USA Today: UA forcibly remove random pax from flight

[Ambient Sheep]

Originally Posted by WingNut60

And that raises another point, some video footage seems to suggest that he was travelling with a female companion. See female running down aisle in hot pursuit.
Can we presume in such a case, if it is the case, that the offer to re-accommodate was for both him and his companion? After all, they only needed ONE more seat, or so it has been reported.

At least one report I've read states that after the first couple volunteered (thus two more seats needed), the third person to volunteer was indeed the doctor's wife, the doctor himself only refusing once he realised that the flight they were going to put them on was the following afternoon, not later on the same evening.

So I assume that the woman seen running down the aisle after him is indeed his wife.

[p.j.m]

Good to see UA being held responsible by the use of Social media and phone video footage.

No way their PR spin doctors could get away with denying everything and blame the passenger.

[Koan]

Originally Posted by Matt48

It's a ONE hour flight FFS, how urgent was it.

That is a good question. Everyone seems to be fine with the crew taking a 5 hour van ride. Lets say you are on the Monday morning flight from SDF-ORD connecting to say HKG. You have a confirmed ticket. Now your flight to Chicago is delayed 5 hours meaning you will miss your connection to Hong Kong. You have to stay in a hotel one night. The Tuesday flight to HKG is full, you know you are now on standby for that flight, not confirmed.

How many days are you happy to be delayed in Chicago because one passenger refuses to comply with a valid instruction to deplane, thus allowing you crew to get to the hotel in SDF to get their required rest so you can get out on time?

[dsc810]

Can someone tell me what happened after all the scuffle?
Did an airline employee take the now vacated seat?
Did the flight leave "normally"?
There are some reports that the said evicted passenger then returned - if true and it seems unlikely this is the most bizarre aspect of the case - did they just let him go outside the plane and then he simply walked back on and if so where did he sit or was it just to retrieve his hand luggage.

Frankly if anyone offered me $800 to leave I'd regard it as a joke, given the consequential knockon losses to me and other costs including loss of opportunity I'd likely incur as a result of not being on the flight.
Add a zero on the end and I'd go.

[CCGE29]

The passengers were de-boarded so that the aircraft could be sanitised. When the UA crew did arrive at the aircraft they were 'booed' by the passengers and the flight finally arrived in SDF nearly 3 hours late.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by dsc810

Can someone tell me what happened after all the scuffle?
Did an airline employee take the now vacated seat?
Did the flight leave "normally"?

Most reports suggest that the flight finally left after a delay of a couple of hours with the DH crew on board (and being given a hard time by some of the passengers, which seems a tad unfair as it wasn't the crew's fault).

[Koan]

Read the fine print it is all in the contract of carriage. Wow, with cheering on Booing the crew who were instructed by their Crew Scheduling department to DH on a certain flight, who would face certain discipline up to and including being sacked for refusal. I'm done with this thread. I thought this was a professional pilots forum.

[SMT Member]

Originally Posted by Koan

How many days are you happy to be delayed in Chicago because one passenger refuses to comply with a valid instruction to deplane, thus allowing you crew to get to the hotel in SDF to get their required rest so you can get out on time?

You are trying to push the responsibility for the problem of an airline over to its customers. That's not how it works. If your operation has, for whatever reason, taken a tumble, you don't attempt to save the itinerary of one customer by screwing over the next one.

UA had a phalanx of options available to them for getting that crew in place, in time; they chose what they thought was the cheapest and the path of least resistance.

And lets dispense with the 'valid instruction' BS; the instruction was neither valid nor legal. It was an ill-advised attempt at saving a few bucks by screwing over paying customers, nothing more or less.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by Chris2303

The idea of offering vouchers seems more than a little absurd.

Offer $800 cash and you might get more takers.

As pointed out more than once in this thread, a passenger can insist that denied boarding compensation be made in cash rather than vouchers or flights.

Airlines typically forget to mention this and trade on passengers' ignorance of the rules.

[mickjoebill]

Was the passenger arrested?
If so, was he charged with resisting arrest?

[Less Hair]

Why can they throw people out before the maximum permissible compensation has been offered?

[robdean]

UA have the eyes of the world on them right now.
The quibbling about T&Cs, captain's discretion etc. is, for them, like arguing what piece the band should play whilst the ship goes down.
If, whilst at the top of the news cycle, they were to publicly and unconditionally offer this guy $1,000,000 by way of apology/compensation it would *pragmatically* be money very well spent. They'd likely get it back in stock value before they had time to sit down.
(BTW, please no blah about setting 'precedent' unless you are a lawyer: the worst precedent to set is avoiding doing something smart for fear that someone might demand you do something stupid later on on the basis of bad analogy).

[SnowFella]

Originally Posted by Less Hair

Why can they throw people out before the maximum permissible compensation has been offered?

Not that I'm in the know here, just read this during the day. There is no maximum permissible compensation, however there is a minimum permissible compensation.

[alwayzinit]

I have been watching the various issues of this story slowly leach out and the whole cause incident seems to come down to the inability of those who have screwed up to admit it.
Meaning, why was the attempt to get volunteers not fully explained, as NOT a simple case of overbooking, it was an operational issue to move crew around the network to operate another flight.
Had the full ramifications of the over book/DH need, been made public maybe, just maybe, the required offloads would have put their hands up.
However, the events that panned out were appalling, truly appalling. Complete overreaction by the security staff and a total nightmare that could have been avoided, had common sense been used.
Were there no seats blocked in the computer for the DH crew?
Were the gate staff not doing a manual count?

[framer]

At the end of the day there were most likely several people onboard who would have gladly got off the aircraft for a $300 cash and a night in a hotel. Seems pretty inexpensive now doesn't it. Go the accountants!

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by Less Hair

Why can they throw people out before the maximum permissible compensation has been offered?

In fact it's not at all clear whether they can "throw people out" at all (except for a small number of specific safety-related reasons, none of which applied here).

Originally Posted by SnowFella

There is no maximum permissible compensation, however there is a minimum permissible compensation.

And, more relevantly, there is the level of compensation that is necessary and sufficient to induce the required number of passengers to willingly give up their seats. That number always exists, United were simply too cheapskate to pay it.

[Just another SLF]

Originally Posted by Koan

Read the fine print it is all in the contract of carriage. Wow, with cheering on Booing the crew who were instructed by their Crew Scheduling department to DH on a certain flight, who would face certain discipline up to and including being sacked for refusal. I'm done with this thread. I thought this was a professional pilots forum.

Indeed. But there are also many people here whose custom pays the wages of said Professional Pilots, crew and the rest of the industry. We have both a genuine interest in the industry and the right to make our feelings known when we feel it (or parts of it) needs a monumental kick in the pant, as it does here.

[parabellum]

an aggressive Police Officer batter the customer and drag him unconscious down the aisle, bleeding, is NOT part of their job.....

The individual that did the physical stuff was wearing jeans and dressed like a security guard, not a police officer.

[robdean]

Originally Posted by parabellum

The individual that did the physical stuff was wearing jeans and dressed like a security guard, not a police officer.

Whether he was dressed as a central-casting cop or in clown shoes and a rainbow wig really doesn't have all that much bearing on the liabilities in this incident.

[parabellum]

Whether he was dressed as a central-casting cop or in clown shoes and a rainbow wig really doesn't have all that much bearing on the liabilities in this incident.

You have missed the point, the reference to which I referred was wrong in all respects, police were not battering a passenger unconscious.