United needs to worry more about the attention span of East Asia right now.
I personally know 3 airline employees (1 pilot and 2 senior flight attendants) and have met others who commute to work for each shift. I assume that this process affects overbooking. Let us hope this perk is only available for those grandfathered in and not for all employees. Also, for airlines in “partnerships”, the flight crews also get perks across airlines.
I sat next to a seasoned pilot who lives in St. Lucia and travels to Atlanta for work. Fortunately he only has to do this 4 times per month, but in many tropical locations the flights become weekly vs daily during the summer months.
Seniority factors in when it comes to securing a seat and also they are given X number of guaranteed seats per year to use to get to work or for family travel.
I read somewhere this week that Delta is allowed to offer up to 4 times the cost of the one way ticket price though they rarely have to go that high.
In my husband’s situation the whole plane WAS offered the compensation…and no one took the airline up on the offer. So the airline did a random pick of who would get bumped.
For the record, my husband was a platinum FF with that airline…and he also had booked this ticket well over a month in advance…not at the last minute.
But bottom line…when the airline asks you to get off the plane…you do it. That didn’t happen here.im not excusing the way security handled the passenger. But really…he should have gotten off the plane when asked.
ETA…my family was on a flight to BWI the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Flight WAS overbooked. The airline offered compensation…and no one took them up on it. They didn’t even board the plane…and clearly stated they would not board until ONE person volunteered to give up their spot. We sat in the boarding area for well over an hour after the scheduled departure time because NO ONE was willing the night before the holiday. Finally someone did offer. The compensation did not increase by much…but they did.
I was very willing to volunteer…but they only needed ONE and would not compensate all four of us for a change to the next morning. Several other passengers had the same issue…traveling inna group…and the airline would only compensate ONE volunteer.
Re #281
Airline employees flying personal trips on passes are low priority standbys, unlike employees who are assigned to work at a location and must be moved there by the airline so that they can start work in the correct place.
There are some excellent memes all over facebook right now about this. I don’t think I’m allowed to post them here (right?) but one show a new class of seating on united flights, called Fight Club, and another shows the scene from the ever funny Airplane! movie where the passengers and crew stand in line waiting for their turn to calm down a hysterical passenger - they start with shaking her, move on to slapping her face and then the camera pans to people with boxing gloves, sticks and a gun. Doesn’t sound so funny as I write this, but if you know the movie and this scene, it is too close to reality now!
If you are IDB, the airline is required by law to pay you 2x the cost of a one-way ticket, up to $675, if they get you there within 1 to 2 hours of your original flight, and 4x up to $1350 if it is more than 2 hours past your original arrival time.
If they get you there within one hour of your original flight time, they owe you nothing.
Indeed. And it has more significance to many elderly folks considering the still strong bitterness many in those societies have for historical events occurring decades…even centuries ago.
This is underscored by continuing diplomatic/domestic issues arising from the Japanese Colonial legacy as illustrated by East Asian societies’ anger whenever Japan’s current politicians visit a site where 14 convicted Class A war criminals are enshrined or South Korea’s recently passed law against descendants of those who collaborated with Japan’s 35 year occupation of Korea by legally stripping them of all assets which could be traced to benefits their ancestors enjoyed from that collaboration and to prioritize redistribution of those assets to descendants of Korean patriots who fought against the Japanese occupation.
@thumper1, I agree. A lot of people had to make bad decisions for things to get this bad.
Usually, that many bad decisions do not get made all at once, which is why this is so unusual and “newsworthy.” Usually, the employees don’t have to bump paying passengers. Usually, someone will take the offer, or the offer will keep going up until someone takes it. Usually, the passenger that gets “chosen” for removal accepts the decision with grumbling but not defiance. Usually, security can get someone off a flight without bloodshed.
I don’t really have a problem with criticisms of United’s process for getting those employees to their destination, but also don’t have a problem with criticism of the passenger’s behavior, or the internet scrutiny of his background. Some people know the world doesn’t revolve around them, and they accept travel disruptions with grace and dignity. That doesn’t mean not pursuing compensation, but it means treating airline and security employees with respect. If you make a scene these days, internet snoops are going to look up whether that is a habit for you.
It could have been worse. He could have been traveling with a guitar. This may have been the first viral video I watched.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
“The airlines are fully within their rights to ask passengers to leave flights…for any reason”
I don’t think so @thumper. The FAA allows wide discretion in what can be in Contract of Carriage. But it’s not clear Uniteds CoC allows this. The CoC involves declining boarding " boarding" is an undefined term and elsewhere CoC discusses " removal" from a plane, indicating that they are different things.
So rightfully demanding one receives service one paid for and was promised while quietly minding one’s own business and then being forcibly manhandled for it is the fault of the passenger?
I don’t know about you, but that mentality of “security/airlines is always justified” is more reminiscent of those in authoritarian/totalitarian countries the US govt and most Americans condemn when they practice it…and rightfully so.
Sorry, but in this particular case, the beatings/injuries weren’t justified.
I should also add, why should the paying passengers effectively pay for what was essentially a problem rooted in crappy planning on the part of United’s management?
