Actually, you didn't. You offered a reference to 14 CFR 250.5

That, as has been pointed out to you, stipulates the compensation that the airline must pay to those denied boarding involuntarily. It does not limit what the airline can offer in order to solicit those willing to voluntarily give up their spot.

None of which seems to be trying terribly hard to dissuade me from my view that I'm quite happy not going to the USA.


My main reasons, before Trump, were the guns and the fingerprints. My wife has to go to the USA on business from time to time, but she's long since decided to avoid using USA airlines, so as she wouldn't use United anyway they won't be losing her custom over this incident.

On another forum someone posted a link to an article about how many passengers on United and other airlines have been involuntarily bumped off the flight.

42,500 in 5 years - average over 20 a day

Two other airlines have higher pro rata rates, but maybe United is larger, I don't know.

There is also a comparison of voluntary rates. Between the 2 categories United is bumping about 1 in 1000 passengers.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...LeL/story.html

Others will know more than me, but I assume that overbooking happens because some business travellers who don't know how long their visit might be are allowed to book a spread of 4 or 5 trips and not pay until they actually choose which one to turn up for.

A few years ago, I saw an airline pilot friend do this with hotels. We arrived a day before him, and because we had 2 or 3 hours to spare in the afternoon we had to drive around them and decide which one he liked (and possibly us too, though in the end the unbooked one we arrived in at 10 pm could let us stay the whole term).

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Tell us please that you would never have before imagined anything like this happening to a passenger already boarded and seated in their allocated seat? Or maybe you are you saying there is an SOP for passengers finding themselves in such a situation? :ugh:

The staff executing what they saw as within their authority and following protocol were clearly idiots who should never be employed in any capacity on an aircraft.

If the captain was aware of what his co-workers/crew were doing and did nothing to intervene then he or she too should never be employed in any capacity on an aircraft, doors closed or not. A decision to do nothing in a crisis is not a good propensity in a cockpit especially if it dismisses a deteriorating cabin environment entirely.

The eventual apology from Oscar Munoz is even dressed in a way that indicates it is nothing to do with him. It is totally to do with culture from the top that makes employees feel they are empowered or can get away with such barbaric behaviour. No three week investigation is necessary. Right-minded observers know who to blame already and it isn't the little people.

Disgraceful.

I'd say a big part of the reason for missed flights is missed connections on multi-leg flights. It's happened to me a lot!

Surely the rules state the minimum compensation required by law, not the maximum limit.

This Munoz fellow is not just a bad CEO.
His grasp of subjective pronouns is very dubious.
when he said "we" take full resposibility, he perhaps meant "I" take full resposibility.

It appears that he is awarded between 6 and 7 million remuneration in varying forms.

Does he deserve any of this?

You mean as in the British colloquialism 'codswallop'? I think it is what is discarded and the manner in which it is discarded that is the insult - the fish itself is excellent - if not overfished:p

Are you sure about that? I think it used to be true, but Ryanair has acquired such robust data on its own operations that its statisticians can currently predict with supreme confidence how to overbook and manage standbys without any likely incident. How do you think it regularly ends end up with sequence numbers on some Boarding Passes with numbers greater than 189 if it does not overbook? And why does it allow up to 10 standby passengers per flight but very rigorously not confirm they can go through the gate until all other passengers are boarded with the gate otherwise closed?

Interesting.

Lordy Lordy this Own Goal by United has been all over the news in the Bay Area, as well as around the world. Lambasted on late night shows, lawyers talking about multi million dollar compensation, stock drops, etc.

Announcer on local TV said it would be less damaging if United actually crashed the plane !

Took three tries before Munoz (CEO) issued an apology to the person abused. After calling him belligerent initially.

Can you imagine Singapore Airlines doing this? Cathay Pacific? EVA air? Korean? Anyone (other then a fellow American airline).

United is the brunt of all jokes now.

Twitter users hit United Airlines with memes after passenger violently dragged off plane - SFGate

I convinced I'm in a minority of one on this thread. Given that we know nothing of what tanspired before we saw this gentleman being dragged off, we assume that this was an unlawful and illegal act carried out by some pseudo law enforcement personnel. Why? I must be missing something. Will someone please tell me what it is.

