Man Dragged off United Airlines/Flight Overbooked, April 2017

[JerseyGirl]

Accommodating your staff to get to a meeting is not.

at the last minute no less! United was absolutely 100% wrong!

 

[chlban]

what do you expect them to do after the man refuses to leave the plane?

should they stand there and stare at the guy for 3 hours while 200+ other people are inconvenienced?

No, they should look into some modern conveniences like Webinars so their employees don't need to inconvenience 4 paying customers at the last minute to get to some stupid meeting.

I work for a multinational corporation and we manage to have multiple meetings all the time, (seriously ALL THE TIME) without anyone ever boarding a plane.

If we absolutely feel we have to be face to face there is this not very new invention called videoconferencing. It is 2017, not 1970.

Sure there are a few events annually that may require air travel where someone wants to tour a site, or such, but those are PLANNED IN ADVANCE. Why the hell does United just figure out that they need to get these people to a meeting immediately? Why didn't they reserve the seats ahead of time?

Answer is because they could. That is going to change, and it will now likely change for all the airlines.

 

[chlban]

at the last minute no less! United was absolutely 100% wrong!

Assuming your screen name is a current description, your Governor called for legislation to end of overbooking by airlines, just this morning. There is also going to be a congressional investigation.

Well done United. You could have offered the passengers
50 grand a piece to give up their seats and been better off than you are now.

 

[TeaTime]

In my experience, the employees of UA always act like they are doing you a favor by letting you fly on one of their planes and they overbook every flight

I was bumped from an international flight to accommodate an employee, missed the meet up with my group at our first layover, missed a day of my vacation which was spent in the airport waiting 11 hours for the next flight and what should have been a 4 hour flight ended up being a 17+ hour ordeal after which I was too tired to do anything but sleep when I arrived at the resort. So it really cost me 2 days of my 5 day vacation.

The boarding agent looked at me with a smirk and said 'well, honey, too bad. You are just not getting on this flight because I gave your seat away. You will have to wait or cancel your trip. Bye, bye." and walked away. I will never book another flight with them. They treat the passengers like garbage.

I got a $12 meal card. I gave it back.

 

[BayouBelle_LA]

I've not read to the end of the thread so don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but it seems this passenger and his history is being confused with a different Dr David Dao with different middle names. Maybe he has potential for an action for defamation as well ....

Source: https://twitter.com/MarkTranSD via https://twitter.com/Idealaw

The person who tweeted that is wrong. The passenger and the doctor under review by the medical board is one in the same.

 

[keeleydoll]

Assuming your screen name is a current description, your Governor called for legislation to end of overbooking by airlines, just this morning. There is also going to be a congressional investigation.

Well done United. You could have offered the passengers
50 grand a piece to give up their seats and been better off than you are now.

Except that legally they couldn't. Airlines are only allowed to compensate bumped passengers up to and not exceeding 400% of the ticket price.


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[Hiandmighty]

In my experience, the employees of UA always act like they are doing you a favor by letting you fly on one of their planes and they overbook every flight

I was bumped from an international flight to accommodate an employee, missed the meet up with my group at our first layover, missed a day of my vacation which was spent in the airport waiting 11 hours for the next flight and what should have been a 4 hour flight ended up being a 17+ hour ordeal after which I was too tired to do anything but sleep when I arrived at the resort. So it really cost me 2 days of my 5 day vacation.

The boarding agent looked at me with a smirk and said 'well, honey, too bad. You are just not getting on this flight because I gave your seat away. You will have to wait or cancel your trip. Bye, bye." and walked away. I will never book another flight with them. They treat the passengers like garbage.

I got a $12 meal card. I gave it back.

I am reading a lot of anecdotes on the internet just like this. What they did to this man seems to be a watershed: people are uniting against united.

The employees seem miserable too.

 

[drjones]

Except that legally they couldn't. Airlines are only allowed to compensate bumped passengers up to and not exceeding 400% of the ticket price.


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do you have a source that directly states that they are not allowed to offer more? i have seen what most people are quoting regarding this and im not sure they are interpreting it correctly, are we certain it is not just a cap on what they are legally required to pay? what would be the rationale for not allowing them to offer as much as they might see fit in any given situation?

 

[drjones]

It wasn't a meeting. They were to crew another flight. There are regulations on how flight crews can be transported, how long they can work, etc.. it was a case of bump 4 passengers and compensate them (only legally allowed 400% of ticket cost) or delay or cancel a domino effect of flights for the next few days if crew didn't arrive. So then even more people would be screwed. It's in the contract of carriage that is stipulated when you purchase tickets. Why is this particular guy so above the law? A contract is a contact and binding even if you are ignorant of what it says because you didn't read it. You go to a restaurant where your friends have a reservation, sit down at the table where they're waiting and are asked to leave because you aren't in compliance with their dress code. You leave or are removed. By LE if you were asked and don't comply.


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there were many other ways they could have transported their crew without causing any delays, whether or not it was technically legal for them to remove this passenger (still not entirely clear that it was), it was undoubtedly foolish.

 

[rose222]

The airline company has the right to ask passengers to give up their seats but they have to provide an official letter and money (or a check) on the spot. United did not do that. I'm tired of people who seem to have nothing better to do than argue against the facts simply to have an alternative argument. Don't argue just for the sake of it! Instead of providing the letter and money they call security who beat this passenger up? It's not okay to use force on a passenger who did not pose a threat. Forget the lawyers that this disgraceful company might have, if they don't settle this outside of court and this case goes to a jury then they will pay big time.

