United passenger forcibly removed from overbooked flight..

United passenger forcibly removed from overbooked flight..

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Disastrous

10,072 posts

216 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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Funkycoldribena said:
Disastrous said:
Yes, but that's simply because you think slavish adherence to rules and authority are more important than almost anything else so will naturally submit to whatever you feel is a greater authority in every occasion.

You would have 'cut your losses' and left with a few dollars. This guy leaves with a PR disaster for the airline and a potentially huge payday. All in exchange for a little ruck with a thug in a uniform. I think he's the smart one here, not United.
I have far from any slavish adherence to rules etc,in fact I think the laws an ass quite a lot of the time,however I think Ll is spot on here.
Then you too would have been kicked off a flight you booked for little more than a few dollars. It's a personal decision IMO. If you feel that your time and hassle is worth that little then that's absolutely fine. Our hero here though, has decided it wasn't worth that to him, and has shown UA in a pretty poor light as a result and will no doubt do rather well out of it I suspect. An alternative option but not for everyone I guess.

PurpleAki

1,601 posts

86 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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Funkycoldribena said:
Totally agree.
I wonder how many here would have struggled/fought against it?
I would've​ stood my ground without a shadow of a doubt. It would be a matter of principle.

As an aside, who would give the order to forcibly remove a passenger who has done
nothing wrong and isn't a security threat etc? The pilot or a suit in an office?

I can't believe anyone at the airline didn't think this might reflect badly on them.



dandarez

13,245 posts

282 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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Disastrous said:
La Liga said:
PurpleAki said:
Yeah just give in and ruin all your travel plans and possibly the care of his patients. Why should he?
Because when he bought his ticket he agreed to the T&Cs / contract that would cover such eventualities and circumstances.
Pedantry/contrarianism aside, trying to defend the airline here is an utterly bizarre position to take.
Legal eagles, eh?

Well, it's worked well with me. Never flown with them but just made a note to 'never' go with this airline. Ever!
I suspect I am far from alone.

PR and people skills, eh?
Some are clueless. Some are worse than clueless.
It's across the board today in all walks of life, so it's nothing unsurprising really.
Common sense went out of the window moons ago.

Disastrous

10,072 posts

216 months

Monday 10th April 2017
quotequote all
dandarez said:
Disastrous said:
La Liga said:
PurpleAki said:
Yeah just give in and ruin all your travel plans and possibly the care of his patients. Why should he?
Because when he bought his ticket he agreed to the T&Cs / contract that would cover such eventualities and circumstances.
Pedantry/contrarianism aside, trying to defend the airline here is an utterly bizarre position to take.
Legal eagles, eh?

Well, it's worked well with me. Never flown with them but just made a note to 'never' go with this airline. Ever!
I suspect I am far from alone.

PR and people skills, eh?
Some are clueless. Some are worse than clueless.
It's across the board today in all walks of life, so it's nothing unsurprising really.
Common sense went out of the window moons ago.
Agreed on all counts. I'm just surprised anyone thinks the airline is in the right (I know they don't really are are just being silly and contrary for the sake of it!) but that's PH I suppose.

Hoofy

76,253 posts

281 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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Just seen someone tweet that they cancelled their company account with United. Wonder how much money they will lose from lost ticket sales.

130R

6,807 posts

205 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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The airline certainly didn't handle this with flying colours. Hopefully his injuries aren't terminal and he gets a decent settlement to cover the emotional baggage.

Disastrous

10,072 posts

216 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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Nobody in the entire world views 'buying a plane ticket' as 'entering into a legally binding contract with a service provider' and pretending that they do still doesn't excuse UA's behaviour.

I maintain that defending UA here is an utterly bizarre position to take and it would seem that most posters agree so not really much to argue over IMO. I know you love rules and authority so obvious that you're not going to change your mind, or mine. Anything else is just going round in circles really.

amusingduck

9,396 posts

135 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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I was gobsmacked when I saw the footage, properly piss boiling stuff.

Thankfully, I visited PH where I discovered that (as per the T+C's), the airline was technically fine to do so.

I feel much better now. I can rest easy knowing that the T+C's were adhered to - that is of course the #1 priority in these matters.

Got patients? Pshhht, tough st matey. Did you not read the TERMS AND CONDISHUNS?!? You silly sausage!!

ben5575

6,215 posts

220 months

Monday 10th April 2017
quotequote all
Disastrous said:
Yes, but that's simply because you think slavish adherence to rules and authority are more important than almost anything else so will naturally submit to whatever you feel is a greater authority in every occasion.

You would have 'cut your losses' and left with a few dollars. This guy leaves with a PR disaster for the airline and a potentially huge payday. All in exchange for a little ruck with a thug in a uniform. I think he's the smart one here, not United.
Absolutely, should pay for a nice new holiday home. Regardless of whether he was legally right or wrong, UA will settle for $$$ to put an end to the PR disaster.

surveyor

17,767 posts

183 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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Have we picked up that this is not United Airlines, but one of their 'junior partners' a regional airline with a UA franchise...