IMO, the proper thing for them to do was to up the ante and prepare an apology for any inconvenienced passengers at both ends while internally investigating those responsible for this incompetent planning and then disciplining them appropriately…upto and including termination.
I think the view of the airline was that it was better to re-accommodate one passenger than to cancel a flight that would have inconvenienced many many more. It was a tough decision to make. I doubt United takes such a decision lightly. This is evidenced by the algorithm they developed to aid in management decisions like this. Unfortunately a domino effect would have happened and a flight would have been cancelled elsewhere due to insufficient personnel. It is a classic problem of weighing the concerns of one with the concerns of many.
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I was very willing to volunteer…but they only needed ONE and would not compensate all four of us for a change to the next morning. Several other passengers had the same issue…traveling inna group…and the airline would only compensate ONE volunteer.
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Well, there you go.
again, the airlines shouldn’t be so stubborn. They should have allowed you, and the family to change to the later flight.
Seriously, all they would have needed to do is put all four of you on another plane (no extra cost to them), give the family maybe a $500 voucher total, and put y’all up in a suite hotel room.
I don’t believe that if the offered vouchers are high enough, there won’t be volunteers. Everyone has their price. Someone would have raised their hand for a $1000 voucher or $500 voucher and 20 baggage vouchers.
“I think the view of the airline was that it was better to re-accommodate one passenger than to cancel a flight that would have inconvenienced many many more. It was a tough decision to make. I doubt United takes such a decision lightly. This is evidenced by the algorithm they developed to aid in management decisions like this. Unfortunately a domino effect would have happened and a flight would have been cancelled elsewhere due to insufficient personnel. It is a classic problem of weighing the concerns of one with the concerns of many”
Nope nope nope. It would have been easy to avoid this problem by better incentivizing this highly unusual situation of pulling people off planes ( vs typical denial before boarding)
Does ANYONE think they wouldn’t have gotten volunteers within second if they had offered" if you give up your seat you will be made a platinum frequent flier immediately and get 2 free first class upgrades plus $800 voucher"
There is NO excuse for what United did.
And it’s also a classic problem that when there are no negative repercussions from poor planning, people feel no need to improve their organizational skills and planning in the future.
The more a company like United gets away with so poorly planning that a flight crew can walk up after passengers have boarded, minutes before a plane is supposed to take off and say they need priority because of a scheduling issue, the more they will continue that selfish, poor decision making. Had they faced the repercussion of a flightful of angry customers that needed to wait for a different flight or be reimbursed because of poor flight crew scheduling, then I bet they would have made sure not to make that mistake again.
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Nope nope nope. It would have been easy to avoid this problem by better incentivizing this highly unusual situation of pulling people off planes ( vs typical denial before boarding)
Does ANYONE think they wouldn’t have gotten volunteers within"if you give up your seat you will be made a platinum frequent flier immediately and get 2 free first class upgrades plus $800 voucher"
There is NO excuse for what United did.
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Agreed agreed agreed
People have their price.
The initial offer could be a $200 voucher, if no one bites, then it becomes $300…and so forth. At some point throw in some other desired stuff
^ There are many other ways to manage your flight crews other than having to fly them in from somewhere at the last second, bumping off paying passengers to accommodate them.
“Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”
United just doesn’t give a crap about their paying customers.
How do you know it was poor planning? This is what bothers me. Everyone makes assumptions when we really don’t know. Perhaps the crew was late due to a mechanical problem with another plane- or a weather issue somewhere. Perhaps this was a substitute crew because an original crew was stuck. WE DON’T KNOW! Again, I am not justifying the force used on this guy, but, as Thumper pointed out, it didn’t need to happen this way.
I also don’t think it was at all racially motivated. That’s just BS. He lost the lottery on this one, took a stand (not a good idea, as it turns out), and ran into the wrong enforcers. United has a clear black eye here, but we sure are quick to make up the fact patterns.
Also seems like United’s CEO and management who are almost certainly NOT of the much maligned millennial generation are acting like special snowflakes…and doubling down to boot.
^^^ But it didn’t have to be a tough decision to make, United just made it one. Basic economics: Keep dangling the carrot until someone bites. And someone will bite. This actually wasn’t the last flight out from Chicago to Louisville, there were two more. United had several options:
(1) Keep offering incentives until someone found the offer enticing enough to “volunteer.”
(2) Put the crew on one of two later flight and then do the whole bump procedure before boarding.
(3) Delay whatever yet-to-be-boarded flight the crew was trying to get to until a crew could get there. Surely, I crew could have been flown in from a location that did not have a full plane.
But then, the situation got worse when the United CEO opened his mouth (or rather his computer). Then, to do it not once, but TWICE and blame the passenger while refusing to admit any kind of responsibility or guilt was horrendous. Losses are closing in the $1B mark.
In a nutshell, by offering $1,000 or so in vouchers that could, in theory, be used for a seat that might otherwise go empty anyway, United is experiencing not just a PR nightmare, but a financial one as well.
You really have to ask, “Was it worth it?”
cobrat- Surely you have a few cousins who work for the airline who could fill us in!