United Airlines forcibly remove man from overbooked flight?

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If this is as reported, you have to wonder what the hell United are up to. I wouldn’t want a job in their PR department.

This is ridiculous.

Passengers were told at the gate that the flight was overbooked and United, offering $400 and a hotel stay, was looking for one volunteer to take another flight to Louisville at 3 p.m. Monday. Passengers were allowed to board the flight, Bridges said, and once the flight was filled those on the plane were told that four people needed to give up their seats to stand-by United employees that needed to be in Louisville on Monday for a flight. Passengers were told that the flight would not take off until the United crew had seats, Bridges said, and the offer was increased to $800, but no one volunteered.Then, she said, a manager came aboard the plane and said a computer would select four people to be taken off the flight. One couple was selected first and left the airplane, she said, before the man in the video was confronted.

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2

That could have been handled a lot better for sure.

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3

Throwing paying customers off your plane to fly staff instead? Seems like a smart move to me. Can’t see how that would upset anyone.

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$800 or get to Kentucky a few hours sooner?

I’d have been delighted to volunteer.

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5

they would have had me at the hotel and $400

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Make it $1600 and two nights!

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Good point. Apparently if you hold out too long for a better deal they just cold-cock you and throw you off.

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8

No, it’s Tennessee that’s the volunteer state, not Kentucky. :wink:

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Oh, the lawsuit I would file. Oh, the lawsuit.

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Overbooking should be illegal.

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“Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked,”

It sounds like the flight was just fully booked, but some employees wanted to use their flight perks. That should be a pretty easy thing to show in the eventual court case.

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Bridges said the man became “very upset” and said that he was a doctor who needed to see patients at a hospital in the morning.

I want this guy as my doctor.

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13

I hope they weren’t wearing leggings.

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14

Too soon for a ‘respect mah authoritah’?

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15

Louisville is awesome, actually. I have both driven and flown there from Chicago. It is only 5 hours, and they would have been better off just road tripping the employees and keeping the paying customers money.

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As he was dragged off the plane, the doctor could be heard mumbling “I tell you it wasn’t fair. You didn’t give him time enough to choose. Everybody saw that…”

Shirley Jackson, The Lottery:

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18

I’d hate to be the PR flack that has to explain this.

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19

Airlines have been treating their customers as cattle for so long, they seem to have started thinking we really are cattle, and certainly not deserving of the same courtesy and respect accorded to airline employees.

I guess one is supposed to be grateful that they take you to your destination and not to the slaughterhouse.

Me, I think I’ll travel by train, should I ever have to travel in the US again. Better to arrive a day late than arrive bloody and beaten and a day late.

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I was on an Air Canada flight that was overbooked. They paged the lounge over and over and over again to get people to volunteer to take a later flight. No one budged. So they just started boarding. And I got to watch two grown men fight over who got to take the flight when they both had valid boarding passes for the same seat. (The guy already seated won this fight, which makes me wonder why the guy already seated on that plane didn’t win?)

There’s an active debate about this on twitter, and the consensus seems to be it was the air marshals just not liking him saying he wouldn’t comply.

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