Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/04/10/this-could-be-united-airline.html
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5 Likes
If that guy didn’t want to be treated that way, he shouldn’t have been randomly selected for removal.
30 Likes
We have a solution to avoid this and the TSA.
9 Likes
I’ve been in flights were it ended up being over booked, the voucher offers for compensating volunteers to get off the flight sucks. Though I don’t quite recall what airlines that’s happened to me before though.
Anyway, i read about what happened to this gentleman earlier today and it’s really something else. I wouldn’t envy the airline for having to randomly select passengers if no one came forward, i can’t think of a way to make that easier beyond… you know… not overbooking the god damn flight.
10 Likes
Holy Fucking Shit. I need a drink.
5 Likes
A molotov cocktail?
6 Likes
I’d think UA could have very easily moved its own UA personnel to a later flight. Inconvenience the UA personnel; not the paying passengers.
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Didn’t congress spend a bunch of taxpayer money bailing out United at least a couple of times? Maybe next time we shouldn’t bail them out.
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Can we be clear that it was police officers that brutalized this man? Not to give United any slack, but to make sure the police get their fair share of the blame.
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I think that when they got bailed out, they realized they could be assholes with impunity
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I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to have a certain number of crew members on board by law . What law? I don’t know, but i was in a flight that got delayed an hour or two because we were short one crew member and they were having trouble finding someone at the last minute.
Also a good way to deal with the overbooking would be to do it once their booking system notices. Cancel the last few people that made their reservations and notify them ahead of time of the issue and that they’ve been refunded and should re-book for another flight with a discount for the trouble. Why take care of the issue AT THE GATE THE DAY OF?
4 Likes
2009: United breaks guitars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo …
2017: United breaks your face
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No. That would be too logical and fair.
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The crew don’t ride in coach; United apparently had employees they wanted to get to the flight’s destination.
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Doh, i’m sorry. I need to kill more brain cells. Damn you logic! DAMN YOU!!
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You know, it actually makes sense to overbook flights. Your doctor does the same thing. Reliably, a certain portion of passengers don’t show up for their flight. Estimating that number is an exercise in statistics. If they always booked 100% of seats, they would end up flying 80% or 90% full. I understand their profit margins are slim, so they want to get as close to 100% as possible, without going over. Kind of like blackjack.
Back in the days when a telephone was made out of a mastodon tusk, I had to work a similar math problem for the local phone company - how to have just enough circuits to handle all of the calls something like 99% of the time. The math is about the same.
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Wood work, way to go.
If every passenger who booked and PAID fails to turn up, fly the damn plane empty. My doctor does not take payments in advance for booking an appointment.
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- They were trying to make room so they could shuttle some of their own employees around (the practice is called “deadheading” in the industry). If they didn’t have extra room on the flight they should have come up with alternative arrangements for their own people instead of for a paying customer.
- If they didn’t get any volunteers to give up their seats for $800 they could have just kept increasing the offer until someone bit. It still would have cost the airline a lot less than all this bad publicity will.
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