United didn’t legally need to bump anyone. If they couldn’t fairly get a flight crew to Louisville, then they should have cancelled the Louisville flight. They chose not to do so because it would have cost them money. But no one would have been injured.
Dao’s reasons for traveling were no less important than anyone else’s either on the flight he was dragged from nor the Louisville flight.
If that was the case, then United should have opted for chartering a van which may have taken 5 hours, but would have still left plenty of time for them to make their mandatory arrival date.
And in that light, further underscoring how little priority United gives towards providing even a minimal level of customer service.
Looks like United treats it’s employees better than it’s passengers
http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-united-horror-stories-20170412-story.html
Question: how much more would you be willing to pay for your airfare if there was a complete guarantee that your seat will be there for you, no matter what? Just curious. I booked 2 tickets to fly to LAX - $80 apiece one way. That is way cheaper than driving or taking the train. I am sure that low price comes with a possibility that I might not get there when I expect to…
momto2girls- I suggest you do some research. Federal law requires that the crew get to the next flight in order to avoid a complete domino effect and inconvenience many multitudes of people. I’m incredulous about the lack of understanding of how the aviation system works! Cobrat- no, the airline doesn’t charter a van. This is the way it works. Someone loses their seat. Ideally, they are well compensated. Ideally, they don’t get a concussion and lose teeth.
My point about Dr. Dao and his drug conviction is merely to counter the social media elevation of him to brain surgeon to children and saints. He had somewhere to be just as the United crew and all the other passengers did. His patients needing allergy meds and antibiotics would have to wait.
Not very relevant in these cases as both of the cases being discussed along with the attempted bumping off of First class passengers for Munoz and his family occurred AFTER the bumped passengers/passengers to be bumped HAD ALREADY TAKEN THEIR SEATS and thus, were boarded.
There would have been no arguments if they had been bumped prior to boarding…but that’s not what happened in those cases.
According to several legal commentators, this factor makes a critical difference as once passengers are boarded, they can only be bumped off for specific stipulated reasons according to laws pertaining to airlines…and those stipulations don’t include being bumped off because of poor planning by airlines who weren’t willing to exhaust other options for getting airline crew to needed destinations or in order to favor “higher priority” passengers.
This was an interesting post on Quora:
I have had numerous conversations with industry personnel in the past 2 days, including one conversation about 3 hours ago with a person who agrees with Mr. Carothers. I have to admit, he had some valid points. I’ll call him “Ned”, for the purpose of this discussion. He works in the customer service department of a minor airline in the USA… not United or Republic. This is all paraphrased to remove the ambiguity…
Me: So, whaddya think about all this?
Ned: The passenger is definitely in the wrong, initially, for refusing to deplane. Poorly handled by United, Republic, and the cops, though.
Me: What would you guys have done?
Ned: Oh… we would probably have ended up calling the cops, too. It happens all the time. I’d like to think that our people would have handled it a bit more delicately, though. But who am I to Monday-morning quarterback? I wasn’t there.
Me: You think United’s going to eat this?
Ned: Oh, yeah. It’s all over YouTube. Did you see Kimmel last night? He doesn’t know d&^$ about the airlines, but he sure sunk United last night.
Me: I saw that… Court of public opinion, right?
Ned: All the way. It doesn’t matter who’s at fault or what really happened. United has already been tried, judged, and executed. But you know, the thing is… there’s just no excuse for dragging someone down the aisle in front of all the other passengers. You never do that. United didn’t do it… the police did… but I didn’t see any headlines about the police today.
Me: So, what do you think about denied boarding versus removal?
Ned: It’s just a can of worms. I know you think they’re the same thing, but to the passenger, they’re really not. If I’m actually sitting in the seat, it’s a huge blow to my human dignity to make me get out of my seat. Then I have to do the “walk of shame” down the aisle in front of all the other passengers.
Me: I get it, but this was a last-minute crew boarding. The gate crew didn’t know about it until the passengers were boarded.
Ned: Doesn’t matter to the passengers. It’s all the same to them. How do you justify… really… pulling someone out of their seat? It’s just entirely different than denying boarding at the gate, from a human standpoint.
Me: Well, what about the passengers at Louisville waiting on that crew? That flight’s going to be canceled if the crew doesn’t fly.
Ned: Then the flight gets canceled.
Me: So what would you do? Remove the ceiling on the voluntary compensation?
Ned: Nah… You can’t go breaking your own compensation rules and de-valuing your product. They offered $800… nobody took it… that’s the end of it. You offer $2000 today, then you have to offer it the next day. You can’t do that. you can’t start moving the goal posts every time you need to deplane someone.
