He was not a terrorist! Next time you fly check the fine print on the ticket. All airlines have the right to remove from the plane for pretty much any reason at all and the can have you arrested and banned from that airline for life.

It really wasn't an "overbooking" the flight was booked and the passengers on the plane when a flight crew of 4 came up and bumped 4 passengers of because they were needed to man a flight the next morning.

They offered $800.00 3 of the 4 took the money! They could have offered $1350.00 by law.

Why would you cause the commotion? I would terminate the employees on this flight. I would ask for the resignation of the CEO. The police officer is now suspended pending an investigation. There was absolutely no common sense exercised by this flight crew. Whoever the manager that was on duty should also be terminated. 5 1/2 hour drive by shuttle, really? I also would look at the next level of management because its evident he/she is not instilling the proper company values. Never, Never Never throw mama from the train! There is a camera everywhere! Let me get this through their heads, "There is a camera everywhere", what part of that did they not understand. The local employees do not even know their own rules. You do not board people and then take them off. You hold the boarding until you have 4 warm bodies, period. If you cannot handle such a simple common sense problem, what makes you think you can handle a real emergency. Totally unprofessional. There was a $$$$ number that would get you 4 warm bodies off that flight.

He is no hero but United is definitely the villain and were the party that was 100% wrong in this situation. They deserve the financial hit they are taking.

One poster spoke of boilerplate contracts. another that you are at the mercy of an airline. yet another focuses on the individuals past.

It would seem as respects the legal/contractual/ aspect of an airline's legal right to overbook and the protocols that follow are really going to be tested given the potential money damages if this matter is decided in a courtroom. To be sure an attorney will tell you contracts were made to be broken.

There is something very wrong when a commercial business has the right under a situation such as this to have policing powers. This man was not a threat. He was not out of control. he was not suspected of being a terrorist. He reacted when provoked. Can the police be charged with assault and battery? I believe so.

He will not invoke a warm fuzzy feeling with a jury. However he had been judged, tried and paid for his past transgressions.

He can and should be judged and apportioned blame for any contributor negligence that he created to cause this situation.

Bottom line for me is that United had absolutely no right to accost this guy. If they had a problem getting a flight crew to another city then it was their problem to solve without disrupting customers who fulfilled their portion of the agreement. To suggest that a flight crew was more important than a paying customer flies in the face of common sense and good public relations

Personal Best Regards:

Yep, its sure does. There goes the CEO's bonus this year. This is going to be a big big big check. I hear he is playing this to the hilt. Still in the hospital. There will be 6 zeros behind this number. Definitely will not need to work ever again.

"If they had just tried some diplomacy, none of this had to take place," passenger John Klaasen told CNN. I agreee. As others have said, they could have offered more money to induce people to give up their seats. Very poorly managed, and United has really taken a pubic relations dive since the incident. Not a very smart business move. It will cost them mucho in the long run.

Get all the facts first before judging

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

CEO on news this morning. He is apologizing now

This is now a media driven lawsuit and will be worth millions more than it should. Media is still very powerful, it elected the last two presidents by the quality and quantity of their coverage. Although everyone denies it, as a people we are very much influenced by what we hear from media. United is screwed and I don't believe the punishment fits the crime. I guess this is what makes America special.

Excellent summary.

What makes this great nation "special," is a free press whereby those with power/money cannot get away with injustices...based on those advantages.

The pen/written word...is the great equalizer for the masses. :ho:

Problem 1) United used police to solve a business decision.

Problem 2) The police had no idea why they were removing the passenger.

The police have stated from now on, they will not remove passengers from flights because of over-booking. The last I read, was all 3 police officers have been suspended.

Excellent summary as well.

Which leads to the obvious problem #3----The police ALLOWED themselves to be used in a civil matter----again, they should have told the parties to this CONTRACTUAL dispute to settle it in civil court.

I read a letter from a pilot's wife on this and it is not what the media has portrayed.

