USA Today: UA forcibly remove random pax from flight

[Mr Optimistic]

(pax, obviously). Or you could just treat your customers as just that, customers. Failing that just treat them as human beings.

[JetpoweredMigrantWkr]

Well said! It costs nothing to be decent human being.

[portmanteau]

Wonder if this event will be subject to ICAO Annex 13 procedures? If so in due course we could all get to see every last detail.

[Airbubba]

Looks like United is already taking steps to quickly resolve the matter :

United to refund ticket cost to Flight 3411 passengers

Wednesday, April 12th 2017, 3:29 pm EDT
By Charles Gazaway, Digital Content Producer

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - The passengers who witnessed a man being forcibly removed from a Louisville-bound United Airlines flight are going to get their money back.

In an e-mail to WAVE 3 News, United Airlines media relations said, "All customers on flight 3411 on Sunday, April 9 are being compensated for the cost of their tickets."

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Flight 3411 was boarding at Chicago O'Hare Airport when United employees asked for four people to voluntarily give up their seats. Passengers were told the flight was overbooked and four United employees had to be flown to Louisville for their shift on Monday.

NBC Chicago has reported that the passenger forcibly removed, Dr. David Dao, 69, of Elizabethtown, KY, agreed, along with his wife, to take the offer of $800 each from United for their seats and take a later flight. The confrontation took place after the Daos learned there was not another flight that would get them to Louisville until Monday.

Witnesses said Dao told employees that he was a physician and had to get home to see patients on Monday.

Dao remains in a Chicago hospital where he is undergoing treatment for injuries suffered during his removal from the plane.

United to refund ticket cost to Flight 3411 passengers - wave3.com-Louisville News, Weather & Sports

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by portmanteau

Wonder if this event will be subject to ICAO Annex 13 procedures? If so in due course we could all get to see every last detail.

Already discussed. No, Annex 13 doeosn't apply.

[Harry Wayfarers]

This is the part that still makes no sense to me. This situation started with offers of compensation for people to give up their seat voluntarily. The airline can still raise the compensation amount until someone bites

But is this the rule applicable only to when a flight is overbooked because, as I have read, United have admitted that the flight wasn't overbooked and we all know the truth, that United were utilising the flight as a means of crew transport.

Now, as an ex crew scheduler there are a few possible scenarios of when that crew became scheduled to position from A to B:

1. It was a regular weekly crew rotation but a cock-up prevented the seats from being blocked-off, or:

2. There had been an operational problem, perhaps a crew going out-of-hours or a change of aircraft type, and this positioning crew had been called out from standby at their homes some hours before this flight was departing, or:

3. As per 2. except this positioning crew had been on airport standby duty and were called, quite literally, minutes before this flight was departing and with passengers already boarding.

I don't favour 1. or 3., my favoured is 2., that the crew had been called out from standby at home, I'd guesstimate at least 2 hours before STD, and somebody forgot, didn't bother, couldn't care, to notify passenger handling that their flight was going to be 4 seats short.

And would I be right in presuming that this happened over a weekend when no management may have been on duty to authorise a King Air or whatever?

[MarkD]

Originally Posted by TowerDog

And here is the other side of the story:

https://thepilotwifelife.wordpress.c...t-flight-3411/

I remember 9/11. Do you?

Things to consider - 0. No passengers, aviation gets a lot smaller. Yes, laws and conditions of carriage exist but they are not perfect instruments. Other jurisdictions have chosen stronger enforcement in favour of passengers.

[pax2908]

Originally Posted by Mr Optimistic

(pax, obviously). Or you could just treat your customers as just that, customers. Failing that just treat them as human beings.

Yes but this only addresses the extreme cases, and possibly front line staff will continue to be in impossible situations Customer Needs vs Company Standard Policy. I can only imagine that whoever decided he/she needed someone off the plane, was under such pressure that he/she is not the only one at fault. I am hoping that more details will be known.
Yes, use common sense, but how nasty the machinery behind can be? You will know better (maybe).

[Three Lima Charlie]

Did anyone else read on Monday that after Dr. Dao was removed, the second time, the passengers were deplaned back into the terminal so the cleaning crew could take care of the mess? Saw the following reported in a local Louisville newspaper:

Powell said he and other passengers were in shock, but the worst part, for him, came when Dao returned to the plane and was cornered near the bathroom in the back - closer to Powell's students. "I'm thinking to myself, 'Nothing good is coming of this,'" Powell said. "... I removed my kids from the plane, saying we don't need to see this stuff. We got up and left." The group was quickly followed by a father and his eight-year-old daughter, who was crying along with one of Powell's students, he said. Soon after, the airline deboarded the plane to clean up blood from the incident.

It was reported that some passengers with small children refused to re-board the flight, and took travel vouchers from United for a later flight. Thus the flight 3411 departed two hours later, with EMPTY SEATS.

[SalNichols]

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors are considering a rule that would prohibit the use of SFPD to enforce policy decisions on the part of any airline. IOW, if you choose to deplane a passenger under overbooking circumstances, you get to do it...and you get to absorb the full liability of your decision.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Originally Posted by Airbubba

Looks like United is already taking steps to quickly resolve the matter :

United to refund ticket cost to Flight 3411 passengers - wave3.com-Louisville News, Weather & Sports

So it has already cost them several times as much as it would have done to bribe someone with a few grand to get off the flight. That's without the various lawsuits and the share price.


