Crew travel priority over paying pax?
 

I mean, crew must travel, but I think this it taking it a bit far?? This is going to cost United a lot of money, I can smell the lawyers from here.

Video surfaces of man being dragged from overbooked United flight

It was the Chicago Airport Police which dragged him off using force, not the airline.

United is not at fault for how he was removed, however their handling of the situation prior to requesting police assistance should be examined.

To explain why it is cost effective (even to offer each person $800).

These crew were being moved in order to cover a timed out crew due to delays. It is better for the airline to pay off a few passengers out than cancel multiple flights due to a crew timeout.

United must have asked the Police to remove the passenger.

Agree though the Airlines handling of the situation was bad, they should have just kept increasing the denied boarding compensation amount, till someone took it and got off voluntarily!
Far cheaper option than what eventuated!

I would imagine the person at United responsible for removing pax from an overboooked flight doesn't have a compensation budget. If he/she did then this wouldn't have happened.

Look through the headline. This is another example of some back office bean counter leaving front line staff with no option but to use force to off load extra pax. I'll bet said bean counter won't be blamed for the bad PR though.

I read they offered up to 800 dollars but no takers, staff should have then referred it to the Duty Manager to deal with it, and authorise higher payment.

United are being absolutely smashed on social media and general reporting of the incident.

It does not matter who did the removal, United's name is all over it and it must be costing them millions in bad publicity.

They literally could have offered someone a hundred thousand bucks or even multiples of that for the seat and got off cheaply looking at the PR disaster this has become.

It's costing them now and will continue to.

Unbelievable it came to that.

Charter a King Air to move the crew. The distance wasn't that far 4 x $800+ would cover most of the costs. [charter in USA cheaper than Oz generally]

Now lots of publicity to cope with. By the way the carrier was actually REpublic Airways on a code share with UA...bit like Chobham here and QF..

It must be great that you have access to their on line booking system and can see the drop in bookings that you clearly know are as a result of this.

Dreaming. It will be forgotten in a week.

They were not offering $800. They were offering 800 points. Big difference. $800 would've seen a stampede to get off.

United asked the passenger to get off. The vast majority do and deal with the problem at the gate. Some don't then the police get involved.

No need to for anyone to leave the aircraft if they have a valid ticket. The problem is United's. Did not deal with it well.

Offloads happen for a variety of reasons, day in day out. I would hope those contributing to the discussion are well familiar with the concept.

United's real problem is the execution, and raises a lot of questions. If we assume it was a last minute requirement (rather than a stuff up at the gate), how do you proceed with the offload when an adult refuses to budge like a grumpy toddler?

The outcome would suggest, random selection doesn't work. Perhaps they should they should have sweetened the deal until volunteers emerged.

United and for that matter other Airlines don't tell the police how to do their job.

If you get asked to move on by a police officer then you just move on. Particularly at an airport in the US!

Agreed, being asked to do something by Airline, Security or the Police and refusing to comply isn't going to end well for the person concerned and not just in the US, The person concerned obviously failed the "attitude test" applied by the airline and/or the police.

Fascinating that it happened to be a white doctor. Would it have played out differently if it was a pregnant female? Or a Muslim? Or a Mexican without papers? Fascinating.

Do the police get told how to do their job by the airlines? Interesting question. If the airport police are asked by the airline (or the Captain) to remove a passenger, then they will. Normally it will be because the passenger is drunk and disorderly, or has assaulted someone. On this occasion were the police advised that the passenger to be removed was a random selection? Or were they just asked to remove a passenger who refused to deboard.

Don't be too quick to judge the police. United has some serious explaining to do.

Someone who isn't going to follow the order of gate staff, cabin crew and police don't really fit the criteria for flying anway.

The police had no option, he had to come off peacefully or forcibly. He chose the harder of the two. The scene and injuries were indeed very unfortunate. If he wasn't in a confined space surrounded by people he might have been tasered or sprayed.

None of us like being "told", but sometimes you have to just cop it on the chin. Obviously lack of sleep/long day etc can make it harder.

United did what probably every airline in the world have had to do at some stage.

It never ceases to amaze me what Police, Fire, Ambos put up with in their day to day duties.

I know some flight crew contracts have stipulations on who can and cannot be used to ferry paxing crew. Whistling up a charter may not be that simple.

We are only talking about UA here...

Right ideas but poor execution. Smashing a guys face into an armrest is assault. Anyway we will see what the lawyers say.

The UA CEO needs a few lessons in communication too..

Field day for the lawyers in the States!

Might get rich!