This is paraphrased into what she said:

ALL airlines overbook. If not, then too many flights will not be filled to capacity. People often book a flight, then decide to take an earlier/later flight and don't both cancelling any other flights they have booked on other airlines. Flying at less than capacity is costly. This in turn can bring about higher fares, etc.

The fine print (yeah that) that most of us simply agree to without actually reading, tells you that a ticket does not guarantee you a seat. The other policies are also located in this fine print.

As for the flight crew: Airlines only bump the passengers to get a crew to another flight out of necessity. Just like any other business, staffing is subject to sudden illness, etc. Sometimes it becomes necessary to fly in another crew in order to not cancel a flight. FAA rules state that x-number of crew must be on every flight. Every time a flight has to be cancelled, there is a rippling effect. It is just not that one flight affected. Think about that the next time your flight gets cancelled. Better a delayed flight than a cancelled flight.

She also said that passengers are not 'randomly' selected for involuntary bumping. They go by next available flights, those having to connect to other flights, date of ticket purchase, and some of the other factors I forgot. Race, as this guy was screaming, nor random selection by drawing numbers or whatever does not even come into play.

Not only was United Security involved, so were police and Federal Air Marshalls. Once they were involved, the crew of this flight was out of it....period.

This man was his own problem. After a bit of research on him, turns out he is not as important as he rates himself. His appointments can be rescheduled; other things with some other passengers cannot. There is absolutely no excuse for his behavior. Too many people are totally absorbed with themselves and this guy fits that bill perfectly. Raising your voice and objecting is one thing. Kicking and screaming and having to be forcibly removed is quite another. He was being anything but docile as many men as it took to remove him.

When you are bumped from a flight, not only are you compensated (often handsomely) but get priority seating on the next available flight. I even got upgraded to first class one time! Works for me.

Just goes to prove that you cannot believe what the media feeds you. Remember, they are out for ratings, not reason and truth.

There is absolutely no reason for Airlines to over book a flight. Change the business model and make it more like buying a cruise. You want it you buy it. Want to reschedule buy insurance. Don't make the flight you still bought the seat. They are using a model that was set years ago when you could make a reservation and did not pay until you arrived at the airport and checked in. The one airline that I know of that does not over book is Allegiant. There are others. So to say they all over book is not correct. Airlines will do as much as we let them. Vote with your pocket book. And lets also get this straight, the flight was no over booked. United could have very easily put this crew on a shuttle. Also the compensation very rarely is worth the wait all things considered.

excellent.

The courts will sort this out- keep the feds out of booking policy. If overbooking is prohibited, I imagine that refundable tickets will be history. Result= higher prices for consumer.

Involuntary bumping happens at the rate of 1 in 10,000. It is a relatively rare event. I have been voluntarily bumped numerous times and was well compensated for giving up my seat. In most instances, the delay in reaching my final destination was a couple of hours. In a couple of cases, I wound up on more direct flights that actually got me to my final destination before my original flight. My all time favorite was when traveling on a free ticket, via frequent flyer miles, I agreed to be bumped twice and got home with only a modest delay from the original flight. In my experience, the compensation was well worth the typically small delay in getting to my final destination.

A lot of airline travel is nothing like a cruise. From experience, I can tell you that a lot of business travel changes at the last minute. With the exception of some shuttle flights where you essentially paid when you were on the flight, the vast majority (perhaps all) of my business travel has been paid at booking for the last 30 years+, not when I got to the airport. You can vote with your pocketbook and not travel on airlines that overbook but the net result is you won't be doing much traveling.

The overbooking process works very well from my experience. The reason it works well is that there are people who are more than happy to give up their seats for compensation so the number of involuntary bumpings is small. Obviously it pays for the airlines to do this otherwise they wouldn't. I have flown several million miles and I have never been involuntarily bumped. I have, however, been involuntarily bumped from a hotel. They paid for a cab ride down the street to another hotel and paid for the night. I was back the next night where I should be.

