only within the appropriate forum. In the wider world it involves a great deal more. In a customer focused business environment it is a potential disaster.

If you're hanging your assumptions on that, I predict you'll be disappointed. I've displaced pax many times as a DH crew member. I've been commuting for 17 of my 19 years in the airlines (not UA) have never once been accommodated over a paying pax when not on company assignment. Not once. The thought of it happening to cover 4 Pax is ludicrious. The contract airline has aircraft that are crewed by 4, so 4 pax being removed is consistent with a DH assignment. If you were airline, you'd know how improbable your conspiracy theory is. First, there's no love lost between gate agents and crews and second, the agent would be the one to have to deal with 4 denied boarding school and have to justify it down line during audits.

You can cling to the idea or accept that your idea isn't a starter.

I have watched several of the videos, and to me it seems the police statement is accurate. The way the passenger's head hit the armrest was truly shocking, and his behaviour later pacing up and down the rear aisle suggests he was far from himself. His behaviour before being thrown into the aisle also does not suggest a person who was well to begin with. We have no confirmation of his identity and whether his claims were true. Caution is indicated toward this "viral" story.

There is an important principle involved here, namely that passengers and crew on an aircraft or ship must obey orders from the Captain (or his/her delegates), subject to laws, regulations and CRM principles. The passenger clearly did not obey a lawful order consistent with the contract terms of his ticket.

I expect he will be convicted, fined and placed on the no-fly list, otherwise passenger defiance and uncontrolled auctions for over-booking compensation will occur. That said, the airline acted very obtusely, and has created for itself a PR catastrophe. It's time for some re-regulation in favour of passenger and crew rights.

1- That person seems like someone that is totally confused, probably by the way he was treated.

2- How the he!! did he get back into the aircraft?

3- How come the police statement says he was taken to the hospital to have his injuries looked at?

ST

Why? I don't work for UA if that helps. There's a great deal of misunderstanding on this thread how airlines work, I'm simply trying to help folks along. Point out one thing, just one thing I've said that isn't spot on.

Do two wrongs make a right? Barking mad, stress or plain bonkers? I sense a slight reduction in compo...

Rewarded for what behavior? Buying a ticket, checking in, boarding when your row is called, and sitting quietly in your seat?

Because that appears to be what this passenger did, before UA started with the abuse.

It's hit Australia:
Sydney Morning Herald: Man dragged off overbooked United flight by police as fellow passengers look on in horror

Leave it to the left coast to raise the "conspiracy theory" flag. :rolleyes:

I am a retired air carrier captain, and I understand that the relationship between gate agents and flight crew varies. What still remains is what was communicated to police by the lead F/A in terms of why the police should physically remove a pax.

Could it be that this was a different flight/airplane? :confused:

Then you should know as a retired airline captain that anyone can be removed. If the pax refused to leave, then he would be removed.

How is it possible that you don't get enough volunteers, unless you're lowballing the compensation?

West Coast,

Your posts neatly summarize what is so problematic with the concept of "acceptable behavior" in the USA today. For police, and perhaps other agents of government, it means violence is an accepted and even expected response to a citizen exercising his / her rights. This person wasn't simply on the premises of the business, he paid for that very specific right at the specific time and was then provided a specific seat -- in return for the money he paid. To suggest that any action by the carrier to rescind that agreement is lawful simply because it's their property is incorrect. Imagine if you will a World Series baseball game, or perhaps a football championship game, where you are told to get out of your seat and out of the stadium because "we sold too many tickets". According to your reasoning, the people involved should simply say "OK, I'll go." You are wrong to suggest that a business that has charged for a service has unfettered rights to use whatever method or tactic available - including police -- to resolve a problem that is entirely of their own making.

More importantly, for you to suggest that quiet acquiescence is the proper response to unfair action by authorities shows how far the USA has drifted from its core founding principles. I wonder what the Founding Fathers, or the folks in Boston Harbor in 1773, would think. Perhaps you should find a quiet spot and read some Thoreau...

Full disclosure: I didn't say "airline," I said "air carrier," i.e. not 121. The removal has to be lawful. The cabin crew and/or gate agent have to be honest with the police.

Bottom line: just because it is legal, doesn't make it right. UAL doesn't get it.

Spot on:ok:

No same aircraft but 10 minutes later!

Then they removed him in a stretcher!

Apparently some adults travelling with children were so disgusted they got off the plane saying the children had seen enough abuse for a day.

Because common sense would tell you that there would be a limit to such offers and reaching that limit doesn't necessarily corelate to achieving the required result.

When does an airline captain take control of the plane in deciding who stays aboard and who leaves?

Is it when he enters the boarding door ?

When he accepts the manifest?

When the boarding door is closed ?

When he starts his engines?

Totally shocked by this. UA are off my list of airlines to use, oh, and so is the one that West Coast works for. I bet there are a fair few who were on that flight that will think again before booking UA (or co-carriers) let alone those globally seeing this thuggery.

A fare paying passenger treated in that manner just because Ops screwed up and his name was selected in a manner more suited to dystopian world selecting who will survive or not.

The captain is rarely called upon to make that decision. If he or she is, it may be be before they even leave the crew room. In specific circumstances it could be in all of your examples and more besides. I have deplaned or refused to accept passengers before boarding (in the case of accompanied deportees) and prior to boarding, prior to taxi, prior to take off, diversion in flight, prior to landing, and after landing. I cannot recall the police ever being called to remove an overbooked passenger. There is always a solution such is the "art of the deal."

This is why pax are told to turn off their electronic devices - so they can't take videos of pax abuse. :E

Stateside
 

meanwhile on APC
https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/m...ed-flight.html

According to Fox News, Chicago Airport Police have announced that the officer who dragged the pax has been suspended for not following their procedures. Do ya think?

UA have acted disgraceful in this incident.

The passenger had paid for his seat for this flight. That OPS had to accommodate DH crew, was not the fault of the passengers.

Ultimately it is the Captain who is responsible to call the Airport Police to the aircraft. The Captain is the one responsible for all actions taken on his aircraft.

And I would expect the Captain to at least be called in for tea and biscuits.

Anybody who can condone the behaviour of the police, and how and more importantly why he was removed, need their heads examined. You clearly do not live and operate in a customer orientated world, or you clearly don't care about how your customers are treated.

The lawyers will have a field day with UA, and they will unfortunately probably reach a settlement outside court.

The passenger has paid for the seat for this specific flight, imagine you have a hotel room for one night, you have paid for this room for this specific night. So you have gone into the hotel room and gone to sleep in the bed, than shortly after the police enters your room and removes you for no other reason than to accommodate a staff they have working there.
This would not be right, neither legally or morally.

You have paid the money for the seat, and as long as you have not breached any of your terms and conditions, you have the right to quiet enjoyment of what you have paid for.

Any Captain taking this decision, should in my opinion be seriously reprimanded for allowing this situation to happen, including OPS management who allowed this to happen.

You have damaged the reputation of your employer, will cost them millions in compensation and bad PR. These are one of those Non-Tech situations, that you do not get trained for in the Sim, where you need to show why you deserve to earn a 6 figure salary.

The terms for breaking a contract need to be equitable
 

When you purchase a ticket, you're entering into a contract with the airline for SAFE carriage from point A to point B. Clearly the compensation package for breaking that contract at the convenience of the carrier needs to be increased. An $800 travel voucher would hardly compensate a physician for a day of lost revenue and angry patients. Likewise, blowing the schedule of a surgeon would not only hose him, but an entire OR schedule. The compensation doesn't have to be punitive, but it should be equitable, and it should be in cash, not in a voucher that might decrease in value as fares fluctuate. While I would probably have taken the $800 and crappy OHR hotel, this gentleman clearly had someplace to be. There had to be a better option than beating the hell out of him. If I were AA, my next ad campaign would feature the following: "At American, if we overbook we'll fatten your wallet, NOT your lip."

Ummm.... Sorry but whilst some like to think so it is not that simple. In the air, yes, but on the ground, with the doors open, with law enforcement on the scene of an incident it is nowhere near as clear cut.

The "required result" is to operate airline that makes a profit and generates value for its shareholders. I'm not a PR expert, but I suspect the cost of this particular fracas, in terms of reputational damage, is in the millions or tens of millions. Offering $2,000 would have got people off the plane. Do the math.

It strikes me that the commonsense limit would be, at the point that making the offer for volunteers costs more than involuntarily bumping a passenger would cost.

