USA Today: UA forcibly remove random pax from flight
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Thoughts come to mind:
1) Boarding completed
2) Crew rostering wakes up to the fact they are short-staffed at SDF.
3) Let's make fools of ourselves by trying to entice boarded pax off the fully-boarded flight, to make room for the deadheading crew that we had overlooked until now.
4) Bidding for vacated seats fails. (Everyone has his price, but we haven't gotten there . . .)
5) Call in the enforcers. Mess up our corporate PR.
1) Boarding completed
2) Crew rostering wakes up to the fact they are short-staffed at SDF.
3) Let's make fools of ourselves by trying to entice boarded pax off the fully-boarded flight, to make room for the deadheading crew that we had overlooked until now.
4) Bidding for vacated seats fails. (Everyone has his price, but we haven't gotten there . . .)
5) Call in the enforcers. Mess up our corporate PR.
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I've checked another operator's Conditions of Carriage. It makes no mention of when a passenger is boarded but Denial of Boarding is a term used by airlines to refuse a passenger travel. There are no time limits, for example, a passenger can pass the gate and be refused at the aircraft. They can be sat down and offloaded. A real buggers muddle and it appears, very expensive.
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There are plenty of charter operators in ORD and environs. A chartered twin to transport deadheading crew to SDF would be a LOT cheaper than all the adverse publicity!
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Just a paying customer, albeit one with quite a lot of Customer Service background, and I'm frankly astonished at some of the attempted explanations / justifications for UAs actions here.
They messed up, then messed up some more. Then their CEO opened his mouth and made it worse. The he opened it again and made it much, much worse. He's slowly moving this from an embarrassment, to a crisis, to something that puts his job at risk to something that could put the whole airline at risk.
This should be really simple. You're a commercial organisation. Your customers come first. Especially when they're already sitting on the aircraft. If you discover that you have to move some of your own staff around, that's not your customers' problem, it's yours. Sure, offer a bribe to see if it will solve your problem, but if they won't bite, you have to sort it out yourself.
Your need to get your staff somewhere does not outweigh your customers' needs to get somewhere.
If you, as a provider of a customer service, think that you have the right to mandatorily - or even forcibly - remove a customer from a plane in these circumstances, you need to take a good hard look at yourself. Because you don't.
Oh, your CofC may say that you do, but who cares. We all know that CofCs are there for the sole purpose of limiting your liability in the event of a problem. No-one reads them because there's no point. What's going to happen if I decline the Terms? You won't sell me a seat. I need to travel, so I have no option but to accept.
Same with nuances about legalities of the point of "boarding" or rights of the Commander. Very interesting to the lawyers I suppose, but of no interest to the public.
What we see is a man being physically dragged from his seat because UA's desire to move some staff around was more important to them than the people who'd paid good money to use their "service". Then we hear the CEO complain that the poor chap became "disruptive" after being asked to "voluntarily" leave the plane.
That's what we base out judgement on. A company that's disappeared so far up its own backside that it's forgotten that it exists only because people being willing to give it their business. Treat people with such disdain and contempt you simply don't deserve to exist.
They messed up, then messed up some more. Then their CEO opened his mouth and made it worse. The he opened it again and made it much, much worse. He's slowly moving this from an embarrassment, to a crisis, to something that puts his job at risk to something that could put the whole airline at risk.
This should be really simple. You're a commercial organisation. Your customers come first. Especially when they're already sitting on the aircraft. If you discover that you have to move some of your own staff around, that's not your customers' problem, it's yours. Sure, offer a bribe to see if it will solve your problem, but if they won't bite, you have to sort it out yourself.
Your need to get your staff somewhere does not outweigh your customers' needs to get somewhere.
If you, as a provider of a customer service, think that you have the right to mandatorily - or even forcibly - remove a customer from a plane in these circumstances, you need to take a good hard look at yourself. Because you don't.
Oh, your CofC may say that you do, but who cares. We all know that CofCs are there for the sole purpose of limiting your liability in the event of a problem. No-one reads them because there's no point. What's going to happen if I decline the Terms? You won't sell me a seat. I need to travel, so I have no option but to accept.
Same with nuances about legalities of the point of "boarding" or rights of the Commander. Very interesting to the lawyers I suppose, but of no interest to the public.
What we see is a man being physically dragged from his seat because UA's desire to move some staff around was more important to them than the people who'd paid good money to use their "service". Then we hear the CEO complain that the poor chap became "disruptive" after being asked to "voluntarily" leave the plane.
That's what we base out judgement on. A company that's disappeared so far up its own backside that it's forgotten that it exists only because people being willing to give it their business. Treat people with such disdain and contempt you simply don't deserve to exist.
A friend came out with a funny comment regarding these unfortunate events. (He travels a lot. )
"Why am I paying full fare...if, in reality, I am actually "standby" at all times?"
"Why am I paying full fare...if, in reality, I am actually "standby" at all times?"
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https://www.facebook.com/tickld/vide...5247751208371/
Is the just kill me part real??? This just gets worse and worse
Is the just kill me part real??? This just gets worse and worse
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If this doesn't go away, my prediction is that the board will ask Munoz to leave, along with a $10,000,000+ golden parachute.
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Forgetting all the legalistics, this whole episode, the way it is unfolding, is the result of two intelligence failures:
- The first was an artificial intelligence failure of a computer selecting the human victims.
- The second was a human intelligence failure, sending out a Tweet message to the general public and then following it up by sending out a written but different internal message that in essence blamed the customer, based on only half the information in hand.
I suppose that Mr. Munzo in a panic of what to say, what to say moment, relapsed back to his previous CEO experiences at CSX, a freight hauling company at the time he composed the internal letter. He did get one item right, "There are lessons to be learned." (all the way from the top to the floor at UAL)
- The first was an artificial intelligence failure of a computer selecting the human victims.
- The second was a human intelligence failure, sending out a Tweet message to the general public and then following it up by sending out a written but different internal message that in essence blamed the customer, based on only half the information in hand.
I suppose that Mr. Munzo in a panic of what to say, what to say moment, relapsed back to his previous CEO experiences at CSX, a freight hauling company at the time he composed the internal letter. He did get one item right, "There are lessons to be learned." (all the way from the top to the floor at UAL)
Whether UAL or the PD believe they were right it is irrelevant .....most of the World disagree.
This really is the time to go into PR overdrive and admit you were wrong and try to defuse the situation.
This really is the time to go into PR overdrive and admit you were wrong and try to defuse the situation.
But when one of those parties (who should know better) clearly subscribes to the "when you're in a hole, keep digging" philosophy, this one could go all the way ...