If the situation wasn’t communicated clearly to the airport security personnel, then I think United has part of the blame for the way the man was treated. The crew might have simply told security that the man refused to de-board when he was told to do so.
Supposed they had said, “We had everyone seated, then we realized we needed four more seats for a crew to be on this plane, so we offered money for volunteers to take a later flight; we went up to $800 (the airlines says $1000, but the passengers say $800, so this is debatable), but did not get enough takers. Then we randomly selected people to be bumped. When we told this man he was selected to be bumped, he said he had to be on the flight, because he was a doctor and had patients to see the next morning. So he won’t give up his seat.”
Hypothetical response by security personnel, “Duh, you need to offer more money, and someone will give up a seat.”
I’ve read that blog post and I still don’t agree. And conflating 9/11 with this specific incident is rather disingenuous. Yes the laws were put into place bc of 9/11 but that has little bearing on how this situation was handled. I was more affected by the letter from the teacher who was with the student group on the plane. Really disturbing.
As I have said, I am not a fan of United and this whole thing was a mess. I’m sure all of you would have handled it much better and avoided this situation. This doctor behaved like an idiot and practices 1 day a week at a clinic due to his prior drug conviction. That doesn’t mean he should be beat up by security, of course, but everyone on that plane had somewhere to be! If that blog doesn’t help you understand how this all came about, then I can’t help you!
“So what’s this ‘must ride’ nonsense anyway? They shouldn’t bump a paying customer for a free employee ride!” I’m afraid you’re going to have to take this up with the federal government, not United. And it’s actually pretty important to you as an airline traveler anyway. They were not ‘freeloading home’. That’s called non-rev and they have to wait in line behind your checkbook and often don’t make it home to their families if flights are booked (believe me, I know). No, this was a must fly, a positive space situation. In layman terms, it means that a crew must be flown to an airport to man a flight in order to avoid cancellation of said flight due to crew unavailability. This is a federal DOT regulation, not an airline one. The airlines are required to do so to avoid disruption of air traffic. In other words, if there are no willing volunteers and they need seats to get a crew somewhere to avoid disruption of aviation flow, they can, will, must by federal regulation bump people for the better good of the 1000’s. Why? Because one cancelled flight has a serious domino affect in the delicate, complicated world of connections and aviation law."
The author says it is federal law that the staff had to get to Louisville. Looks like they were forced to make room (by removal).
This is some interesting stuff. It would be a great time to be in Law School and debating this. Too bad it might be settled out of court. It would make for good reading to see how this played out.
One thing the blog brought up that did not occur to me was the treatment during the flight of the individual who occupied the doctor’s seat after this incident. Apparently the passengers were not too kind to him/her. Must have been terribly awkward for all four of them to enter the cabin and travel.
I’m afraid I have a lot of trouble with these sorts of situations since I’ve been a lawyer for a long, long time and I have seen how a misstep by an otherwise ethical company with strong policies can bring down the Wrath of the Public on a company (not that United is anything great…).
United did most things here in accordance with the policies that they HAD to follow. The crew showed up at the gate AFTER the plane was boarded. The crew had to travel. Some passengers got bumped. Money was offered. Clearly it needed to be more- but it wasn’t. Who knew the 1 day a week doctor was going to go crazy over it and that security would overreact. Money will be paid, apologies will be made. I understand that everyone on the plane is getting reimbursed, for starters. Damage control.
Actually, now that other airlines charge non-elites for seat assignments at booking time (and sometimes unpredictably lose or change them due to equipment change or whatever), many passengers may have no pre-assigned seat on an assigned-seat airline, which can be worse than the Southwest boarding process. Passengers with no pre-assigned seat on an assigned-seat airline may not be able to select seats on check in (resulting in families being scattered and having to get gate agents to fix the problem later, usually be being combined in the few rows in the far back that are reserved for this purpose), and are probably more likely to be IDBed if the flight is overbooked and there are not enough VDBs.
The obvious one would be to keep upping the offer until they got enough volunteers to get off. Examples include increasing the voucher amount, cash instead of voucher, upgrade to first class on the rebooked flight, hotel if the next flight is the next day, etc…
Paying for voluntary denied boarding or deboarding can increase goodwill toward the airline, or at least avoid anti-goodwill (see https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2017/04/09/why-delta-air-lines-paid-me-11000-not-to-fly-to-florida-this-weekend/ ). Any involuntary denied boarding or deboarding always increases anti-goodwill toward the airline, even if it does not escalate to the level of the recent United incident. Even if United had to pay $11,000 to get enough volunteers to deboard, that is trivial compared to the cost of anti-goodwill they now have.
“This doctor behaved like an idiot and practices 1 day a week at a clinic due to his prior drug conviction”
Really!! I don’t understand this logic. What difference does this make in the scope of this incident. Maybe his one day a week is Monday. So now you want to take away his one day a week of income because he had prior issues that had no bearing on this. That’s just wrong.
I watched the video from behind and he was never disruptive or belligerent. There really was no escalation until he was grabbed and assaulted by the security.
@QuantMech I totally agree with your statement. I personally believe the security/law enforcement was 100% wrong but when they are called I’m guessing they were only told they needed to get someone off the flight. That typically relates to someone is a threat to security which in my opinion was not the case. Thus contributory negligence on the part of the airline.
I also read the pilots wife blog and also disagree with the premise that this makes this situation alright. Of course she wants her husband home sooner. Well everybody on that plane had somewhere to be, a family to get to, a job that they could not afford to miss. If that weren’t the case there would have been volunteers. I have volunteered to give up flights when I had no pressing engagements. Other times I have not volunteered because I needed to get to my destination. Flights are cancelled all the time by the airlines disrupting services. I’ve even been cancelled because the crew did not show. It happens.
The only threats to security in this instance were perpetrated by UAL and security/police. And this passenger was assaulted because of their ineptness to deal with the situation in a reasonable manner.
I almost always fly first class on AA. Rarely ever have paid, but booked with FF miles, so I haven’t been aware of situations where a confirmed passenger has no seat assignment. Air travel continues to get less and less customer friendly.
The reason this has struck such a chord with all of us is that all of us at some time have not gotten good customer service from an airline (at the least) or have been treated miserably. I read that 98% of the public think United handled this situation badly.
^I agree. If we were happy with airline industry in general, this incident would have gotten the traction it did.
@Nrdsb4 It did happen to a first class passenger. This thread is about a first class passenger threatened with a handcuff although we now reverted to the other case.
I want to say, who knew that there were more than one blog for pilot wife life lol!
I think united picked the wrong guy to bump, he acted in a way I wouldn’t have but United and security didn’t handle it well either.
I do have to say that people hate to fly now and it’s getting harder. So I think this hit a nerve with the public. It’s not the airlines fault and it’s not TSA’s fault but it all contributes to our discontent. Like it or not everyone wants to fly for the least amount of money possible. So every airline has to fly on a smaller and smaller margin.
To think that on a full plane on a Sunday that no one wanted to get bumped is crazy (especially during the spring break period). And for United to not have another option until the next day is crazy. And for there to be a crew that needed to get from point a to b, crazy. Add a passenger who acted like he was a civil rights protester, a perfect storm happened.
If this was already pointed out on the other discussion that got shut down I’m sorry.
@igloo, that has nothing to do with what I said. I simply said that since I use miles to fly first class (and always have assigned seating, whether or not one can later be bumped), I had not realized that many commercial airlines now sell tickets without giving a confirmed seat number.
I never buy a ticket without a confirmed seat. That said, I’ve lost my confirmed seat at times when we are switched to a different airlines at times.
I really wonder and hope that this makes some changes in the airline industry – this spate of bad publicity. I noticed they did not read the normal spiel at the end of our flight on Tuesday, “We know you have a choice and are glad you chose United Airlines.”
Many airlines now will only give a pre-assigned economy class seat at booking for an extra charge. The charge may be waived for frequent flyer elites. Also, the last available seats in economy class will not get pre-assigned seats, since the airline wants to maintain a few rows of unassigned seats to be able to reseat families together at the gate, as well as make it less obvious to passengers whether the flight is over booked (though passengers without pre-assigned seats are presumably at higher risk for IDB).
You may want to try some test bookings in economy class at various airlines without being logged into your frequent flyer account to see what their pre-assigned economy class seat policies are.
I stopped flying United years ago when the flight I was on left the gate, and promptly parked on the tarmac holding area, shut off the engines and A/C in 90 deg weather, where we waited for 4 hours due to weather delays at the destination. I even had the misfortune to be seated next to the fat lady (who never did sing). They did that because they did not want another ‘delayed departure’ to spoil their on-time record, which was measured when the plane left the gate.
United was simply too cheap to offer enough money for passengers to deplane. At $1000 they probably would have had 10 volunteers. Everyone who flies enough knows the thresholds where people volunteer.
I am not a big fan of United, but it seems from our area we are stuck with them for many flight options.
H is not a flight ‘road warrior’, but he travels a fair amount for work over the years. He has a very detailed memory of a Friday the 13th of Feb return from Asia where his total travel time was over 26 hours (all on the 13th) and the last leg home flight was canceled (150 miles from home). He arranged for a rent car and got 3 other people who also needed to get home from the cancelled flight - his condition was that they could ride for free as long as he did no driving, so they happily agreed and someone else less fatigued drove the rent car and all 4 were happy. They dropped one guy off on the way at his home about a hour before getting to final city. H was happy to be home for WE and also with our elementary DDs who wanted him home for Valentine’s Day.
The key is paying attention for future legs of your flights. H was in Montreal, and he saw on the board where his flight to Chicago was CX - so he immediately got to another airline counter with a Chicago flight and got a seat on it. Then in Chicago on his last leg, first there was some delay with the baggage - security check or something; then they found an exterior plane light out, so that had to be fixed and they missed their ‘take off’ slot. But thankfully he got home. United still didn’t give a delayed time when on the runway waiting, so I arrived at airport 45 minutes too soon - their flight information acted like the plane had taken off (I guess sitting on the runway meets their definition for flight leaving on time…)
The doctor/passenger ran back on the plane. I call that pretty out of line.
I am A List on Southwest and have had mostly positive experiences. Sh** happens, and I’ve been a frequent traveler for many , many years and I’ve learned that sometimes you have to just roll with it. Air travel is generally miserable, but give me wifi and maybe a free drink if it is evening (which I get on Southwest) and I’m good!