United Airlines PR fiasco - police forcibly remove man from overbooked flight

[Simeon_Strangelight]

Jeez - United dumped a load there once again.

This is not rocket science frankly. The crew should have assessed who will likely go without throwing a tantrum. I would not have picked any elderly men and certainly not someone who said that he is a doctor and needs to fly.

Young couples work fine - and from what I can get - a group of teenagers left voluntarily - why didn't they kick those out first. It is not as if they had something important to do anyway since they left he plane out of protest anyway later on.

I could have easily selected 4 individuals who would have walked out without much pressure.

 

[achromaticmike]

Meh its just a sperg. There's no point trying to understand how its brain got so awry and its responses so decoupled from normal behavior. Let it enjoy being vehemently technically right. He's much more technically right than you. He's a very very clever boy and so smart and right! Just add it to the ignore list and pretend its not there.

People are kicked off flights like this across the country everyday. Especially during the winter when bad weather fucks up schedules across the country.

Normal behavior doesn't require law enforcement to get involved.

It's okay to admit you're wrong sometimes. xoxo

Hey Aspie, let me explain to you how the court of public opinion works.

When you either as a person or a business act like an asshole, people will rightly want to avoid you regardless of how right you may think you are.

They could have easily offered up to $1300 for a seat, but didn't. Now, United has to deal with the loss of people actively avoiding them because they don't want to deal with being forcibly ejected from a plane for pittance money.

Let this sink into your thick libertarian skull:

By being technically right, they're now losing profit and customers because they decided to be assholes.

Reeeeeeeeee! But my lawyers say i'm correct!

And you may very well be Mr. Mike the Sperg, but you're still an asshole and people don't like assholes shitting on them.

The irony is that particular flight that had this man get his ass kicked on ultimately didn't even take off on time which means those four United employees needed for the other flight weren't there and now an extra flight was delayed.

This all could have been avoided if United paid more to get people off of the flight.

TL;DR Being an asshole costs money. Don't be an asshole.

Let me use my "Aspie" to explain to you how simple economics and basic logic works.

1) United has a policy that sucks for its customers. Nobody wants to get kicked off a flight involuntarily. This policy is in effect with basically every airline and is so common that there's coded US and EU law on the compensation for it when it happens.

2) Law enforcement violence doesn't always look good on camera.

Therefore, will United lose more revenue from ending overbooking or from rare incidents like this with disgruntled passengers occurring?

I honestly don't know the answer but we can come back to this in a few weeks and we probably will know because I'm sure United has an accountant working on that now.

If I had to guess; their policy won't change and 99% of the people bitching weren't going to fly United while the 1% that were are going to continue to buy whatever fare is cheapest.

Being an asshole doesn't always cost money. In fact -- it definitely gets you more pussy and acquiring both of them are often complementary talents.

 

[worldwidetraveler]

Therefore, will United lose more revenue from ending overbooking or from rare incidents like this with disgruntled passengers occurring?

I honestly don't know the answer but we can come back to this in a few weeks and we probably will know because I'm sure United has an accountant working on that now.

If I had to guess; their policy won't change and 99% of the people bitching weren't going to fly United while the 1% that were are going to continue to buy whatever fare is cheapest.

Target lost estimated 15 billion over transgender bathrooms.

Starbucks lost around 24% of their value because the CEO decided to be a SJW and virtual signal he would hire 10k immigrants.

I would say those are minor compared to a guy who was dragged off in a bloody mess against his will because the airline was greedy and overbooked.

Target and Starbucks had every right to do what they did and it turned out bad for them.

 

[The Beast1]

Meh its just a sperg. There's no point trying to understand how its brain got so awry and its responses so decoupled from normal behavior. Let it enjoy being vehemently technically right. He's much more technically right than you. He's a very very clever boy and so smart and right! Just add it to the ignore list and pretend its not there.

People are kicked off flights like this across the country everyday. Especially during the winter when bad weather fucks up schedules across the country.

Normal behavior doesn't require law enforcement to get involved.

It's okay to admit you're wrong sometimes. xoxo

Hey Aspie, let me explain to you how the court of public opinion works.

When you either as a person or a business act like an asshole, people will rightly want to avoid you regardless of how right you may think you are.

They could have easily offered up to $1300 for a seat, but didn't. Now, United has to deal with the loss of people actively avoiding them because they don't want to deal with being forcibly ejected from a plane for pittance money.

Let this sink into your thick libertarian skull:

By being technically right, they're now losing profit and customers because they decided to be assholes.

Reeeeeeeeee! But my lawyers say i'm correct!

