Soldato
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United handled it poorly but the other passengers left fine, I'm not sure what this passenger did to make it different.
United Airlines - Board the plane as a doctor, leave as a patient!
- Thread starter Avenged7Fold
- Start date
Depends on the circumstances really. Being a day late to a meeting might mean you miss out on a 10 million dollar contract. When that happens, $800 isn't going to make you feel any better.
Soldato
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- 30 Sep 2005
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Can't see anything wrong with it, they asked him to leave, he refused, he was pulled off.
What am I missing?
What am I missing?
Soldato
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My mistake, I heard it was the Police originally.
Caporegime
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Travel expert woman on BBC this morning said that you can insist on cash.
I think they handled it disgracefully. No one should be forced to leave the seat they have paid for. Probably so terrified at the prospect of having to pay their staff for a shift they can't do that they decide to treat a paying customer this way.
They should have a seat auction. Start off at $800 compensation then go up in 100's until someone accepts. Once it goes over a grand, people will start getting twitchy and someone will jump in.
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First class and frequent flyers apparently are first to be exempt from the bump list.
The problem lies with the way their security handled it. If they just competently restrained him, there would be no case but it looks like he took some hits to the face/mouth while being restrained. That form of violence would be considered unnecessary and his attempt to go on the plane could be as much to escape the security and show what they were doing to him to get them to back off.
Is the $800 worth of coupons an addition to the next day flight offer and hotel?
He was a doctor who had a patient waiting so refused to give up his seat for the employees the airline wanted to give free seats too.
But wasn't being offered, it is tough to know your rights straight off the bat and he was reportedly asking to be given time to speak to his lawyer. Perhaps they would have had a volunteer if they said $800 cash. Otherwise let their customers voluntarily chose the amount of cash they would be willing to accept. I know the coupons being offered would not be enough for me to miss the flight and the next day of work and looks like everyone else thought the same. It also sits very uncomfortably with me that a otherwise peaceful customer has been beaten up by law enforcement officers, it is even worse when it is because they were looking after the interests of a corporation (however misguided that actually was!).
From another forum:
"
Lawyer here. This myth that passengers don't have rights needs to go away, ASAP. You are dead wrong when saying that United legally kicked him off the plane.
1. First of all, it's airline spin to call this an overbooking. The statutory provision granting them the ability to deny boarding is about "OVERSELLING", which is specifically defined as booking more reserved confirmed seats than there are available. This is not what happened. They did not overbook the flight; they had a fully booked flight, and not only did everyone already have a reserved confirmed seat, they were all sitting in them. The law allowing them to deny boarding in the event of an oversale does not apply.
2. Even if it did apply, the law is unambiguously clear that airlines have to give preference to everyone with reserved confirmed seats when choosing to involuntarily deny boarding. They have to always choose the solution that will affect the least amount of reserved confirmed seats. This rule is straightforward, and United makes very clear in their own contract of carriage that employees of their own or of other carriers may be denied boarding without compensation because they do not have reserved confirmed seats. On its face, it's clear that what they did was illegal-- they gave preference to their employees over people who had reserved confirmed seats, in violation of 14 CFR 250.2a.
3. Furthermore, even if you try and twist this into a legal application of 250.2a and say that United had the right to deny him boarding in the event of an overbooking; they did NOT have the right to kick him off the plane. Their contract of carriage highlights there is a complete difference in rights after you've boarded and sat on the plane, and Rule 21 goes over the specific scenarios where you could get kicked off. NONE of them apply here. He did absolutely nothing wrong and shouldn't have been targeted. He's going to leave with a hefty settlement after this fiasco.
"
You can't really blame the airport security as they were only told the man needed removing from the plane, it's not really their fault, they had to assume the airline had a genuine reason for calling them.
Caporegime
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He boarded the plane
United airlines decided that getting their 4 staff somewhere was more important than the paid passengers that had already boarded. They asked for 4 volunteers to leave.
Nobody volunteered so they decided (how?) to remove this passenger and his wife
He was a doctor who had surgeries to perform in a hospital, therefore didn't want to leave.
United should have just offered more money until someone took them up on the offer, rather than send 3 security guards to literally pull a distressed passenger down the aisle with a bloodied face.
more than likely in t&cs ad no real difference to being over booked. him being a doctor with somehwere to go, is utterly pointless part of the story. It is meaningless. Or are you advocating some sort of ranking system on who needs it most.
the bloodied passenger was his own fault for ressisting as far as i can see. they didn't go lets go, no no you cant walk yourself out, we need to batter you first.
and usually ( i don't know if there is in this case) there are legal limits which companies must give, no company is going to give more than that legal amount.
Regardless of who was right or wrong, the whole thing is a PR disaster that United are showing no signs of fixing.
If they are "in the right" (which I doubt, but for the sake of argument), that really doesn't matter when videos of you smashing paying and otherwise peaceful customers' faces to a bloody pulp start circulating on the internet.
It's not good enough to be "sorry that we had to do this", or to suggest that the customer was, contrary to eye-witness reports, being unruly or unreasonable. You need to make a proper apology, say it was a terrible incident, promise support for the victim and to review company policy so that it never happens again. The statements released so far have simply fanned the flames as they were so incompetently put together, and seemed reflective of a company that thinks its behaviour is perfectly ok.
If they are "in the right" (which I doubt, but for the sake of argument), that really doesn't matter when videos of you smashing paying and otherwise peaceful customers' faces to a bloody pulp start circulating on the internet.
It's not good enough to be "sorry that we had to do this", or to suggest that the customer was, contrary to eye-witness reports, being unruly or unreasonable. You need to make a proper apology, say it was a terrible incident, promise support for the victim and to review company policy so that it never happens again. The statements released so far have simply fanned the flames as they were so incompetently put together, and seemed reflective of a company that thinks its behaviour is perfectly ok.
Caporegime
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Read above post, it's not in their terms and conditions to give preference to their own staff once you have boarded the plane.
And yes, some people would certainly have been inconvenienced less than a surgeon and the knock on affect to his patients.
And yes, some people would certainly have been inconvenienced less than a surgeon and the knock on affect to his patients.
I think it's insanity.
I knew people here would justify it. Lol.
They handled it so badly, i really hope they get rinsed somehow, but i doubt it will be in the courts, there must obviously be a clause allowing them to assault people off their plane.
Sadly not many really care either, cheap air travel is scarce. Lol again.
I knew people here would justify it. Lol.
They handled it so badly, i really hope they get rinsed somehow, but i doubt it will be in the courts, there must obviously be a clause allowing them to assault people off their plane.
Sadly not many really care either, cheap air travel is scarce. Lol again.