Exactly....United is getting exactly what they deserve. I thought psuedo-conservatives loved the free market.

Today the attorney for this man and his daughter (he has five children) were on TV talking about the extensive damage he sustained during the dragging incidence. They were throwing around numbers for damages and someone said it is quite possible United could be looking at a $10M suit. I am sure there will be much more discussed on the evening news.

I don't agree with much of what you say. You cannot book multiple flights and then not show up without paying for the flight. Regardless of what the fine print says, you should be guaranteed a seat. You can't change the fine print. The crew should never bump a paying customer who is sitting in his seat. The police were only involved when United got them involved because they did not want to offer enough compensation to bumped passengers. For once, the media got this one correct. The airlines have way too much power, and United really screwed this one up. Being bumped may work for you, but not for most people.

Should.

Of all the words of tongue and pen, should is the one that holds the most unopened possibilities.

As a retired Flt. attendant of over 30 years, and also worked the gates in layoff times, I am ashamed of the treatment of this passenger, one this flt. was not over sold, two the priority psgs. were dead heading crew members, which could have been placed on another flt.(or delay their flt, until they arrived, or cancelled there flt. this was a scheduling problem, not a passenger problem) The Gate agents, did not contact crew scheduling to see if other arrangements could be made, I question the gate agents, if they went thru the cabin to count the empty seats. Any standby passengers who was placed on the flt. would be the first removed,(did they check the standby list) An announcement offering a monetary round trip ticket to any domestic destination that United flew, should have been offered, plus a re-accom on the next flt. and sometimes a monetary add, such as $500 United dropped the ball on this one The CEO, is just another Golden Parachuter, looking to retire, Believe me folks this is not the first nor the last of these incidents, I flew for TWA and our number one concern was customer service. When we went under I saw the demise of the airline industry,and customer service, you might as well take a Grayhound Bus. I have tried every major and i now fly South West, any chance I have, great airline with great customer service. Just be aware, that you can be bumped anytime the airline feels it can getaway with it.

I believe you are engaging in a lot of guess work as to what actually went on. By the way, Southwest is one of the leaders in unvoluntary bumping. I do fly them a lot, however.

There is no reason the airlines need to over book, none, Nada. You can run a airline just like a cruise. I traveled for 30 years in my job and I also took the freebees but the fact is you can use a different business model and it works just fine. There are a few airlines that do. With the proper planning you do not need to change travel plans on business and if you do, then this is where the insurance takes over. Its also when the stand bye's get a deal.

We will never know the number but it would have paid for a lot of private shuttles from Chicago to Louisville.

Here's another wrinkle starting to come to light. It appears since there was no threat coming from this passenger its a civil matter. Means the Police had no authority to remove the passenger. Like I indicated earlier, this man and his family will never have to work another day in their life. United and the City of Chicago should get out their check books and don't be insulting when the write down he number.

I agree that no airline has to overbook any more. Most tickets sold are non refundable. If the passenger doesn't show, the airline still gets paid. For the very few full fare, refundable tickets, the airline could tack a penalty onto it for a no show.

I am totally amazed at people who apparently have no qualifications making such statements. Please state your qualifications and evidence to support such a statement. Otherwise you are just stating unsupported opinion. Don't you get it that the number of involuntary bumpings is 1 in 10,000?

Allegiant is an order of magnitude smaller than the largest airlines and certainly has it's share of consumer complaints. Since you are not in the airline industry, you really have no idea what you are talking about and you have yet to provide any evidence to support your claim. For example, how much does overbooking add to their bottom line? If overbooking increases the percentage of seats filled and their bottom line it is hardly a dated business model. One more time, the chances of being involuntarily bumped is 1 in 10,000. This is a rare event. What happened with United was the results of bad decision making by the passenger, first and foremost, and the airport security people. Extrapolating this isolated event to overbooking in general is absurd. I prefer to deal in facts and not factless speculation. Since there is apparently nothing that you can add that is fact based, I don't see any need to continue to respond to opinions.