And you may very well be Mr. Mike the Sperg, but you're still an asshole and people don't like assholes shitting on them.

The irony is that particular flight that had this man get his ass kicked on ultimately didn't even take off on time which means those four United employees needed for the other flight weren't there and now an extra flight was delayed.

This all could have been avoided if United paid more to get people off of the flight.

TL;DR Being an asshole costs money. Don't be an asshole.

Let me use my "Aspie" to explain to you how simple economics and basic logic works.

1) United has a policy that sucks for its customers. Nobody wants to get kicked off a flight involuntarily. This policy is in effect with basically every airline and is so common that there's coded US and EU law on the compensation for it when it happens.

2) Law enforcement violence doesn't always look good on camera.

Therefore, will United lose more revenue from ending overbooking or from rare incidents like this with disgruntled passengers occurring?

I honestly don't know the answer but we can come back to this in a few weeks and we probably will know because I'm sure United has an accountant working on that now.

If I had to guess; their policy won't change and 99% of the people bitching weren't going to fly United while the 1% that were are going to continue to buy whatever fare is cheapest.

Being an asshole doesn't always cost money. In fact -- it definitely gets you more pussy and acquiring both of them are often complementary talents.

Let me guess, you work for United and it was your call to not up the $800 ticket refund and you're mad that you have people above you yelling at you for being an ass?

 

[achromaticmike]

Jeez - United dumped a load there once again.

This is not rocket science frankly. The crew should have assessed who will likely go without throwing a tantrum. I would not have picked any elderly men and certainly not someone who said that he is a doctor and needs to fly.

Young couples work fine - and from what I can get - a group of teenagers left voluntarily - why didn't they kick those out first. It is not as if they had something important to do anyway since they left he plane out of protest anyway later on.

I could have easily selected 4 individuals who would have walked out without much pressure.

Except now you're inviting yourself to get sued for discrimination and you're comparing yourself to the average airline gate idiot.

The computer chooses based on fare class, premier status, time of check in, etc...

If the guy was offered $800 then his ticket was $200. From Chicago to Louisville with United that's about as cheap as it gets. Those people you randomly select might have tickets costing triple the amount requiring a bigger refund and more compensation under the law.

 

[achromaticmike]

Meh its just a sperg. There's no point trying to understand how its brain got so awry and its responses so decoupled from normal behavior. Let it enjoy being vehemently technically right. He's much more technically right than you. He's a very very clever boy and so smart and right! Just add it to the ignore list and pretend its not there.

People are kicked off flights like this across the country everyday. Especially during the winter when bad weather fucks up schedules across the country.

Normal behavior doesn't require law enforcement to get involved.

It's okay to admit you're wrong sometimes. xoxo

Hey Aspie, let me explain to you how the court of public opinion works.

When you either as a person or a business act like an asshole, people will rightly want to avoid you regardless of how right you may think you are.

They could have easily offered up to $1300 for a seat, but didn't. Now, United has to deal with the loss of people actively avoiding them because they don't want to deal with being forcibly ejected from a plane for pittance money.

Let this sink into your thick libertarian skull:

By being technically right, they're now losing profit and customers because they decided to be assholes.

Reeeeeeeeee! But my lawyers say i'm correct!

And you may very well be Mr. Mike the Sperg, but you're still an asshole and people don't like assholes shitting on them.

The irony is that particular flight that had this man get his ass kicked on ultimately didn't even take off on time which means those four United employees needed for the other flight weren't there and now an extra flight was delayed.

This all could have been avoided if United paid more to get people off of the flight.

TL;DR Being an asshole costs money. Don't be an asshole.

Let me use my "Aspie" to explain to you how simple economics and basic logic works.

1) United has a policy that sucks for its customers. Nobody wants to get kicked off a flight involuntarily. This policy is in effect with basically every airline and is so common that there's coded US and EU law on the compensation for it when it happens.

2) Law enforcement violence doesn't always look good on camera.

Therefore, will United lose more revenue from ending overbooking or from rare incidents like this with disgruntled passengers occurring?

I honestly don't know the answer but we can come back to this in a few weeks and we probably will know because I'm sure United has an accountant working on that now.

If I had to guess; their policy won't change and 99% of the people bitching weren't going to fly United while the 1% that were are going to continue to buy whatever fare is cheapest.

Being an asshole doesn't always cost money. In fact -- it definitely gets you more pussy and acquiring both of them are often complementary talents.

Let me guess, you work for United and it was your call to not up the $800 ticket refund and you're mad that you have people above you yelling at you for being an ass?

No...I really like my EU to US flights on United though since I usually get a full row to myself after sitting in one of the foreign carriers Senator lounges.

 

[achromaticmike]

Therefore, will United lose more revenue from ending overbooking or from rare incidents like this with disgruntled passengers occurring?

I honestly don't know the answer but we can come back to this in a few weeks and we probably will know because I'm sure United has an accountant working on that now.

If I had to guess; their policy won't change and 99% of the people bitching weren't going to fly United while the 1% that were are going to continue to buy whatever fare is cheapest.

Target lost estimated 15 billion over transgender bathrooms.

Starbucks lost around 24% of their value because the CEO decided to be a SJW and virtual signal he would hire 10k immigrants.

I would say those are minor compared to a guy who was dragged off in a bloody mess against his will because the airline was greedy and overbooked.

Target and Starbucks had every right to do what they did and it turned out bad for them.

You might be right, but I doubt it. United's stock went up today. Maybe the story just hadn't broke widely enough yet. ...ultimately they'll probably say something more to save face and people will continue to book the cheapest ticket.

All airlines overbook and all airlines would reasonably be expected to contact LE if a passenger failed to deplane.

 

[Gustavus Adolphus]

Need to add this fine print to the worldwide immigration reform policy.

Dear United Airline legal team:

Here's our new immigration policy-

"Once cleared of security risk for entry, if at any time you won't take the $50 we offer you and your family to voluntarily remove yourselves from within our borders (or 4x their investment), when deemed necessary for current operational necessity, we have the authority to drag your busted skulls out on a stretcher and put you on the never return list. Peanuts may or not be available for temporary residents. Enjoy your stay."

Did we miss anything? We'd like to make sure all our actions are legal. We know there may be some...turbulence.

 

[BrewDog]

Here's how I propose to resolve this.

The doctor that was dragged off the plane should find a way to share this experience with every medical doctor he can reach via fax, email, or website. I'm going to assume they all have a doctor directory.

Every time a United Airlines flight has a medical emergency and asks for a medical doctor (happens daily), the doctors can stop performing free life-saving care for United's passengers. The doctors can have their attorneys serve a bill for medical services to United Airlines for any medical services provided.

I think that's more than fair considering United doesn't think any more highly of this doctor than to physically throw him off the plane rather than saying, "Hey, maybe it would be nice to have a doctor on our plane in case the goddamn captain has a heart attack."

And the argument about whether it's legal is moot. Lots of shitty things are legal. Read your internet or cell phone contract some time. But legal and right are many times two completely different things.

 

[worldwidetraveler]

You might be right, but I doubt it. United's stock went up today. Maybe the story just hadn't broke widely enough yet. ...ultimately they'll probably say something more to save face and people will continue to book the cheapest ticket.

All airlines overbook and all airlines would reasonably be expected to contact LE if a passenger failed to deplane.

United fell 2.5% pre-trading but then rebounded. It's still too early to know if this will blow over. The take away is to not get into a situation that you have to hope for it to blow over. It isn't good for business making mistakes like this. Sooner or later it will catch up.

 

[achromaticmike]

Here's how I propose to resolve this.

The doctor that was dragged off the plane should find a way to share this experience with every medical doctor he can reach via fax, email, or website. I'm going to assume they all have a doctor directory.

Every time a United Airlines flight has a medical emergency and asks for a medical doctor (happens daily), the doctors can stop performing free life-saving care for United's passengers. The doctors can have their attorneys serve a bill for medical services to United Airlines for any medical services provided.

I think that's more than fair considering United doesn't think any more highly of this doctor than to physically throw him off the plane rather than saying, "Hey, maybe it would be nice to have a doctor on our plane in case the goddamn captain has a heart attack."

And the argument about whether it's legal is moot. Lots of shitty things are legal. Read your internet or cell phone contract some time. But legal and right are many times two completely different things.

Overbooking is both legal and right. It sucks if you get the boot but at the end of the day the policy is grounded in the reality that shit happens and if they didn't do it a lot of flights would be flying emptier and cancellation / change policies would have to be significantly more restrictive.

As to the doctor nonsense -- I wouldn't want this crazy fuck working on me -- hopefully the flight has another one or a nurse.

 

[Peregrine]

Jeez - United dumped a load there once again.

This is not rocket science frankly. The crew should have assessed who will likely go without throwing a tantrum. I would not have picked any elderly men and certainly not someone who said that he is a doctor and needs to fly.

Young couples work fine - and from what I can get - a group of teenagers left voluntarily - why didn't they kick those out first. It is not as if they had something important to do anyway since they left he plane out of protest anyway later on.

I could have easily selected 4 individuals who would have walked out without much pressure.

Except now you're inviting yourself to get sued for discrimination and you're comparing yourself to the average airline gate idiot.

The computer chooses based on fare class, premier status, time of check in, etc...

If the guy was offered $800 then his ticket was $200. From Chicago to Louisville with United that's about as cheap as it gets. Those people you randomly select might have tickets costing triple the amount requiring a bigger refund and more compensation under the law.

He wasn't offered 800, they first offered 400 and then 800 to the entire plane with no takers. The mistake was forcibly ejecting him when they could've tried to ask someone else, possibly with a higher incentive.

I say mistake because I've made basically the same mistake before. It's a big event and my company's in charge of crowd control and general security. I've been putting out dozens of fires all day, got soaked by rain, and it's still scorching hot and stupidly humid despite the earlier rain. In other words, I'm really annoyed. One of my guys calls me over because some smug bastard refuses to comply with a reasonable regulation. He won't budge even after I try to explain it to him five times, so I told my guys to eject him when I should have just let him have his way. And when he resisted, my guys roughed him up pretty bad in front of hundreds of people. Wouldn't be surprised if there's still some grainy smartphone video of the incident floating around on the internet.

Management was rightfully displeased with my judgement.

Overbooking is both legal and right. It sucks if you get the boot but at the end of the day the policy is grounded in the reality that shit happens and if they didn't do it a lot of flights would be flying emptier and cancellation / change policies would have to be significantly more restrictive.

Dude, most of us here don't have a problem with overbooking. And they have every right to use force to eject people who refuse to leave the plane. But you do get that offering a thousand dollars more to another person would've cost significantly less in retrospect than what they're dealing with now, right?

 

[achromaticmike]

You might be right, but I doubt it. United's stock went up today. Maybe the story just hadn't broke widely enough yet. ...ultimately they'll probably say something more to save face and people will continue to book the cheapest ticket.

All airlines overbook and all airlines would reasonably be expected to contact LE if a passenger failed to deplane.

United fell 2.5% pre-trading but then rebounded. It's still too early to know if this will blow over. The take away is to not get into a situation that you have to hope for it to blow over. It isn't good for business making mistakes like this. Sooner or later it will catch up.

Not overbooking flights wouldn't be good for the airline business either. They'd be leaving millions of dollars on the table.

This incident is really simple. A passenger was told to GTFO. He refused. Law enforcement was contacted and showed up on site. He still refused. They made him GTFO.

A lot of people don't like the optics of how law enforcement is accomplished lately because we've turned into a generation of snowflakes -- this incident is another example. Dragging someone out of a tight airline seat against their will doesn't sound like a simple task.

 

[BrewDog]

As to the doctor nonsense -- I wouldn't want this crazy fuck working on me -- hopefully the flight has another one or a nurse.

The doctor didn't order an assault upon anyone. How is he crazy? But you'll let that pilot fly you across America knowing that he has no common reasoning abilities?

 

[Repo]

Guarantee the fallout will costs the airline wayyyy more than what they could have raised the offer too. Bad business sense, sad!

 

[worldwidetraveler]

Not overbooking flights wouldn't be good for the airline business either. They'd be leaving millions of dollars on the table.

We aren't talking about overbooking. We are talking about how they handled this situation. United just had bad press about women wearing leggings and now this.

 

[kavi]

I dont see the need for a discussion here. United have suspended one of their employees over this so they seem to be saying this was not the process that is meant to be followed. Whether legal or not there are better ways to handle the situation and they seem to be admitting their error.

 

[achromaticmike]

Dude, most of us here don't have a problem with overbooking. And they have every right to use force to eject people who refuse to leave the plane. But you do get that offering a thousand dollars more to another person would've cost significantly less in retrospect than what they're dealing with now, right?

In this specific instance sure it would have been a good idea. However, Huge corporations don't give their peons the power to control that. If they gave their peons the power to give another $1000 on top of what they're already giving it would probably end up being millions in extra compensation every year. They didn't have a magical crystal telling them this was the time that calling LE for the removal of a passenger would go viral.

Ultimately his ticket almost definitely did cost around $200. How do I know? ...because they kick the lowest fare class and I'm a United elite that flies out of Chicago so I know what that distance from O'Hare would roughly cost on the cheapest ticket.

 

[worldwidetraveler]

The memes are starting to hit.

 

[achromaticmike]

I dont see the need for a discussion here. United have suspended one of their employees over this so they seem to be saying this was not the process that is meant to be followed. Whether legal or not there are better ways to handle the situation and they seem to be admitting their error.

...they sacrificed someone to appease the rioters