Sounds like United Airlines muffed it

[Larry Frank]

As I have been reading this, a couple of things come to mind.

• This was not a refusal to board.
• The flight was not overbooked.
• This was a case of Refusal to Transport and covered under the United Contract of Carriage.
• I just read the United section under United's Refusal to Transport and none of the stated reasons for such a refusal are applicable.

It will be interesting to watch this play out as it appears that United failed to follow its own rules. Based upon the lawyers news conference, they are going to really go after United in general for how they treat passengers.

[Kev Williams]

Airlines don't guarantee schedules. This means getting home on time is a big fat maybe. Ask the rest of the people on that plane

Airlines are allowed to overbook. United did.
If someone must be bumped, they must seek out volunteers and offer them compensation. United did.
If no one volunteers, then the Airlines are allowed to involuntarily bump passengers. United did...

If you're involuntarily bumped and the airline finds you a way home within an hour of your original time, they owe you nothing..
if they get you home from 1 to 2 hours of your original time, they owe you 2x the price of your one way ticket up to a max of $675
If they can't get you home sooner than 2 hours past your original time, or don't make any other arrangements at all, they owe you 4x your ticket up to a max of $1350.

read all this here>> https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights

so- IF the airlines have these rights, and tell you sorry, you're not flying today, here's your 2-4x refund---If you're PO'd or not, get off the plane. Which by the way isn't some Lake Tahoe paddlewheel cruise boat, it's 200,000 pounds of wood and aluminum and jet fuel defying gravity at 500 mph with 200 people aboard not wanting to end up as crash statistics. Talk about your safety issues...

I understand the doctor's frustration, but he acted like a 3 year old, plain and simple. Ask anyone in law enforcement, when a grown man start acting like that, you never know what else he's capable of.

Yeah, United could've handled it better. Offering the $1350 after no one took the $800 would've been a good start. But I got no sympathy for the Doctor.

[Jim Koepke]

(edited for brevity}

Airlines are allowed to overbook. United did.

But I got no sympathy for the Doctor.

The flight wasn't overbooked. There was a need to move a crew into position for a later flight.

It looks like another airline is taking steps to avoid this kind of mess:

Delta Air Lines is making a dramatic change in the wake of United’s PR disaster, in which a man was violently dragged off a plane after refusing to accept approximately $800 in exchange for his seat.

HuffPost has obtained a company memo from Delta (who declined to comment) that has raised the maximum dollar amount its employees can offer to passengers who voluntarily surrender their seats on oversold flights.

Under Delta’s former caps, customer service agents could offer up to $800 in compensation to passengers who volunteered to switch planes, and employees with higher titles could offer up to $1,350. Today, those limits were upped to $2,000 and $9,950 respectively.

I have sympathy or is it empathy for anyone who is treated so inhumanly because of someone else's inability to think things through before they turn to force.

jtk

[John Helles]

Airlines don't guarantee schedules. This means getting home on time is a big fat maybe. Ask the rest of the people on that plane
so- IF the airlines have these rights, and tell you sorry, you're not flying today, here's your 2-4x refund---If you're PO'd or not, get off the plane.

But why should the airlines have the right just to arbitrarily say "sorry, you're not flying today". They took your money on the understanding that they would fly you today. You don't have the choice of saying "I don't feel like flying today, give me my money back". 2,4 or even 10X compensation may mean nothing to people in certain circumstances. Why do the regs give the airlines such an easy out? Unless there is an Act of God or something totally beyond their control, then they should be duty bound to provide the service they promised.

Fairness and decency are more important than rules written by lobbyists and approved by politicians corrupted by money.

[Curt Harms]

The problem is that Dr Dao was not unruly. He was simply sitting in his seat. And it doesn't matter who actually pulled him from his seat, United called them.

The proper way to deal with a situation like that - if you're not going to do it the correct way and buy volunteers - is to tell Dr Dao, "We're not going to drag you from the flight but when we get to our destination you're going to be arrested and charged with interference with a flight crew."

Then tell the passengers that because of Dr. Dao's position they're going to have to deplane someone else. That way, there would not be an embarrassing video. At the destination, Dr. Dao can either disembark with everyone else, and he will be arrested when he gets to the terminal, or if he refuses to leave his seat, everyone else will get off and there won't be a video of them dragging him off the plane.

Of course, the absolute best way to handle the situation is to not have the situation arise - Offer money instead of vouchers (that most people don't want) and offer enough that you get volunteers.

And to Bill Gugel's point: They don't treat us as criminals - they treat us as cattle.

Mike

There was another solution to this that apparently has been used in the past. United simply cancels the flight and deplanes everyone. Once everyone has deplaned, announce a new flight with a new number and rebook everyone that there is room for. Remember, they can deny carriage prior to boarding for nearly any reason. If passengers complain, tell them why the airline had to resort to this. But there would have been no video and no national news story. Offering more $$$ would have probably been the easiest and cheapest but we don't know how much latitude the local management had.

[Paul McGaha]

Just my $.02 but I think there were a lot of things that were done wrong and could be learned from from this:

1) I think the United Airlines person making the offers to the passengers to take another flight could have done much better job of
making an offer good enough to get some people to go along with it.

2) I think the passenger, once told to leave the plane, should have left the plane. I think this was a gigantic step towards what ultimately happened.

3) I'm not sure what to think of the police. I think by the time they got on board the plane the discussions were over and they were there to remove the guy from the plane, voluntarily or not. I'm not convinced the police did anything wrong.

It will be interesting to see who wins the lawsuits. It might be United.

PHM

[Keith Westfall]

2) I think the passenger, once told to leave the plane, should have left the plane.

If you were sitting quietly in your seat, minding your own business, and someone walked up and said, "Sorry, you have to get off the plane." would you really just get up and leave without any questions???

We probably don't the full extent of the question or direction, but it is unbelievable that they would just tell you to leave, and then call in the police. And then DRAG you out????

And some say the doctor is an idiot...

What was it worth to United to get their crews to the next place? Probably a lot more than $800 - $1350 they didn't want to pay.

United = cheap and stupid.

[Mike Henderson]

2) I think the passenger, once told to leave the plane, should have left the plane. I think this was a gigantic step towards what ultimately happened.

It will be interesting to see who wins the lawsuits. It might be United.

PHM

In most cases I agree that you should obey the officers. But sometimes, when a person feels that the rule or law is wrong, they feel compelled to take a stand (or in this case, a seat). Non-violent protest has a long history.

I highly doubt if United is going to let this go to trial - they'll settle with a non-disclosure clause in the settlement. A trial will just drag this event through the press all over again. And do you really think a jury of people who fly on airlines today will find for United? No, I'd bet that they'd give a big settlement to Dr. Dao.

One legal analyst was making a joke and he said that United should bring Dr. Dao and his lawyer into a conference room, lay a check in front of him and say, "There's a signed check made out to you. All you have to do is fill in the amount." United wants this to go away. Fast.

Mike

[Bert Kemp]

You have to read all the stories and all the rules.
1. United did not! overbook the flight . They were tying to remove passengers to make room for employees.
2. They can deny boarding, BUT! These people were already boarded and seated. United really had no right to force them to vacate their seats.
Thats it in a nutshell United was wrong they didn't play by there own rules and this Dr did nothing wrong.

[Ronald Blue]

The flight was not overbooked and everyone was already on board. This will be costly to United but they own it.

[Paul McGaha]

If you were sitting quietly in your seat, minding your own business, and someone walked up and said, "Sorry, you have to get off the plane." would you really just get up and leave without any questions???

We probably don't the full extent of the question or direction, but it is unbelievable that they would just tell you to leave, and then call in the police. And then DRAG you out????

And some say the doctor is an idiot...

What was it worth to United to get their crews to the next place? Probably a lot more than $800 - $1350 they didn't want to pay.

United = cheap and stupid.

Keith,

If they would have put it to me to either get off the plane or I was going to be removed from the plane by the police, then yes I would have gotten off. I'm not saying it was fair, or I would have liked it, but it is their airplane. The passenger most certainly did have a large role in the situation escalating to what it became.

PHM

[Paul McGaha]

In most cases I agree that you should obey the officers. But sometimes, when a person feels that the rule or law is wrong, they feel compelled to take a stand (or in this case, a seat). Non-violent protest has a long history.

I highly doubt if United is going to let this go to trial - they'll settle with a non-disclosure clause in the settlement. A trial will just drag this event through the press all over again. And do you really think a jury of people who fly on airlines today will find for United? No, I'd bet that they'd give a big settlement to Dr. Dao.

One legal analyst was making a joke and he said that United should bring Dr. Dao and his lawyer into a conference room, lay a check in front of him and say, "There's a signed check made out to you. All you have to do is fill in the amount." United wants this to go away. Fast.

Mike

No Mike, I don't see this as a good instance of not obeying the police. As a matter of fact the doctor's decision to not obey United or the police led directly to him being forcibly removed from the plane. It wasn't United that made that decision, it was the passenger.

I'm sure United's lawyers will be quick to point this out.

PHM

[Keith Westfall]

The passenger most certainly did have a large role in the situation escalating to what it became.

So the doctor got what he deserved because he didn't just get up and leave the plane?

[Paul McGaha]

So the doctor got what he deserved because he didn't just get up and leave the plane?

In my opinion what he deserved was an uneventful flight home.

I would say though that he was forcibly removed from the plane because he wouldn't follow the instructions of United or the police.

It's not my view that United is fault free in this. They most certainly are not. It started out as a problem of theirs that needed to be solved. More generous offers from United to have people give up their seats voluntarily would have resolved the situation with no one feeling they were treated unfairly. It is too bad this didn't occur and I'm sure United is regretting that.

But the escalation came from the passenger.

[Jim Koepke]

But the escalation came from the passenger.

It seems many including United Airlines do not agree with this statement.

Sitting passively and refusing to move is not escalation. It could be considered maintaining the status quo.

Bringing in the storm troopers is escalation.

jtk