Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/04/14/lawyer-of-dr-david-dao-shreds.html
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“They have the highest duty of care to provide protection and safety to its fair* paying passengers. That was not done.”
*fare
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[quote=“Carla_Sinclair, post:1, topic:99003”]Demetrio then describes what we should expect from airlines. “Here’s what we want as a society: We want fairness in how people treat us. We want respect. And we want dignity. That’s it! It’s not a big deal. This seems so simple. Forget the law for a minute that requires common decency and treatment of passengers. Just treat us with respect like your really care.”[/quote]Uh oh, someone’s feeling entitled.
/s
[/s is for sarcasm.]
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At this point, United would have been better off offering Dr. Dao $1-million plus medical costs two days ago to make the incident go away. This has cost UAL at least 10x that amount in loss of consumer goodwill, legislated new policies they would rather not have implemented, and lost stock value. The whole industry is going to be paying for United’s bungling here.
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did you hear that sound in the background? maybe not, but it was there…
It was a low burbling in the background???
that was Oscar Munoz - CEO of United - crapping himself …
for the entire time Demetrio is speaking.
Dignity - that’s it. seems so simple.
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I think this will just go away. Look up “United Breaks Guitars” on youtube. Many of us have had our luggage disappeared. They might have to pay a little money, but their flights will still be full. I don’t think any of the other airlines would have done much differently. Their first step in the direction of common decency would be decently sized seats and leg room. We won’t see that either.
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Unfortunately we have a whole contingent of people running around saying things like “nobody owes you respect; respect is earned,” which has a corrosive effect on society.
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We’ll see if it survives the Easter weekend. “United Breaks Guitars” wouldn’t have made it through; “United Breaks People” could have staying power.
True, that’s happened a lot due to screw-ups by an airline. Passengers can live with that. I doubt they can live with the prospect of losing their front teeth due to an airline’s screw-up and allowing the company to get away with it on the basis of “just SOP” and lying about what happened despite the presence of mobile phone cameras in the cabin.
[quote=“shutup, post:7, topic:99003, full:true”]
I don’t think any of the other airlines would have done much differently.[/quote]
There’s a spectrum. I can’t see Jetblue or Virgin America bungling the situation quite as badly as United did. Spirit, in its seeming quest to become the Ryanair of North America, might have leaned into it, inviting passengers to join in the beating after the cops and cabin crew got their licks in.
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Kerning
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I liked the lawyer’s comment that a lack of treating people with respect is “not limited to the airline industry.” How true that is cough Comcast Verizon etc etc cough
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Wut? I kernt hear ya!
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Unless you’re rich, in which case the temporarily embarrassed millionaires will trip over themselves to make sure you’re entitled at their’s and everyone else’s expense. The degenerate idiots who think beating the shit out of people for sport is somehow the pinnacle of civilization are throwing away the incremental gains that actually do make America great and were given to all of us as a legacy by generations of our forefathers. Being a violent thug or the cheerleader of violent thugs doesn’t make them conservative.
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I think part of the problem, where incidents like these are concerned, is that with the growing divide between rich and poor, a large section of society is feeling vulnerable, or as if they are not getting a fair deal in life - “why should the rich get all this power and not me?” … this may leave individuals open to abusing power in order to feel more, well, powerful in society.
While I think United is responsible for not pushing this idea of treating people with respect, I doubt they told their employees to have someone dragged off the plane in this manner. I do, however, think that the employees did get some satisfaction in exerting their power over the passengers (including those who ordered his removal, as well as those who felt it was their right to kick paying customers off the plane so they could work their next flight).
Again, United needs to build a culture (and rules) to prevent these types of things from happening. I had an incident where we missed the plane loading time by about 2 mins. We were running to get there, but the airline employee at the gate refused to let us in. Maybe I read too much into it, but he seemed pretty smug and proud of himself for denying someone entry to the plane. (of course, what made it worse is, on our next flight, we saw people continue to board well after the cut-off time for boarding)
I feel like we’ve heard more and more about this abuse of power in the last few years. Unfortunately, I don’t see the current administration as helping matters…
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May this people’s champion of a lawyer help this heroic stubborn tree stump exact thoroughly righteous revenge on his would-be corporate uprooter.
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I think [spoiler alert] the top of the tree stump has already gone through United’s back window. The issue now is whether they’re going to have to pay to put the top of the tree stump back in place.
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They thought they were sailing along just fine in the great blue yonder, but now profits are being sucked at an alarming rate through that broken window.
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United has disappeared my luggage and stranded me in DC. All of my major problems and about half of my minor problems have been with United, and I don’t even fly them anymore if I can help it.
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This really needs to be said. Over the past 15 years or so overall social control has tightened dramatically and become even more brazen. We’re constantly being monitored, being compelled into licensing agreements that require us to sign our rights away; what were previously considered benignly eccentric behaviors now summon the police as a matter of course; online hate mobs ruin the lives of people who express themselves in ways they don’t like; businesses treat their employees like ungrateful children who are “lucky to even have a job;” our political discourse is dominated by loud, angry people who care more about demeaning you than solving their own problems, not to mention politicians who now display open contempt for their constituents.
And the worst part is that this is simply accepted and understood. Of course you don’t argue with flight attendants no matter how unreasonable they’re being because of course they’re going to involve the police, and of course the police are going to treat you like a terrorist because that’s how things work now.
I suspect that this going to become my standard old man rant as younger people grow up having never experienced anything different, and it doesn’t seem that any political or cultural movement is poised to make the statement: “Stop shoving me around.”
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The change I’ve noticed in frontline employee culture in airlines is that while the petty abuse of authority has always been there, I feel it used to be tempered more by a sense of old fashioned customer service. I occasionally need special attention for something, and I’ve noticed a shift from customer service to policing. Their main concern used to be how can I help this person with their situation, but now it’s how can I make sure this person doesn’t get anything more than anyone else, or anything more than the minimum.
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