselves at risk for being hurt like he did.

What should have happened is that United wither up the offered compensation package for a true volunteer OR it should have routed ITS EMPLOYEES on to another flight or airline. Anything else is total bull hockey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing in either video appears to suggest that the man's head hitting the armrest across the aisle was an intentional act by the officers, but merely incidental to the man's removal from the seat and his subsequent toppling over across the aisle.

As has been said earlier in the thread, noncompliance with an officer's request, then order, will lead to use of force. If, in the course of a struggle against lawful use of force the resisting party sustains injuries, even serious/potentially life-threatening injuries merely incidental to the lawful use of force (such as a head incidentally hitting an armrest during the course of detainment), then that liability is on the resisting party...NOT the detaining officer in the course of his/her official duties.

It's no different than if, in the course of the use of lawful and non-lethal self-defense during a street encounter using a hand-to-hand technique, the offending party happens to be tripped over by the defending party and incidentally smacks his/her head on a curb, causing death by severe head injury...Courts (at least in the U.S.) generally hold that death or great bodily harm resulting incidentally to the use of non-lethal defensive methods against an offending party is not the liability of the defending party, as the defending party generally would not have reasonably known that the use of a defensive method established by law and precedent to be "non-lethal" would have resulted in death or great bodily harm.

I think part of what's disgusting about your defense of the airline and police actions here is that the police were acting at the behest of the airline, to protect their financial interests. This wasn't an unruly passenger who was a danger to others, this was a paying customer randomly selected for removal, because the airline refused to increase the incentive for being bumped. He was taken off to save the airline money, and the police were used to enforce United's corporate interests. That is disgusting, we should all be appalled, and their position is not defensible.

+1. their staffing issues were not the customers' problem. They could have put the staff on another flight, cancelled the flights those staff were needed for in lousiville, booked a freakin' uber to drive the staff from chicago to illinois, etc etc etc.

Exactly. It would take about 4 and a half hours to do the drive. An uber would have cost about $500 or so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are there regulations limiting how much the airlines can offer? I'm just curious. I have been booked for flights where they repeatedly begged people to take $200 voucher (which we all know is worthless).

I think there is. Here is a link to the regulations and it seems like they state specific maximums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are there regulations limiting how much the airlines can offer? I'm just curious. I have been booked for flights where they repeatedly begged people to take $200 voucher (which we all know is worthless).

I think there is. Here is a link to the regulations and it seems like they state specific maximums.

Forgot the link: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/250.5

[Anonymous]

The airline instructed the passenger to deplane. He refused. Legally, the passenger is now trespassing. He ignored instructions from law enforcement officers (police) to deplane. The police physically removed said non compliant passenger. United is certainly to blamed for overbooking. The passenger is to blame for being dragged down the aisle since he chose to ignore the legitimate instructions of law enforcement

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The airline instructed the passenger to deplane. He refused. Legally, the passenger is now trespassing. He ignored instructions from law enforcement officers (police) to deplane. The police physically removed said non compliant passenger. United is certainly to blamed for overbooking. The passenger is to blame for being dragged down the aisle since he chose to ignore the legitimate instructions of law enforcement

Just so many hot topics in life, everyone has an opinion about what should have been done and how someone is to blame until it actually happens to them and then they reconsider (I don't want anyone to get an abortion until my teenage daughter gets pregnant, I am not for stem cell research until I get cancer, no obama care until I get sick and have no coverage). The airline is at fault here. And the protection of profits is so ludicrous, at all cost, we are chippig away at pieces of our humanity to one another. The airline waited until people were on board to start pulling people off. What a cluster f. Did they offer to pay for them to fly another airline? No they offered a flight almost 24 hours later. Give me a break.

How much money did the airline lose having three flight delayed 2 hours? What airplane was waiting to use that gate when the plane hadn't departed yet? Who is paying for the police or security to remove this man? Just to save $400. Because the airlines can't afford more money? Is everyone else in the plane to blame because no one else wanted to give up their seat either? Where does it end? IMO It starts and ends with United.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are regulations about how airlines choose who to bump, and the process (including compensation offers). My guess is United followed them. The person who was forcibly removed did not comply with a lawful order.

I don't work for United.. but I'm not sure why this passenger didn't just comply with the police asking him to leave. Does he also not pull over his car when police try to stop him?

This comparison is ridiculous. He did not commit a crime- he paid for the service. United is the one that overbooked the flight and then allowed everyone to board - the situation is their mistake and should not be remedied on the passanger's behalf.

Actually, he did commit a crime by failing to follow the orders of flight crew. Rule 21 of the Contract of Carriage. Federal law.