 

[rose222]

Let's say that United had done everything by the book (they did not) and the passenger still refused to give up the seat. What then? Which would have been less of a disaster? Beating the passenger up and then dealing with the public aftermath or facing a domino effect with regard to flights etc.? I think the financial and moral cost would have been less had they avoided beating this man up. This will cost them so much financially not to speak of their public image. Lesson for United: Don't beat a passenger up unless he poses a serious threat to others!

Legalities aside it is a huge mistake when it comes to public image and such things. Financially foolish. One has to think intelligently about the cost of such things.

 

[drjones]

Let's say that United had done everything by the book (they did not) and the passenger still refused to give up the seat. What then? Which would have been less of a disaster? Beating the passenger up and then dealing with the public aftermath or facing a domino effect with regard to flights etc.? I think the financial and moral cost would have been less had they avoided beating this man up. This will cost them so much financially not to speak of their public image. Lesson for United: Don't beat a passenger up unless he poses a serious threat to others!

Legalities aside it is a huge mistake when it comes to public image and such things. Financially foolish. One has to think intelligently about the cost of such things.

they could have provided alternate transportation for their employees and had no delays, they could have moved on to the next name on the list and asked for their cooperation and likely would have found another passenger who would comply fairly quickly (they had already found three), they could have upped their compensation offer.

 

[keeleydoll]

Chicago Aviation Police made the decision to handle the passenger in such a manner. Not United. They are NOT employees of United. United called them to resolve the situation as they are supposed to. It is not United's fault the officer used excessive force, the airline did things by the book.


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[PaperDoll]

I'm late getting to this discussion, however, none-the-less I have to express MY OPINION United was WRONG, IMO. It's not the passengers fault that airlines overbook. This man paid for his seat just like all the others on that flight. He had every right to refuse to give up his seat, and like others I agree, United should have offered more because money does talk and someone may have given up their seat for more. I've been on flights were the airline has overbooked and usually someone is willing to give up their seat. Heck, for the right price I would give mine up because you are most likely able to get a flight out without any hassles. United should have made their employees take another flight, it's United responsibility to take care of THEIR employees, not the customers. :gaah:

 

[rose222]

Chicago Aviation Police made the decision to handle the passenger in such a manner. Not United. They are NOT employees of United. United called them to resolve the situation as they are supposed to. It is not United's fault the officer used excessive force, the airline did things by the book.


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No, they did not. Did they provide an official letter and money on the spot before calling security? That is what they were supposed to do.

 

[JanetElaine]

Chicago Aviation Police made the decision to handle the passenger in such a manner. Not United. They are NOT employees of United. United called them to resolve the situation as they are supposed to. It is not United's fault the officer used excessive force, the airline did things by the book.


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Still not a very smart decision, in my opinion. There was a passenger (link is back in the thread somewhere) who said he'd give up his seat for $1,600 and was laughed at in the face by United employees. Who then went on to call the cops (or CAPs) on passenger Dao. Well, they sure saved themselves 800 bucks, didn't they.

And even though it is technically not United's fault the officer used excessive force, what did they expect the officers would do? Talk to Dao some more? Of course not. They called the officers to forcibly remove an already seated paying passenger who was not acting out or as a threat to anyone at all at that moment. And now they're in deep doo-doo, where they in my opinion belong.

 

[drjones]

Chicago Aviation Police made the decision to handle the passenger in such a manner. Not United. They are NOT employees of United. United called them to resolve the situation as they are supposed to. It is not United's fault the officer used excessive force, the airline did things by the book.


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there is nothing in United Airlines "book" that allows them to direct security to remove a paid, seated customer because they want to give that seat to an employee, the man that runs the company has already acknowledged this and says they should not have done it.

 

[JerseyGirl]

New footage....

“I’m a physician and I have to work tomorrow at 8 o’clock,” Dao can be heard saying in the clip.

When officers tell him he needs to leave the [plane], Dao refuses: “No, I am not going. I am not going.”

When security insisted again, he can be heard saying, “Then drag me down.”

Dao apparently was on the phone with his lawyer discussing suing United Airlines after he was selected at random to be yanked from the flight.

http://nypost.com/2017/04/12/united...ty-to-drag-me-down-after-refusing-to-deplane/

 

[rose222]

The airline has to provide an official letter to the passenger. United did not do that. Their fault for not playing by the rules and thinking they could get what they wanted using intimidation. Pathetic power trip.

It is the fault of the police for having used force. An aviation expert said on TV that the police should have learned a little more about the situation, realized it was a civil incident and left. The passenger was not violent so they had no business resorting to violence. I think the officer/officers have been placed on leave.

 

[JanetElaine]

This is what United Airlines CEO Munoz says today:

""We have not provided our frontline supervisors and managers and individuals with the proper procedures that would allow them to use their common sense.

"They all have an incredible amount of common sense and this issue could have been solved by that," Munoz added. "This is on me; I have to fix that, and I think that’s something we can do."

It appears the top dog at the airline does not agree with the people who say the airline was totally withing their rights with what they did. Maybe he agreed yesterday, but since then he appears to have become aware of the fact that businesses are not gods who can operate outside the Constitution and that common sense is a good thing to use. Of course everyone is still entitled to their opinion, but I figured actually quoting the airline boss might be a good idea regardless.

From this link: http://abcnews.go.com/US/united-ceo-oscar-munoz-felt-sham-passenger-dragged/story?id=46746594