Based on UAL's Contract of Carriage, they violated their own rules. This flight wasn't "OVERSOLD," because the four employees were NON-REV. They didn't buy a ticket, thus they weren't "sold" anything!

Oh, those pesky little rules.

Plus, as I mentioned above, the removed pax had already boarded, so by definition his boarding couldn't be denied, as it already took place.

Culture, tonyhap, culture. That response IS what their training tells them to do. Your comment about "civilised" response strikes a chord. Read some of the literature about differing police response tactics around the world. Japan v/s the USA is a good start.

tonyhap Looking at this from across the Eastern side of the Pond, American Police training does not seem to include 'second thoughts' or 'shall we just step back a moment' thoughts. :hmm:

I was thinking exactly the same thing.

Also do we know if any of the deadheading crews were pilots or were they just flight attendants?

On another forum a United pilot said that in their clause they do have the right to bump a passenger if they need to get somewhere to work but he wasn’t so sure flight attendants had the same clause.

Hems

They weren't non reving, thats when you hope there's open seats to Hawaii for you and your family. They were DH'ing on business. There are differences.

It was UA's fault for failing to raise the financial incentive for "volunteering to deboard" enough to manage the situation peaceably, and indeed voluntarily by the pax.

They allowed it to progress past that point, to forcible removal of a passenger selected at random who didn't want to volunteer, presumably because the compensation wasn't high enough to offset his personal/professional needs for taking that flight. This led to what anyone outside the airline industry will see as unprovoked physical assault on a paying passenger. The fact that nobody else was taking the $800 offer didn't give the airlines permission to start forcibly removing people by means of proxy (the airport police).

Whatever you think of that logic, or the various regs involved, it's how the entire world outside the airline industry is seeing this right now.

I do think it would be helpful to see exactly how the conflict escalated, but at this point it's irrelevant. One or more people at UA made some very bad decisions here.

In the age of the 24-hour news cycle, I doubt UA will "suffer" much at all. This will be forgotten by tomorrow night at the latest replaced by Ms Kardashian's ass or something similarly extraordinarily important, and no, I don't work for UA (although, in the interest of full disclosure, I did use to fly for the "regional partner" in question).

Airlines have done much worse things...

Absolutely correct

Clearly you're not denying that violence occurred?
1) UA wanted his seat, he attempted to force them to honor their contract to fly him home.
2) UA called the CPD to extricate him from the plane against his will.
3) The passenger was beaten and injured in the process.
Any time you call the police, the odds are that someone is going to get f-ed up. It is what they do, because cops are hammers and non cops are nails. Therefore every situation is treated as a "problem/nail"...in the US at least. Once the CPD was called, the outcome was predictable. If the passenger had been a young black man, the outcome would have been much worse. This situation should have been resolved before anyone was boarded.

West Coast

With respect... United's own collective agreements refer to "deadheading" as "non revenue, positive space". So Hems terminology is correct.

Griz

Positive space and must ride are terms Hems should be familiar with. He claims to be retired airline, in a debate such as this, an airline pilot, a Captain at that would be aware of nuances. His post was absent any, on par with what would be expected from someone familiar with the term but not what it meant to an airline pilot.

Given his claim, I hold him to a higher level of understanding.

Certainly Amadis of Gaul
However, in the previous referred to 2008 affair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars it is reported (and cited):

Yah, nothing else happened in 2008 did it?

Among others, the mistaken belief UA was going back into bankruptcy based on an old article. Stocks plunged.

Correlation = causation? Maybe, maybe not, I'm not a stock market expert...

Nope. UA is being called in front the Transportation Committee, as are the CPD cops. Congress didn't like those visuals.

That's not entirely true, is it? Nobody is being called in front of anyone yet, so far only one member of said committee has requested a hearing. Guess we'll see if and when said hearing happens.

You shouldn't be in a service industry if you don't understand the power of negative publicity. Hopefully some of the GAs and uniformed thugs involved will be exploring new career opportunities soon.

And a month ago refusing to board two females because they were wearing leggings? Even Delta tweeted that they were welcome on any their flights.

450K miles on UAL since the 1950s and I'll never fly them again. There if fundamental flaw in UAL's culture since the merger with Continental. Even their coffee is now undrinkable.

We seem to have already forgotten that this was a Republic Airlines flight, and the incident could have happened as easily on one of Republic's other codeshares with American or Delta.

Thanks B1. I work for another carrier where I enjoy a pretty decent upper middle income lifestyle. Haven't had to screw over any pax today, but the day is young.

B1

If you're mentioning it, then you clearly know those pax were flying on pass privledges (flying for free or deeply discounted ) and as such were Subject to a dress code.

This is why UA likely won't do much , they get hammered by people who don't understand the situation and opine ignorantly, so why bother.

What west coast said, when flying on a buddy pass you abide by the dress code or you don't fly...

There is this new thing out there called "social media" that you might want to check out.

It has a tendency to override subtleties like this, and companies still have to deal with it. There is no excuse for the PR department of any large corporation failing to understand how this works, or that every phone is now a camera.

A person that was on the flight posted this on social media which explains why the passenger came back onboard the aircraft... Truly unbelievable that the authorities "lost him". This keeps getting better.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9FWFS1UIAA0der.jpg:large

The U.S. Department of Transportation is investigating a Monday incident in which a 69-year-old man was forcibly dragged from an overbooked United Airlines plane...


Feds Now Looking Into United Airlines Incident - The Daily Beast

Photo

I believe UA has a presence on social media, they're all over twitter for sure. That still can't stop the ignorance of the crowd who latched onto the "legging" story without knowing they were Subject to a dress code that didn't apply to revenue pax. People even when the truth is easily accessible choose to be ignorant.

People may choose to be ignorant but one of the key ideas of 'capitalism' is that it adapts to new markets and how things change. Supposedly ...

But old companies get too big and have too many rules and have no possibility of adapting. Eventually, they fall and die. It's just the 'cycle of life'. :p

You can beat that to death, but what the public is seeing is two 10 yr olds denied boarding for attire that 85% of women wear every day...What you're flunking is basic public relations messaging...and you're failing in a willful manner. I used to fly on my ex wife's passes, and the dress code was f-ing stupid. I flew first class on biz for my entire career, and the first thing I'd do in the Ambassador Club is change into levis and tennis shoes. Yet to fly in the same seat on a pass I had to be wearing a jacket and tie? It's an airborne bus, not Mar A Lago.

Enough diversion...you really need to re-think the physical abuse of fare paying passengers. There is no way to paint it that makes you look good.

From United's carriage contract...

"Passengers who are barefoot or not properly clothed;"

Although I agree on wearing proper clothing, who decides what is proper? Do they have a specific book with descriptions of what is proper and not proper?

I have seen far worst dressed people on airlines than girls wearing leggings.

CEO Blames passenger, calls him disruptive and belligerent.

What an idiot!

United CEO Oscar Munoz Calls Passenger "Disruptive and Belligerent" | Fortune.com

Employee manuals discuss non rev dress code and etiquette, not terms of Carriage. The person who sent the Yong ladies traveling (on his or her travel privledges ) erred in letting them do so in leggings.

You do make a point, many people are ignorant and no matter how much someone tries to educate them, they remain ignorant. First heard, that's then gospel no matter how much education is tried.

For United Airlines (and Republic, and every other airline out there): The above comment is a simple and accurate summing up of the issue.

The carriage rule still points out to a proper etiquette for the dress code.

Granted the in-house policy also applies for people travelling on passes but I'll bet you 99% of female travelers that travel on a pass would have travelled that day wearing leggings but unfortunately fell on a pissed off gate agent that wanted to show who was the boss.

You've no way of knowing any of that wrt to likelihood of making it on.

"West Coast" and others - This incident is much more serious than denied boarding due to dress code.

It is appalling for you people defending UA and the police for their actions. On other videos when he is back on board, his injuries are clearly visible.

These passengers was NOT DENIED boarding, they had already taken their seats and boarded, that was it. This was the company OPS who had messed up, and sure they could offer financial offers to get people to leave their seats, but DH does not have any god given right to be given a seat on an aircraft that has been fully booked and the passengers have already boarded.

I have seen DH crew been bumped because flights have been full, or been made to sit on the jump seat in cabin or / and cockpit. But it is unheard of that already boarded passengers is forced of the aircraft.

That some of you can defend the indefensible actions of the UA crew and the police is beyond me. The UA crew would have told police to get the passenger of no matter what.

Any actions performed on the aircraft should be under supervision and with permission of the Commander.

This passenger had until been ordered to remove himself from the aircraft, not said a word against the crew.

Now if someone orders you of a flight in such a situation, how many of you would not get upset and give your piece of mind?

I am sorry the DH Crew had no exceptional priority, this should be clear, and I am pretty sure that in the contract given the passengers, it's not written that DH Crew shall have any priority, furthermore they can not be calculated as over-booked, as they are not paying passengers.

This is a mess up by the OPS department, and if they have managed to get into this situation, that they don't have enough crew at some base, for sure the passengers should not be the once suffering for this. OPS should have found another way to have moved their crew or had some foresight so they did not end in this situation.

However more importantly, the way the passenger was removed, sorry that's a criminal offence, and it seems the passengers injuries happen on the aircraft, as the police was carrying out orders from the Commander to have the innocent passenger removed by force, based on an unknown selection criteria.

Just because you are aircrew, does not make you some special privileged entity, that are more important than others. What an ignorant and arrogant attitude you have "West Coast"
:mad:

That is true but the public only hear United. The media only know United and the Ts&Cs will be United.

What was the livery on the AC?

Truck

Quite simply, you're wrong. Moving crews is a priority for the airline. 4 pax bumped or 70 plus cancelled pax pissed because a crew isn't in position, that's just for the first flight missed. It ain't pretty but it's the airline life.

I can say with certainty that the agents didn't want this to end this way, and it didn't for the other 3. That the fourth felt he wasn't subject to getting booted and pushed it to the point of refusing the LEOs order to leave under his own power, well, he deserves blame.

Officer Who Dragged Bloodied Passenger From United Flight Suspended

More from: https://patch.com/illinois/chicago/u...-ohare-airport

Glad to see some professional pilot humor still allowed here on PPRuNe. :ok:

Here's the email United CEO Oscar Muñoz sent to the employees this evening: