I was mostly in agreement with what you were saying until you started in on the character assassination.
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If someone brought it up in the inevitable court case, it would be struck from the record. It is irrelevant to the case.
The whole point of the press bringing it up is to justify United Airlines actions.
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I used to date a United flight attendant. One time she joined me in Denver to accompany me on the way to her home in Billings. I’d gotten a first-class seat by upgrading and she used her employee privilege to get a seat next to me. After talking to the flight attendants who were actually working the flight, she came back and told me I was the only passenger in the first class compartment who was paying for a seat. The rest were United employees, because it was getting to be fly-fishing season in Montana.
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Christ, what an asshole.
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His past is unimportant because it has nothing to do with what happened to him. There’s no reasonable path that leads from “past criminal activity” to “beaten up by the police for not deplaning”.
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We had to fly my father across the country when he was basically dying. It was hard, but NW were very accommodating.
I can see a prospective passenger being given priority for reasons like those that we had with my father.
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My understanding (and I’m looking for the supporting articles my wife mentioned this morning) is that the David Dau who has the shady past was NOT the David Dau on the plane. In United’s rush to perform the usual “see? He’s a thug, we were justified!” character assassination, they sent articles to the press stating it was him, but they got the wrong man. And frankly… who the fuck cares what anyone did in the past? What matters is what happened on that flight, which was caught on video, and which other passengers have clearly said was wrong. Just because you have a shitty past and made bad choices doesn’t give someone else the right to make bad choices that impact you.
Again… trying to find these articles she mentioned. If/when I do, I’ll update this post.
EDIT: Here’s one: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/united-airlines-doctor-david-dao-drugs-gay-sex-court-documents-oscar-munoz-a7680221.html
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I do not think the press is bringing it up for that reason. They are not on anyone in particulars side. They are reporting both sides of what is news.
I agree entirely that it is irrelevant to the legal matters. But the press/news is not a court of law and they do have a vested interest in reporting all available information regarding both parties.
Right or wrong. Like it or not. That’s the way of it.
I’ve said this before but I’ll say it here again because it’s worth repeating. I was flying 50K miles a year on United – almost all on the same route. I did this for 4 years. In the middle of the 5th year they screwed me over for the last time, and I’ve been flying Southwest ever since. I’ve been treated very well on every flight, their rewards program is 1000 better, and the planes actually get there pretty much on time (whereas United was habitually late or cancelled). The only thing United is good at is treating their customers like mindless cargo.
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Sorry, but you’re really off base here.
You are required to comply with any lawful requests from the flight crew, not all requests. To take a far-out example, a crew member cannot tell you to strip naked or cannot command two passengers to fight; nor can they tell you to do anything that is either illegal or goes against the contract of carriage.
Now, what they did to both of these passengers is against their CoC. This is a denied boarding situation, what gets UAL in trouble here is they allowed these passengers to board and then retroactively denying them boarding. They do not have it in their CoC where they can remove you from the plane, after boarding. Sure, the Dr. Dao could have done a bit more to keep calm, but raising one’s voice is not a safety concern despite what airlines want you to believe. United was one hundred percent wrong here.
Before the leggings debacle and now these incidents, I was starting to defend United as “they are improving”, and I had a few examples at the time of them starting to do better. These incidents, though, have blown those minor reimbursements out of the water as massive, massive failures of management, PR, and most importantly human decency.
I’m glad I haven’t invested in Star Alliance as my FF program. I haven’t liked flying on United in ages, and now they are on my personal no-fly list.
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It seems to be very bad business sense to bump a first-class passenger rather than at least offering a downgrade to business (possibly bumping someone there down to coach, and eventually someone falls off the bottom), in return for some inducement (fare refund? vouchers? cash payment?). That way, at least the bumped first class passenger gets to make it to their destination, rather than leaving them with a pissed-off VIP.
And yes, I’ve been bumped from a flight and had all my luggage proceed without me. The subsequent routing was also confused enough (there were weather problems throughout the system) that my luggage handling timed out, and rather than being held at my destination airport, it got flown to some sort of headquarters location for storage. It was a week before I got it back. No compensation was offered.
And let’s not lose track of the fact that while United exercised abysmal business judgment in Dr. Dau’s case, his physical abuse was at the hands of Chicago Department of Aviation. It wasn’t security guards in the employ of the airline. If you have a customer that’s putting up a stink and won’t leave, is calling the cops not an option, ever?
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Every season is fly fishing season in Montana.
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Which doesn’t even get us to the point of discussing whether a particular law is moral, wise or defensible, as opposed to bought and paid for…
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Then I look forward to the press reporting all the dirt on the UAL CEO and the people who beat this guy up.
After all, they need to report both sides of what is news.
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Yup, I wasn’t about to go there yet, but that’s very true.
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Yeah…maybe it was deer season, I don’t recall. I do know my return flight was almost delayed because then-Veep Cheney was arriving and they were going to close the entire airport for that.
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I’d have zero problem with it. Yes I get you’re being snarky and sarcastic that they won’t do it.
It is all as has been foretold by the Prophets.
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It is all as has been foretold by the mandate to increase Profits.
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