Me: Well, you can’t say, “This guy doesn’t want to get off” and then pick someone else. That’s not fair to the other passengers.
Ned: No… It’s not… You know what you have to do.
Me: You would have canceled the flight out of Louisville and stranded 70 passengers, wouldn’t you?
Ned: Yep. It sucks, but it was the only right thing to do.
Cobrat - I am asking a question, not in relation to any of the two incidents discussed here. Just curious. If you have no answer, don’t answer. 
We know the current ticketing system is flawed. The system needs to be revamped. All revisions come at a cost that will be eventually passed onto the customer. I expect it to be an industry-wide reform, and the ticket prices will reflect that. How much more would the public be willing to pay?
I have been interested from the beginning in who these guys are we keep calling police. When I tried to research a few days ago, I learned they were airport security, not regular police. I don’t believe they are under the jurisdiction of city police, though I read something about them being trained together. The Chicago city police were called by the press and gave a statement. Were they actually involved in some kind d of investigation by that point?
The airport security employee was put on leave by airport security. They admitted fault the first day.
Alh, per one of the doctor’s attorneys talking on CNN this morning, they are CPD officers.
“Then why was he bleeding and acting dazed when he ran back on the plane? Where did the blood come from? Am I not supposed to believe my lying eyes here? There’s video.”
Exactly. Iirc from other reports, the second time he was removed from the plane it was on a stretcher because of the shape he was in from getting dragged out of his seat the first time.
BB: thanks. I can’t find what I was reading that explained airport security at that airport, but will look later if i have time. So many of these reports are just so garbled. I am very interested in the police aspect, if anyone understands how it works. It wasn’t even clear to me it’s the same everywhere.
Do you not understand that it’s not just one flight cancellation? If they can’t get a crew to an airplane, it affects all the flights on that airplane downline.
Do you know what the crew duty day already was? There are legal, inviolate rules that must be adhered to. If they had already been flying or on reserve that day (which no doubt they were), they can only stay on duty for a certain number of hours. A five hour van ride is included in that time. Then they must get the legal number of hours of rest. It’s not like you can just run the crew as long as you want to, that is illegal as ruled by the FAA. And as a passenger, you need to realize that is a good thing. If the airlines could do anything they wanted to, the crews would be working even more fatigued than they already are…which is the base cause of many (if not most) aircraft accidents.
The bitter pill for that is for United and its management to take in full rather than offloading those pills on passengers like Dr. Dao who had nothing to do with their poor planning to fail to take possible contingencies into account.
And it failed considering United is getting raked on the coals…and rightfully so.
Also, some legal commentary about Dr. Dao’s lawyers likely “Re-accomodating” United through the courts…including the fine distinction between bumping off passengers before boarding and effective restrictions on bumping off passengers once they’ve been boarded by virtue of having taken their seats:
@cobrat “Dr. Dao, or as we like to call him, future CEO of United Airlines Dr. Dao…”
It seems quite apparent that the injuries were caused by airport security, and it sounds like they realized it quickly. Too bad there wasn’t a camera where the more serious injuries occurred, because it looks to me like he was kicked or punched at some point (haven’t seen video that showed that).
But when I read comments that blame the airline for his injuries, I find that kind of weird. Usually people are so ready to blame police, and now they are blaming people who didn’t even touch him. Weird. Generally when security shows up, people leave the airplane peacefully and don’t have to get dragged off. Do we really want to try to intimidate airline employees to never call security? That drunk or drugged up guy who needs to be escorted off the airplane. I guess we don’t want anyone to do anything. The aggressive, threatening person, the guy who is carrying a knife. Nope, better not call.
You know, if the reports about the good doctor’s criminal record are true, it would be astounding to me that he would be allowed to practice medicine. Not a single flight crew member would remain with that record. Not the janitor sweeping the airport floor or the people loading the bags. And one could still practice medicine? Wow. Then again, I hope it isn’t true.
Perhaps part of the reason for popular dislike of United (and other airlines) is that most infrequent flyers are unaware of all of the things that could go wrong (including involuntarily not being allowed to fly as well as lesser issues like families being assigned random seats apart from each other or baggage mishandling). More frequent flyers know about these risks and take steps to mitigate them (in their choice of flights, etc.), and many more frequent flyers have elite status that reduces their risk. But an infrequent flyer is more likely to feel like s/he has been scammed if something bad happens that s/he did not realize was even a risk.
In his case, that would be adding great insult to injury considering being a CEO of United would be a substantial demotion in position/status at this point…
BB, I’d pay 0 more. It’s supposed to be my seat.
On the other hand, I’d happily pay a lot less to fly standby knowing that I’m not guaranteed a seat.
No, romani. That is the problem, the current prices COME with the BS everyone hates.