Way to go UA, that'll show'em, turf a booked, paid for and seated passenger off just to seat a staff member, have the rules just changed as regards jump seat flights.

The stuff about overbooking is not relevant here. This flight was not overbooked. The carrier decided to send staff members by it although all seats were sold.

Overbooking normally works for a variety of reasons, first is that departing a hub (as here) with many/most having connected, a proportion typically do not make it because their inbound was late. Another significant proportion is those high-payers with flexible tickets change plans on the day, in particular meeting ended early and they transfer forward to an earlier flight, freeing up seats on later departures.

What absolute nonsense. He seems to have presented no danger to the safe conduct of the flight prior to being assaulted by uniformed (only just - since when are jeans standard issue to the police?) "security"

Munoz's explanation that he was belligerant is self serving crap. Who would not get a little upset at being chucked off a flight while sitting peacefully in their assigned seat, on the feeble grounds that the airline had amade a total balls up on the load, and needed seats to relocate their own staff.

As usual, the media can't get the story right, it wasn't an overbooking issue, seems to be some internal problems at UA to allow this sort of drama to happen in full view of a plane full of passengers, UA are in for a world of hurt when this gets to court.

It won't get to court.
A settlement will be agreed. It could be for quite a lot, but the cost of it will not fall on shareholders or Munoz, just a few cents more on each ticket.
That's the American way.

It's not a question of being unlawful or illegal, just totally unnecessary. Here's what we know so far, about what transpired. The airline got 3 seats freed up at the $800 offer level, and stopped the bidding there without going higher. The person in question inquired about the offer, and declined after finding out he would miss being home by Monday morning. No drama, so far.

The drama started when they decided to haul this guy off the plane anyway, without taking the more reasonable step of continuing to raise the offer for anyone else who might volunteer.

We haven't heard that the passenger was unruly or belligerent before they reached this point. As far as we know (pending any details to follow), he was perfectly happy to sit in his seat and enjoy the flight until then. Did he go overboard, with shouting or threats when they insisted he get out of his seat? Maybe, but it doesn't matter. The airline had another option for dealing with it, and instead they lit the fuse for everything that followed.

I've flown on all of those carriers over they years and have operated into most of their bases.

I would suggest that if a convicted drug trafficker with documented anger management and psych issues became belligerent when told to deplane, well, he might not be treated with kid gloves. ;)

If being a passenger depended on being a model citizen, airlines would have gone out of business decades ago.

How exactly would any of the protagonists know the man's history? By the way, his history is completely irrelevant to what transpired.

Another way is let them all know that nobody is going anywhere until the required deplaning happens, just let 'em stew.

Matt
It's not about being a model citizen, it's about being compliant.

Guages

I've offered you the CFR that regulates compensation, know that refuting it you are you're relying on Internet lawyers who as of yesterday had never known of its existence.

None of which, in the eyes of the law, justifies committing the criminal offence of assault.

I'm not relying on any 'Internet lawyers', and I was well aware of the relevant CFR long before yesterday. I'm relying on my own knowledge of the industry, of the regulations under which it operates, and, ultimately, my own ability to read.

The reg in question says nothing about the airline's ability to offer whatever it wants to passengers, as an enticement to get them to change to another flight, to change to another seat, to wear the airline's promotional hat, or anything else. Nothing. Your assertion that it does, is just as bizarre as it would be to assert that the regulation in question pertains to the thickness of paper on which ticket stock must be printed.

For what it's worth, I would have taken the offer and got off, in fact many years ago, was travelling with a group and some of us couldn't be accommodated for the trip from SF to OZ, took up the offer which was a 3 course dinner at a local hotel in SF,in return for flying out 4 hours later, the deal was offered long before we left for the airport.

A quite reasonable response.

If only more people had been compliant throughout history, we would never have had the Magna Carta, the US would still be a British colony, and black people would still be legally relegated to the back of the bus.

Because of this incident, you can bet that United is going to put some effort into fixing whatever broken set of policy, supervisory, and training cock-ups led to this problem in the first place. Had the passenger meekly complied, then the problem would continue to fester.

It seems the pendulum has well and truly swung at UA, not long ago, some relatives of UA employees were refused travel because they were wearing leggings, now they literally drag a customer kicking and screaming off the flight to make way for staff 'relocations'.

If you ask the ramp agent over the pond they claim that's their cup of tea as long as you are on "their ramp" and the doors are open.

The airline was Pan Am.

Really? Doesn't an order have to be legal and thus justifiable in a court of law?

Delta offers frequently (depends on the situation) more then the "min. amount". My "ex housedragon" received last year 2.000 Dollar+Hotel and Dinner.

Yes there are. Lots and lots of them.

Going back to the very start of this thread, it isn't about what the captain can do. It is about how this situation was managed. It wasn't managed very well! The captain (who answers to a lot of people) is a senior manager in a customer focused industry. That responsibility in turn devolves to a number of other people under his or her charge. Good management involves awareness, common sense, flexibility and communication. When those ingredients are best employed this sort of situation simply shouldn't arise and of course it rarely does. There is no suggestion in any of these reports that the captain was particularly instrumental in managing the sequence of events and it is still sufficiently opaque as to exactly who was driving these decisions. Nevertheless it seems to be have been very poorly managed at many levels.

I'm no lawyer, but I am in aviation claims, and this will be a major claim since UA's insurance company will pay for their defense (aka hire the attorneys) and settlement. It doesn't really matter what the background of this guy is. What matters is what happened in that incident, and what was broadcasted to the world to see. This doctor(however crooked he may be) already has a lawyer who is writing up the complaint against UA stuffed full of everything he/she can think of. Bodily injury, mental anguish, pain and suffering, you name it. The suit will be for multiple millions of dollars, and yes there will be plenty of fluff in there. But UA will not want to try this case. They will settle out of court.

Imagine the defense attorney in front of the jury, explaining why UA was within their rights to treat this guy like a sack of :mad:, pulling out rules and fine print. Then trying to assassinate the plaintiff's character. Any American jury would begin to quiver with rage that the big bad airline, with the arrogant CEO would even think of trying to justify the way the plaintiff was treated. All the plaintiff attorney will have to do is play the videos over and over, then say "so because UA employees needed to get somewhere, it was UA's right to give Dr. So and So a blooded face, concussion, and international humiliation??" They will award the plaintiff as much as they possibly can. I've been in the courtrooms for many smaller, yet similar cases, and the airline ALWAYS loses.

And don't forget the cop goons that did the actual dirty work. Their department will be sued as well. That's the way it works here in America, suits are filed against the airlines every day, but this one has major legs. UA really cocked this one all up.

Matt

The legging incident was discussed earlier, they were traveling on pass privledges (free/deeply discounted tickets from an employee,l) thus required to comply with a dress code.

NOT applicable to this person.

I don't know if it is still sufficiently up to date as it is a paper 17½ years old, but some of this may assist consideration of the legals of forced disembarkation:

http://www.raes-hfg.com/reports/12oc...21099-kane.pdf

I think you're missing a key element here. If a guy goes into a coffee-shop (which is a place of public accommodation), and the owner says, "We don't serve <insert ethnic group or other protected class> here," and the guy insists on his legal right to be served, and the situation escalates, and the owner calls the police, and the police break the guy's face, then he's absolutely going to sue the coffee shop. As he should. And he will win. It is the coffee shop that initiated, provoked, and escalated the situation.

I do not know of any airline in which a captain can arbitrarily offload a paying passenger for no reason, without needing to justify his actions to his management, at the risk of losing his job. Do you?

Also, there are not very many countries in which a captain can arbitrarily offload a paying passenger for no reason, without needing to justify his actions to the aviation or business regulatory authorities, at the risk of a fine or other sanction.

I'd call the statement categorically false.

Not if the sign over the coffee shop says "Starbucks."

Personal injury attorneys go after whatever deep pockets are available, when there is the slightest chance a jury would find the actions of the "venue" liable. And there is more than enough evidence (in social media/jury sympathy terms) to include United here. There will be a strong motive to settle and avoid further PR damage.