Fly The Friendly Skies, eh?

[Rajoo]

Originally Posted by Oerets

As one who witness the airline industry from the inside firsthand for many years. United was trying to get a crew to a destination for the next trips required for operation. Usually there is a place in the front for the one of them, (jump seat) pilot or co. But the rest of the crew will need seats.

The airlines and the FAA pretty much set there own rules on what happens next when a seat needs to be emptied. The FAA is on the industries side not he passengers, when it comes to $$$.


United got a well desired black eye along with airport PD!


Airport PD have a tough job but at times go over and above. One can say that is to be expected and allowed. But most of the experiences I was involved with the totally enjoyed it too much! Relished the power!!!!!

I see this as more local airport PD being the problem.


Barney

Not entirely since UA personnel called in the cavalry. Since they were offering monetary compensation (aka bribing) and when there were not enough takers, they should have upped the bid price till all seats they needed were in hand. Unfortunately there was no one there with authority to authorize a higher bid price. If there were still not enough takers UA is SOL and will need to make alternate arrangements. How much would it have cost to arrange for charter of a small turbojet plane? Louisville is not that far from ORD, around 300 miles.

How does one authorize to physically evict someone seated in a plane?

[MrPots]

How does a plane full of people just sit there and allow this thuggish behavior to continue? Obviously it wasn't too awfully outrageous as not one person came to the poor mans defense.

This is America...we Oooooo and ahhh and tisk and protest but we never actually take action to make sure these things don't happen because we just can't be bothered to get involved.

[Oerets]

Any airline is a business after all. When it comes to crew movement, you have a set of trips over days planned. Many many passengers and flights would be effected by the crew not being in Louisville. My guess this was not to get a crew home.
In the purchase of a ticket somewhere in the small print is relinquishing your seat if the airline decides it is needed.
In the USA regulations take care of the industry first, where in Europe have more protections for it's passengers. The max $$ is around 1300 here IIRC. I think we can agree this is lacking. The passengers chosen are not in a pot with all names in it to begin with. Never will a first class, high sky miles, frequent flyer business man name come up. But the cheap seats will always.
United needs empty seats and asked the Airport PD to assist in the removal. There should of been a better way to accomplish this for the majority of the other passengers wanting to get to travel to the Derby city.

Was the plane to sit waiting until the decision was made by the passengers in who stayed?





Barney

[MrPots]

So lets beat the passenger senseless, kill him even if he does not comply with "industry regulations"

What a filthy crass country we are.

[JCricket]

Originally Posted by Oerets

Any airline is a business after all. When it comes to crew movement, you have a set of trips over days planned. Many many passengers and flights would be effected by the crew not being in Louisville. My guess this was not to get a crew home.
In the purchase of a ticket somewhere in the small print is relinquishing your seat if the airline decides it is needed.
In the USA regulations take care of the industry first, where in Europe have more protections for it's passengers. The max $$ is around 1300 here IIRC. I think we can agree this is lacking. The passengers chosen are not in a pot with all names in it to begin with. Never will a first class, high sky miles, frequent flyer business man name come up. But the cheap seats will always.
United needs empty seats and asked the Airport PD to assist in the removal. There should of been a better way to accomplish this for the majority of the other passengers wanting to get to travel to the Derby city.

Was the plane to sit waiting until the decision was made by the passengers in who stayed?





Barney

I kind of feel that if I bought the ticket I won the ride. If you want/need it pay me for it. But just like the airlines, they get to decide how much to charge for he ticket. A simple refund would not suffice for me. I paid $400 for a ticket, it is mine. I get to decide what it is worth fro me to sell it. They simply did not offer enough money to get the passengers to relinquish their seats. I would bet that if they offered the overnight acommodations, and then started hitting the $2k and north value, people would have volunteered.

[Oerets]

I agree the marketplace should decide the price for the seat needed. The airlines overbook seats with little regard to the passengers. Hopefully this will be helpful in fixing the industry lacking in customer service.


Barney

[donquixote99]

The regs on overbooking don't apply. They apply to who gets through the gate. Once he boards he's past that.

There's a rule 21 in United's Contract of Carriage. It basically says they can kick you off the aircraft if you cause trouble, or if there a safety issue. It does not say they can kick you off to make room for anyone. So I think the Doctor was right to insist he did not have to go involuntarily.

Nonetheless, he was not right to defy the crew's orders. On the aircraft, the crew wields the Captain's authority, which is fairly absolute. Don't obey orders, any necessary force can be used. If was legal for the cops to throw him off, no fault to them unless extra and unnecessary force was applied.

The Doctors legal recourse was to get off the plane, and then sue.

That's not to say United did the right thing, from either a pragmatic or a moral point of view. And they are legally correct only on a particular point: once they had wrongly and illegally decided to evict him, and wrongly and stupidly called on cops to use force to do it, he was legally required to submit and leave, without prejudice to his rights for damages.

Pragmatically and morally, United should never even think of using force against a passenger who is behaving properly. They are now paying a very high price for this lesson, so I hope they learn from it.

[MrPots]

Legal recourse? Wonder how much legal recourse a citizen has against a slew of highly paid corporate lawyers. Fracking...how much legal recourse do landowners have for poisoned water wells and cracked foundations from earthquakes? None....

[nailer]

Deregulation that began under the Carter administration and exploded in the 80's is at the heart of this story.

[donquixote99]

Point taken, certainly, and I was discussing only the legal ins-and-outs here, in the abstract, sort of as a chess problem.

What the Doctor did was an excellent illustration of both the power and the risks of 'civil disobedience.' His defiance will have tremendous effects, effects many orders of magnitude larger than the effects of 'going quietly and filing a lawsuit.' I expect he will be compensated at a many of orders of magnitude larger level.

The other side, of course, is he had to endure a violent and traumatic reaction.