How on earth anyone thought that was clever is completely beyond me.


Look, if you offer $800 it'll maybe be jumped at by a foreign student who is bumming around the USA for a few months and it doesn't matter which day, or week, they get there, but if there ain't enough of them on the flight no professional is going to lose a night at home and a day at work for that little.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Originally Posted by pax2908

front line staff will continue to be in impossible situations Customer Needs vs Company Standard Policy

There's this thing called "empowerment" which some employers, particularly in service industries, have come across. It's been around for quite a few years, now, actually.

[galaxy flyer]

Originally Posted by West Coast

Yup, love the consternation here, people will continue to choose based on cost and to a lesser degree convenience. I as an airline pilot buy tickets when the family has to be somewhere on a timeline. That often times puts me on the competition's aircraft.

Based the evidence here, buying a ticket is useless at actually guaranteeing a seat on set timeline.

[G-CPTN]

In the original circumstance where passengers were offered $800 to 'defer' - were they offered overnight accommodation? - or were they expected to cover that from the $800?
Were the displaced passengers given a guaranteed seat the following day? - or were they left to find their own onward travel out of the $800?

[lomapaseo]

So it has already cost them several times as much as it would have done to bribe someone with a few grand to get off the flight. That's without the various lawsuits and the share price.

Would it be worth it for me to hold out for ten grand to get off a flight the next time if I find myself being asked?

Somehow I suspect that all airlines from now on will have a nuclear option available that does not publicly go above today's going rate.

[Airbubba]

Looks like the attorneys are going after the CVR on the plane. Remember the naïve days when we were told that it could only be used for safety purposes?

Maybe moot in this case since the plane has probably operated several sectors since Sunday.

Cockpit cameras are just around the corner...

Attorneys for doctor yanked from United flight seeks to preserve evidence

Wednesday, April 12th 2017, 4:36 pm EDT
By Makayla Ballman, Digital Content Producer

CHICAGO, IL (WAVE) - Attorneys for Dr. David Dao, the man who was forcefully pulled off United Airlines flight 3411, have filed an emergency bill of discovery.

Dr. Dao is seeking to preserve the surveillance videos, cockpit voice recordings, passenger and crew lists, incident reports, and other materials related to United Airlines flight 3411.

Dr. Dao says it's "crucial and essential" that the materials be preserved. If they are not, he says he could face "serious prejudice."

Dr. Dao's request also seeks to require the city of Chicago, which operate O'Hare International Airport, to preserve the materials.

Dr. Dao, a family member and his attorneys will speak at a press conference on Thursday at 10 a.m (central time) in Chicago.

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Attorneys for doctor yanked from United flight seeks to preserve - wave3.com-Louisville News, Weather & Sports

[newfoundglory]

Wasn't it an $800 voucher ?

Has to be more, and only as cash in hand - Voucher is no good.

What gets me is, this situation should never occur.

You don't board people onto an aircraft, until everything is in order. Every pax has an assigned seat or is denied boarding if the flight is oversold.

You forcibly remove pax who are highly disruptive, or a danger to themselves or others.

You never deplane a seated commercial passenger - Ever.

I don't believe it matters too much what the contracts or terms, or even the captain says.

If you have paid for your ticket, checked in, received boarding pass and crossed the threshold of the aircraft door to your seat - it is too late.

It is total madness and too far into the performance of the contract to invoke some policy small print, or panicking and calling the police for help.

I do hope the police send a clear message to airlines that they will not become involved in such rediculous practices.

[SATCOS WHIPPING BOY]

Originally Posted by lomapaseo

Would it be worth it for me to hold out for ten grand to get off a flight the next time if I find myself being asked?

Somehow I suspect that all airlines from now on will have a nuclear option available that does not publicly go above today's going rate.

If that is how it is put to you then yes, hold out but I suspect though that someone else might agree to leave instead of you for a much smaller sum of money. Almost an auction principle.

There will always be someone willing to leave for less. If UA had offered $1200 per seat they may have had 20 people to choose from.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Originally Posted by SATCOS WHIPPING BOY

There will always be someone willing to leave for less. If UA had offered $1200 per seat they may have had 20 people to choose from.

So whose clever idea was it to stop at $800, then, and do they still have a job?


Instead of a few grand they've spent millions, which makes no sense at all - if they had budget authority for millions they would also have had budget authority for the few grand.

[HEMS driver]

Attorneys for doctor yanked from United flight seeks to preserve evidence

Wednesday, April 12th 2017, 4:36 pm EDT
By Makayla Ballman, Digital Content Producer

CHICAGO, IL (WAVE) - Attorneys for Dr. David Dao, the man who was forcefully pulled off United Airlines flight 3411, have filed an emergency bill of discovery.

What they really need are the recordings of the phone conversations between the airline and the airport police, and the recordings of the police radio communications between dispatch and the officers who boarded the flight.