And even if you don't wind up with an altercation, involuntarily bumping a passenger has to be at least $5,000 in reputational damage; unless your computer algorithm succceds in finding the passenger who's unlikely ever to fly your airline again, anyhow.

United will suffer in so many ways from this. Including, I'm sure, at the hands of the late night comedy shows in the USA tonight. Perhaps they'll inherit Air Canada's slogan from a few years back: "We're not happy 'til you're not happy!"

Perhaps what is needed is a rule change much further back in the process. The poor fellow who was bumped and bruised had paid for, and was allocated a seat. Short of his being in violation of a cabin safety regulation, he was entitled to ride in the seat for which he had paid. The airline has no right to presume that they can repurpose that seat, or otherwise overbook the flight.

If a passenger, who has paid for a seat fails to board, the seat should fly empty, and the non flier charged full price for it. The airline has no right to overbook on the chance that they might sell some seats twice! Overbooking should be outlawed. If, in the moments before gate close, the paying passenger has not shown up, them perhaps the airline can double dip, and sell to the seat to standby passenger, who had not confirmed seat anyway.

I agree, an $800 travel voucher would not get my attention at all, my day is worth much more to me than that. And that travel voucher.... puts you into a low cost seat next time, from which you can be bumped!

My money is good, the seat it bought should be too!

:ok:

Is that MBA-speak for "the free market will operate, and the airline will be forced to pay market rate to buy out passengers being denied boarding?"

Heaven forfend!

Apparently one can virtually make a living out of playing this game (judiciously).

I know right? It also has the added benefit that the airline might properly understand the costs of their operational mistakes as opposed to it being $800.

From CBS news...

Chicago Aviation Officer Placed On Leave After Dragging Man Off Plane « CBS Chicago

The incident has just made the 10 pm BBC News, complete with a clip from United's "Fly the Friendly Skies" commercial.

Another disturbing video clip has emerged with the bloodied man chanting 'just kill me' :(:

https://twitter.com/kaylyn_davis/sta...485760/video/1

And a few more seconds of the 'I have to go home' repetitions:

https://twitter.com/kaylyn_davis/sta...71574385307648

The ironic thing is that my guess is if they'd upped the offer to $2K they would have got the 4 volunteers, and everyone is happy. United has to pay an extra $5k, but it's a pittance to what this has cost them.

"wiggy"

Regarding Captains responsibility. In this case it was not about an unruly passenger. Captain would have had to give the go ahead to the dispatcher to call the police. A very poor decision indeed, and misuse of brute force.

The passenger could only have been given the order to remove the passenger by the Captain, Cabin Crew would have had to identify the passenger to the police, as the passenger was again as mentioned not an unruly passenger.

Of course OPS might have contacted the police, but in the end whatever happens inside the aircraft, either doors open or close, is the Captains responsibility.

The passenger did not sit in the wrong seat, not boarded by mistake, was not making any nuisance or being a threat that would identify him, unless the Cabin Crew Manager had identified him, and as far as I know, the Captain still outranks the Cabin Crew Manager.

If there are drunk passengers during boarding, the normal procedure in most companies I know of, is that the Captain is informed, and he ultimately takes the decision if the passenger should be removed and if the police is required.
I know of NO airline who does it differently, either in the USA or rest of the world.
This is the reason the Captain is payed a 6 figure amount, because he is the Top Manager on the aircraft.

This comment from another forum sums it up nicely:

"There's NOT a rule for removing paying passengers who have boarded the aircraft and are seated in their reserved, assigned seats and replacing them with airline employees.

Without comment on whether compensation for denied boarding is flawed or not, denied boarding is not the issue. The passenger was permitted to board, and was subsequently removed. While the airline may have been well within its rights to deny him boarding (we don't know if he met the criteria according to their boarding priority list, but let's assume he did), they allowed him to board. According to the Contract of Carriage Document, he should not have been removed involuntarily."

So its an accepted practice to overbook. That is sell a product you have no intention of supplying.

Oh its OK because its in the very small print.

Personally, I feel sorry about the downfall of our industry. I hope this guy can sue them to hell.

This is not where we stand for in aviation and even after 30 years in industries I never expected.

Disgusting, shame on you UA

The captain would give the go ahead to the dispatcher to call the police?

I'm not rightly sure that's how it works on a Republic RJ at the gate at ORD. ;)