He also committed a crime by failing to comply with the orders of police, but that's a state law violation.

Well, United committed a crime first by refusing services that were paid for.

I agree with those who said they should've just sweetened the deal until they got volunteers. This is just a mess! That's no way to treat customers. It's not his fault they overbooked, and clearly getting to his job was just as important to him as it was for the flight crew to get to theirs. I'm sure there were some young college aged adventurous types with no pressing schedules who would've gladly given up seats if the pot had been sweetened.

Years ago when flying out of Amsterdam, I was told they were looking for volunteers to fly out the next day in the event they needed seats. I was offered a hotel stay and to be flown out in business class the next day, with a dinner voucher. I seriously considered it. Another night in Amsterdam, free hotel stay AND business class when I did fly out!!???!!! I decided I'd rather get home, as I'd spent enough time in Europe and was a bit homesick. Plus it was a hypothetical, not a real offer. BUT if they were overbooked and needed people to volunteer, I probably would have because it was a pretty sweet deal.

United messed up royally.

[Anonymous]

How much money did the airline lose having three flight delayed 2 hours? What airplane was waiting to use that gate when the plane hadn't departed yet? Who is paying for the police or security to remove this man? Just to save $400. Because the airlines can't afford more money? Is everyone else in the plane to blame because no one else wanted to give up their seat either? Where does it end? IMO It starts and ends with United.

Yeah, I get that some airlines are operating at a loss these days, but physically removing passengers is where it stops making sense.

I can't believe they still tried to call it voluntary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing in either video appears to suggest that the man's head hitting the armrest across the aisle was an intentional act by the officers, but merely incidental to the man's removal from the seat and his subsequent toppling over across the aisle.

As has been said earlier in the thread, noncompliance with an officer's request, then order, will lead to use of force. If, in the course of a struggle against lawful use of force the resisting party sustains injuries, even serious/potentially life-threatening injuries merely incidental to the lawful use of force (such as a head incidentally hitting an armrest during the course of detainment), then that liability is on the resisting party...NOT the detaining officer in the course of his/her official duties.

It's no different than if, in the course of the use of lawful and non-lethal self-defense during a street encounter using a hand-to-hand technique, the offending party happens to be tripped over by the defending party and incidentally smacks his/her head on a curb, causing death by severe head injury...Courts (at least in the U.S.) generally hold that death or great bodily harm resulting incidentally to the use of non-lethal defensive methods against an offending party is not the liability of the defending party, as the defending party generally would not have reasonably known that the use of a defensive method established by law and precedent to be "non-lethal" would have resulted in death or great bodily harm.

I think part of what's disgusting about your defense of the airline and police actions here is that the police were acting at the behest of the airline, to protect their financial interests. This wasn't an unruly passenger who was a danger to others, this was a paying customer randomly selected for removal, because the airline refused to increase the incentive for being bumped. He was taken off to save the airline money, and the police were used to enforce United's corporate interests. That is disgusting, we should all be appalled, and their position is not defensible.

So the passenger who refused to comply with the crew's orders is going to comply with all their other orders when he's up in the air? Is he going to put his seatbelt on when requested; not smoke, etc? How do we know that, given he's already shown he's not willing to comply with one order?

Oh FFS, you are making a textbook strawman's argument. How much is United paying you to shill on this site? Or are they simply not threatening to beat you?

Exactly! PP must work for United. His logic is insane. Maybe he needs to be dragged off a plane because someone decided they needed the seat for their own and his needs (or money paid) didn't matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The airline instructed the passenger to deplane. He refused. Legally, the passenger is now trespassing. He ignored instructions from law enforcement officers (police) to deplane. The police physically removed said non compliant passenger. United is certainly to blamed for overbooking. The passenger is to blame for being dragged down the aisle since he chose to ignore the legitimate instructions of law enforcement

Not for overbookig -- for giving him a seat and the removing from once seated. If United needed the seat for an employee then hey shouldn't have allowed the passenger on in the first place. Still not clear at all how they could have screwed this up. Did they just realize at the last second they needed a seat for an employee?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The airline instructed the passenger to deplane. He refused. Legally, the passenger is now trespassing. He ignored instructions from law enforcement officers (police) to deplane. The police physically removed said non compliant passenger. United is certainly to blamed for overbooking. The passenger is to blame for being dragged down the aisle since he chose to ignore the legitimate instructions of law enforcement

Not for overbookig -- for giving him a seat and the removing from once seated. If United needed the seat for an employee then hey shouldn't have allowed the passenger on in the first place. Still not clear at all how they could have screwed this up. Did they just realize at the last second they needed a seat for an employee?

Yes, actually. The crew showed up after boarding started.