Works great until they make a stupid mistake and the grown up airline gets all the backlash....

ben5575

6,215 posts

220 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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... ex junior partners... biglaugh

arfursleep

818 posts

103 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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El stovey said:
The trick then is to say you're crew for another airline or united (if you're feeling brave and know the lingo). Watching 'catch me if you can' or 'scully' before the flight would be good preparation.

Make up a UK airline for added foreign gravitas. "Hi I'm crew with Great Britain Brexit Airways" or "Hi I fly for Colonial empire kingdom airlines". will probably see you on board with free drinks and at least some snacks. You might even get to sit in the cockpit or on the jump seat with the milfy american hosties.
regularly fly United transatlantic and internal US ( was there last week) and somehow ended up in seats normally reserved for crew moving from one place to another - the onboard crew were surprised that we were just standard passengers initially but were perfectly pleasant and as the seats were just behind business class we got the same food/service as them. bonus.

one flight was overbooked by 5 seats - no volunteers at $150 voucher but there were enough when it hit $500 to get us airborne. All seemed pretty well organised.

can't condone what happened on this flight though - appalling from the crew and the security.

ETA - i'm kinda stuck using United to get to the US as its the only airline that goes direct from my local airport, otherwise it's a minimum 100 mile trip for a different airline


Edited by arfursleep on Monday 10th April 17:31

Sheepshanks

32,522 posts

118 months

Monday 10th April 2017
quotequote all
amusingduck said:
I was gobsmacked when I saw the footage, properly piss boiling stuff.

Thankfully, I visited PH where I discovered that (as per the T+C's), the airline was technically fine to do so.

I feel much better now. I can rest easy knowing that the T+C's were adhered to - that is of course the #1 priority in these matters.
The stupid thing (for the people going on about T's & C's) is anything legal is always open to interpretation anyway and can usually be twisted to mean just about anything you like - you just need to hire an expensive lawyer and get them to persuade a Court to agree.

I'd be surprised in there isn't a similar thing to our Unfair Contract Terms law in the US too.

Kermit power

28,634 posts

212 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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jamiem555 said:
Here's a novel idea. Don't overbook the f**king flights!!!

Continental did this to us on our journey home from New York. Although we never quite made it onto the plane. Treated us like crap and didn't tell us until the last minute. They offloaded some random luggage, ours flew onto Edinburgh without us, and then the gate staff left us to find a civilised human who could arrange our accommodation for the night.
Except pretty much every airline overbooks pretty much every flight, and if they didn't, everyone's flights would be more expensive.

Yes, it's a pain when they actually have to turn passengers away, but it doesn't actually happen all that frequently, as they've got some pretty powerful algorithms they use to calculate just how much they can overbook any given flight by.

What's staggering here is that they were pulling the passenger off to let their own staff on! Chicago to Louisville is only 300 miles or so in the first place, so surely it would've been cheaper to rent a people carrier and driver to take their staff rather than all this crap?

Stuzza

138 posts

87 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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Nanook said:
Funkycoldribena said:
Im not being contrary,I dont think Ive ever agreed with Ll before.
I dont think the airline was right however fighting against being taken off is just plain stupid (no pun intended).
It also isnt worth thousands of dollars in compo either.
And yet, that's probably in the region of what they'll end up paying him to avoid a day in court.
This is the US... I suspect it will cost them a lot more than that. Damage limitation would be the first thing United should be looking at and making sure this never gets anywhere near a court by making an offer in excess of legal requirements would be my first step were I to be in their shoes.

skahigh

2,023 posts

130 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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Video of the guy seemingly after he got back on the plane.

https://twitter.com/Tyler_Bridges/status/851228695...

Clearly has a busted face, surely unreasonable force to use on a passenger who has paid for his seat, been boarded on to the plane and done nothing wrong other than refusing to give up his seat for a member of staff?

BertieWooster

3,229 posts

163 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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There's a fairly lengthy thread here on Flyertalk and also several running on Reddit. Quite a few videos of the incident on Twitter as well.

This is a pretty big PR disaster for United and I wouldn't be surprised if they end up paying a 6 or 7 figure sum to the gentleman.

anonymous-user

53 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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The PR is certainly poor.

I expect they'll want to avoid a repeat in the future when they're over-booked.

turbobloke

103,742 posts

259 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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Crazy situation in some ways but then I was expecting to read aboiut the airline execs being City supporters.

tim0409

4,354 posts

158 months

Monday 10th April 2017
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Just because something is in the airlines T+C's doesn't make it/them legally enforceable (certainly the case in the UK).