Remember when UAL’s motto was “Fly the friendly skies”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dmm3HfLJ7A =))
Even worse if you are not bumping for paying passengers! They should not be stupid here. Pay whatever it takes to get ppl to accept another flight. It is BS that they can bump a ticket holder period. But as they reserve that right…they need to pay the price. Pay it upfront or in bad press. Take your pick!
This is the way to do it with Delta!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2017/04/09/why-delta-air-lines-paid-me-11000-not-to-fly-to-florida-this-weekend/#a50ac584de16
@MassDaD68 he was arrested, I believe. So this man’s patients could suffer if he loses his license because United airlines committed fraud and assault as well.
They planned poorly on overbooking and then compounded it by having planned poorly for their own employees and then intimidating, assaulting and possibly ruining the career of a paying customer who did make his own plans carefully and did nothing to warrant being singled out for removal from the airplane.
I rarely (maybe never- I can’t think of one I have but hate to give absolutes) boycott companies but after seeing this I will only fly United if forced.
Before I read this, husband and I were talking this morning about an upcoming flight. Our very small carry ons are now an inch too big, so we have to decide about buying new luggage, whether it will hold enough, or checking bags which frequently delays us at customs. And airlines have lost our bags. Soon it just won’t be worth it to us to fly. I can see it coming. Of course, they don’t need our business.
I really think I’m about to switch to trains and buses for domestic travel on my own, even though it will take a lot longer. At least, I’m ready to try it out.
We hate United. We reserved two tickets months in advance for my husband and son to fly to Colorado for a short ski vacation. They wouldn’t assign seats in advance. Guess what, they overbooked the flight, bumping D and S. They ended up losing a DAY of their vacation with no compensation. So infuriating. I realized they didn’t have assigned seats on the flight home, either, and there was some reason they HAD to get back in time. So I got on the phone and refused to hang up until they assigned them seats. We use United only if there are NO other options.
One question: Where did the doctor-having-to-see-his-patients thing come from? It sounds like the passengers were the one who reported this…but I’d be dubious of it until confirmed…plus, this guy…and I’m basing this on the fact that i fly alot…and none of it flying to fun places…he sounds unnecessarily agitated to me. An entire flight crew had to get somewhere (or strand hundreds of people), a married couple selected before him peacefully get off (and are given $800)…then this guy is not only dragged off but somehow manages to sneak back onto the flight with a bloodied face? I don’t know…this is an odd story.
He got back on the flight? Didn’t someone think he was arrested? Something is very fishy here. lol. This is going to turn out to be a huge case of internet fake news? Did this thing start on facebook? lol. Too funny how we all fell for this click bait. Oh boy. Such is modern day life.
@TomSrOfBoston And here I thought the motto was “United Breaks Guitars!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
Remember that?
His bloodied face (from their assault) is evidence of a head injury. People with head injuries may act oddly.
He said he was a doctor. Was he? I don’t know. But why should United or anyone else get to decide him getting where he needed to go (which he planned for and paid for accordingly) was less important than where they needed their people to go (which they didn’t plan for and were not paying for)?
good for the married couple that did choose to accept the $800. That doesn’t mean this man should have been forced off.
If United screwed up their planning and had a whole flight crew needing to get somewhere else then why is that this man’s problem? If they are allowed to forcibly drag people who paid off a plane because of their own poor planning, then they will continue to plan poorly because they have faced no repercussions.
Aside from this possibly being fake news.
It seems to be that this guy was picked randomly by a computer so it is not United fault that he was selected. United seemed to be fine with the selection but the passenger was not. This is where it goes off the rails and security needed to be called because he refused to comply with instructions. If he had gone along with this random selection, then everything would have been fine. Apparently the guy wanted to do things the hard way and make a spectacle. he could have easily just gotten up and walked off the plane. Instead he wanted to be a big man and fight with security. No reason to be a jerk about it. Just comply and this stuff will not happen. You did not see the married couple being dragged off the plane.
It’s not fake news. United’s CEO issued a non apology apology statement. At least social media page (check their Facebook page) isn’t full of victim blaming.
It’s amazing to me that we live in a country where corporations are treated with more rights, humanity and dignity than actual people.
If united needed to take seats away from customers who had paid for them, isn’t that ultimately their fault?
As others have pointed out, at a certain price some passengers willingly give up seats. My sister always hopes for this scenario. I never take advantage of such an offer.
I’m sure his patients in the other city would really have appreciated him not being there when they expected him to be.
Being selected for IDB is presumably not random, other than within a priority class. It is rather likely that some combination of frequent flyer status, fare class, fare paid, whether one has a seat assignment, check in time, and other factors determines priority for avoiding IDB.
So the CEO apologizes for inconveniencing the other passengers, but not for leaving a passenger with injuries, okay…
I am searching prices for trans Atlantic ships. Sadly not in my budget so far.
Because they randomly picked a paying passenger whom they had seated on their flight, who had done nothing wrong and who never agreed to giving up the seat that they had sold him, that makes dragging him off and injuring him somehow acceptable? What?
This thing went off the rails when United was too cheap to raise the price high enough so that someone would take it, and instead resorted to force. Good for the passenger who refused to knuckle under to their pennypinching violence.
All they had to do was offer more money, to make up for their mistake. Instead of doing that, they resorted to violence. It’s backfiring in a big way, fortunately.
United should have flown the crew down to Louisville in a private jet rather than make customers get off their booked flight. Or United could have hired a driver to drive them down to Louisville in a limo. Why do customers have to pay for the airline’s mistakes in arranging their employees schedules.
They could have flown the crew down to Louisville in a private jet, or driven them, but it would have been cheaper to just offer more money to the paying passengers, until someone agreed to accept the money in exchange for the inconvenience. Whatever they offered would be cheaper than a private jet.