Kinda looks now like United would have been better off offering $1 million and hotel stay for a year.
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“After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate”
That’s not how volunteering is meant to fucking work!
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United was throwing him off to put their own person there. Another passenger, they couldn’t give a damn. But they needed crew in another city tomorrow to fly. They probably figured that was worth more than the 800 bucks. Worth more than the lawsuit they’ll get? Maybe not.
In any case, hello United? That’s not what “volunteer” means.
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I’d be fine with overbooking if they were simply required to keep upping the offer till someone took it rather than throwing an unwilling passenger off the flight. If they find themselves paying thousands of dollars to get “volunteers”, perhaps they’d tweak their algorithms. This case with a crew is insane, it’s not even overbooking.
I’m hoping for criminal charges of assault and battery, not just a lawsuit.
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Seems to be a thing that happens.
Seems like a stupid thing.
And assaulting people who won’t comply seems like a terribly stupid thing.
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or ‘Get Gang Raped’. (Because apparently that’s what ducks do)
1 Like
if you get forcibly removed, do you still get the free hotel and flight voucher, or do they just kick you to the curb?
As a frequent United passenger, they (and probably most airlines) have a laissez-faire attitude toward managing seating from the gate, it doesn’t surprise me that he was let on again. ‘Corporate’ routinely breaks up my pre-booked seats, sometimes putting a child alone rows apart from where they were initially booked. When you ask the gate to remedy this, they make you negotiate with the other customers to swap. Of course the gate agent wouldn’t stop the bloody man from re-boarding–let the flight attendants figure it out.
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Yes - just like some kind of aviation-themed Prisoner’s Dilemma!
(Exactly when do you accept the offer?)
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The evolution of corporate slogans:
United [2013]: “Fly the Friendly Skies”
United [2017]: “I swear to God, I will beat your ass if you don’t get off my plane this fucking instant.”
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You really need to change that.
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The number of people willing to defend Police being used to enforce a corporate policy is disheartening.
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I can understand how overbooking happens. You have every travel site under the sun, plus travel agents, plus the airline’s website itself all booking reservations and pushing data every which way. With this many possible editors, it’s possible for conflicting reservations to happen simultaneously on different platforms. We have similar challenges in retail.
BUT, in the damn 21st century we have the technology to detect overbooking and resolve it before the actual people get on the actual plane. Before they even go to the airport. Days or months in advance. FFS.
In any case, I guess that’s not what happened here.
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Apparently, the compensation by law for a delay of this length is 400% of the fare up to $1,350.
Domestic Transportation
Passengers traveling between points within the United States (including the territories and possessions) who are denied boarding involuntarily from an oversold flight are entitled to: (1) No compensation if the carrier offers alternate transportation that is planned to arrive at the passenger’s destination or first stopover not later than one hour after the planned arrival time of the passenger’s original flight; (2) 200% of the fare to the passenger’s destination or first stopover, with a maximum of $675, if the carrier offers alternate transportation that is planned to arrive at the passenger’s destination or first stopover more than one hour but less than two hours after the planned arrival time of the passenger’s original flight; and (3) 400% of the fare to the passenger’s destination or first stopover, with a maximum of $1,350, if the carrier does not offer alternate transportation that is planned to arrive at the airport of the passenger’s destination or first stopover less than two hours after the planned arrival time of the passenger’s original flight.
So $800 was a pretty crap offer anyway. United probably have a legal right to remove whoever they want, but PR disasters like this (even ignoring what the inevitable lawsuit will cost) have to be costing them a lot more than $800.
Plus, boarding the guy rather than catching this before they started seating people makes this an order of magnitude worse. Before boarding, their Contract of Carriage gives them some leeway to do this. Afterwards, not so much.
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx#sec21
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Here’s a thought, United: Book your staff on a different flight or a rival airline instead of abusing your actual paying customers. Don’t make your problems your customers’ problems.
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There has been a lot of corporate sycophants claiming “trespassing” here. I don’t get how you can claim trespassing when a gate attendant let you on the plane.
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Overbooking happens because airlines willingly book more seats than they have available to ensure their flights are full. This isn’t some technical glitch.
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So for the cost of rerouting their staff and possibly delaying a couple of connecting flights they injured a passenger, greatly delayed that same staff, ruined brand image and set themselves up for multiple lawsuits that could possibly have millions of dollars in punitive damages? That’s some world class decision makin’ right there.
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Huh? Where’s that now?
1 Like
