United Airlines - Board the plane as a doctor, leave as a patient!

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dl8860 said:
Have you got a source on that? Because that's the absolute crux of the matter.
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They can eject the passenger as long as there is a valid legal reason and the plane is at the gate. If the captain stated that the passenger was causing a disruption, then that is fine. If staff forcibly made him leave because of overbooking, then that is a bit of a grey area unless they state he is interfering with the flight crew.

Regardless, the poor handling of the situation will likely cause a bit of a nightmare for them. If the security just restrained him normally rather than hit his face and some how let go, it would have been easy to clean up. If they did this at the gate, they would likely have an easier time getting volunteers or deny boarding. Doing it all on the aluminium can you are about to wiz through the sky in was a stupid and likely expensive mistake.

That's when the "involuntary denied boarding" rules kick in, and if you want to know everything about the sorry-sounding legal term, it's all spelled out in plain English in a government consumer guide called Fly Rights. Basically: When airlines have exhausted all other options, they have to start picking which customers they'll bump, and explain their reasoning in writing. Usually it's based on the fare paid (whoever paid the least gets bumped first), but other factors can be weighed. Airlines do still have to get the unfortunate bumpees to the destination on the next available flight and pay them compensation pegged to the length of the delay.



"THE BURNING QUESTION IS, WHY DID THEY WAIT UNTIL EVERYONE WAS SEATED BEFORE REALIZING THEY NEEDED TO MOVE THEIR EMPLOYEES TO THAT FLIGHT?"



The issue here that took this situation from bad to worse, and led to the video that's now a deserved PR black eye for United, is the timing. "The burning question is, why did they wait until everyone was seated before realizing they needed to move their employees to that flight?" Hobica asks. Most airlines avoid having to yank someone who has already settled in to their seat. Technically, that is still considered a "denied boarding" as long as the plane is still at the gate and is permissible under the law. Just try telling that to the court of public opinion, though, once the world has seen a video like this.

So why can't a passenger simply refuse to leave, as the man in the video did? (He reportedly told the crew he was a doctor and he too needed to be at his destination the following morning for work.) Well, at that point the airline had another legal weapon: Any action or behavior that is judged to be "interfering with the flight crew" is against the law. "Interfering" is vague and can cover a broad range of passenger behavior, and can encompass almost anything that makes the flight crew feel uncomfortable.
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h4rm0ny said:
I hope to never understand how some people can use authority as a proxy for morality in order to explain how beating someone up is their fault.



Yes. I would be pretty shocked if I was on that plane and saw that. I'm still pretty horrified even seeing at one remove. Many of us think this is appalling.



Beautifully put.
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this makes no sense, no one is accepting tyranny, no one is justifying a random beating.
but yeah don't let that get in the way of hysterics.
i in no way was saying you can or should hand out beatings, however if you have to be forcefully removed it is very likely you will be injured. we accot that in every other situationWe dont blame policeman for injuries in arrests when the person is non compliant.

but this entire thread as well with facebook etc, is just full of hysteria and no looking at what actually happened and aportioning blame, and soling the issues. just a general outrage.

and you are shocked that in america amongst other countries officials are often far heavier handed than needed. where have you been living.
 
Glaucus said:
this entire thread as well with facebook etc, is just full of hysteria and no looking at what actually happened and aportioning blame
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No, it's mostly people assessing the situation and reaching logical conclusions based on common sense then apportioning blame. You just seem to have reached a different conclusion to most people and are blaming somebody else, hence why you're debating it.
 
ubersonic said:
No, it's mostly people assessing the situation and reaching logical conclusions based on common sense then apportioning blame. You just seem to have reached a different conclusion to most people and are blaming somebody else, hence why you're debating it.
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that is quite clearly not the case in the slightest, when most people are blaming united for beating him up, when they didnt touch him, amongst other areas in their reasoning.
Actually i'm blaming all three parties for different things, you know the logical thing to do when you actually look at what happened, and not jump on the hysteria train.
 
Personally I doubt the captain was really even involved in any of this. It reads to me much more like airline staff at the gate/supervisors making an absolute hash of a situation that came about from poor planning.

I just can't believe that a captain would resort to choosing 4 people at random to accommodate staff. More likely that he delegated the problem to less senior staff who ended up in this situation.
 
Glaucus said:
that is quite clearly not the case in the slightest, when most people are blaming united for beating him up, when they didnt touch him, amongst other areas in their reasoning.
Actually i'm blaming all three parties for different things, you know the logical thing to do when you actually look at what happened, and not jump on the hysteria train.
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The leaked letter from UAs CEO quite clearly blames the passenger yet the security personnel who removed him has now been put on leave and his superiors have said that it was not standard operating procedure, so it looks like a combination of factors but mostly the result of UA staffs actions in the first place.
 
Surely the opportune thing to do in this situation is to offer someone to leave and get a free ticket for another flight... but nah, lets just beat them up and throw them out.

Thats America 21st century right there.
 
Whether it was justified or not, the PR for this will be terrible. Now people will refer UA as the airline that beat up passengers, right or wrong, it is now this is being spread as.

Should have offered $100,000 as the price to give up the seats, would be cheaper than this fallout.
 
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You'd have thought a Doctor would be bright enough to figure out he had to go and leave of his own accord. Idiot 100% brought this on himself.
 
CEO doubling down like a *****, man... what have US companies become?

I remember in even the 90s they were a lot less arseholish than today.
 
StriderX said:
Surely the opportune thing to do in this situation is to offer someone to leave and get a free ticket for another flight... but nah, lets just beat them up and throw them out.

Thats America 21st century right there.
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That's pretty much what they did but no one took the offer.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Whether it was justified or not, the PR for this will be terrible. Now people will refer AA as the airline that beat up passengers, right or wrong, it is now this is being spread as.

Should have offered $100,000 as the price to give up the seats, would be cheaper than this fallout.
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that's extremely optimistic.
in all likely hood, this will be forgotten about in a couple off weeks, and when it comes down to people booking they wont use another provider, people will go for price and or flight times/locations. From many airports you don't even have a choice of provider per route.
 
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