Your mistake is your looking at it from the old worn out perspective. Their perspective. The first question to answer is why do they over book? I know the answer but do you? They look at a seat that is empty as a loss of revenue. That is what the airline will tell you. With the way they run the business that assumption is not correct. Its propaganda for people to swallow. Its not correct because today they charge you a change fee. Miss a flight and the number you will be charged covers the cost of the empty seat. You also pay up front for that seat. No more book and pay at the airport. Which was the real reason over booking started in the first place. Also not all seats are equally charged for the flight. The first seats at the lower price pay for the flight. They know how many seats they need to sell to break even. The cheep seats pay for the flight. The other more expensive seats make the profit. You make the airline smile.

I like Southwest Airlines new slogan, " We beat our competitors, not you!".

First of all, I am not making any mistake because I don't pretend to know the airline business. Your mistake, on the other hand, is pretending you know more than the people doing yield management for the airlines. They, as well as other service industries with a fixed and time volatile inventory, overbook because it increases their bottom line based, in part, on the past history of the flight. Airlines could stop overbooking tomorrow if they wanted. To assume they continue doing something that provides no economic benefit is silly. To suggest they should just drop the business model they have today is silly and naive. It is easy to criticize when you don't know the details.

Overbooking is based on statistical modeling. For each flight, they model how many people will actually show up (and yes, many of the no-shows will pay a penalty to use their non-refundable ticket) and by how much they should overbook. Perfect overbooking would result in paying no compensation for voluntary or involuntary bumps but would yield more revenue than if they didn't overbook via a paying customer in every seat (and yes, each seat may have a different price because of their yield management strategy). To suggest that overbooking is a vestige of the past is naive. Yield management with overbooking is a sophisticated optimization problem. They are looking to maximize the revenue for each flight and overbooking is part of the strategy. The point you probably miss is that overbooking only makes sense when you have a statistical expectation of no-shows, which the major carriers apparently do because of business travel (I used to change flights quite often). You can claim that you don't overbook, as part of a marketing strategy to the uninformed, when your client base has a low no-show rate or you lack the yield management capabilities to do it effectively. Why you would care whether an airline overbooks, when considering the very low average involuntary bumping rate of 1 in 10,000, is beyond me.

The chances of being bumped are 1 in 10,000. In the petroleum market the safest petroleum product is propane. However when it explodes its the mother of all explosions

Its troubling to me that a passenger pays ahead of time for a guarantee of a seat on a plane and an airline's right after the fact is to change its mind or give your seat away to someone else.

A shopper doesn't go to the store and buy a dozen egg and as s/he leaves ,the store tells them they want six back.

All insurance contract have exclusions ( ie events deemed not insurable). Yet when an exclusion is applied what is the policyholder's reaction?

Overbooking practices may be legal and deemed prudent business practices but its poor public relations. Passenger pay for certainty and peace of mind.

Being bumped may be 1 in 10,000 but then it depends on whose ox is being gored.

United is going out of its way to sully the passenger's character but it is irrelevant to their action. they would be wise to settle this case and call a meeting to determine a better way of dealing with economies of scale

There is no certainty in airline travel and everyone realizes that. Have you ever looked at the on-time arrival statistics? Weather, mechanical problems, air traffic control issues, security issues, etc. can cause delays. Being involuntarily bumped probably has the lowest probability of delaying your arrival. Overbooking is not the issue. If it was, you would hear these sorts of stories every day. Some poor on-the-site decision making by everyone involved, including the passenger, in this isolated case was the problem.

:1rotfl:


I heard that in addition to their low fare 'red eye' flights...United is going to be offering 'black eye' flights also.


:D

And a fight club section on the aircraft!:22yikes: