How could United Airlines have screwed up so badly?

[firecat69]

You keep saying that and you are wrong. They knew they needed the seats and had offered monetary compensation prior to anyone boarding and they had their 4 seats. The Dr took the offer and then decided he wanted his ticket back.

 

This is when the decision went bad. The gate agent should have refused to return his ticket and problem would have been solved. Instead for some strange reason she allowed him to Board . Then they had to try to get someone already on the plane to accept an offer, usually much harder to get and when they did not get a taker they were forced to remove someone.

 

None of this mitigates how the passenger was removed and he will get a big pay day but this is failure by the gate agent plain and simple in allowing the Dr to get on the flight after he had agreed to compensation.

 

You may be right about many crew movements being planned in advance but there are also needs because of sickness, weather delays etc that they need to move crew members to fill in those gaps and at the last minute.

[forky123]

The Dr took the offer and then decided he wanted his ticket back

Do you have a link for this as it disagrees with everything I've read or heard.

[firecat69]

I rarely read news on the web. Too much of it is fake. Although not a 100%, I prefer my news from, CNN, NBC, New York Times etc. But I guess unless you were present we'll have to wait for the court case to find out although I bet they will settle long before that.

[PeterRS]

You keep saying that and you are wrong. They knew they needed the seats and had offered monetary compensation prior to anyone boarding and they had their 4 seats. 

In what way am I wrong? If the airline KNEW it needed the seats, why did it fill the plane chock full of passengers and then only minutes before taking off decide it suddenly needed to get four of them off? That makes no sense at all! You say they "knew" they needed the seats. I find that quite impossible to believe. If they did know that, they would have kept 4 seats free and bumped passengers before they were able to check in. Minimum domestic check in at ORD with a checked bag is 45 minutes. Even in the unlikely event that all passengers had checked in using mobile phones, why werent four stopped at the gate? It is unbelievable that United only realised it needed 4 crew seats less than 15 - 30 minutes prior to departure?

[firecat69]

Well the one thing we can agree on is that there are conflicting reports of what actually happened and the sequence of how it happened.

 

Just watched the latest report on NBC and they reported that the Pilots Union came out with reports that they were shocked by the performance of the airport employees. They must be stupid. The Pilot is in full charge of that aircraft and his word is Law. He should have stopped what happened before it occurred and I would be willing to bet if there was a grey haired veteran in the seat it would have never happened. Instead it is likely there was some under 30 pilot trying to build experience so he could get a job with the Big Boys.

 

One of the reasons I have always avoided those small jets especially in weather. I'll take my chances with Pilots like Sully but not green kid with limited experience.

 

Oh and by the way I have a commercial pilots license with an instrument rating so I know a little about at least some of these things.

[steveboy]

You keep saying that and you are wrong. They knew they needed the seats and had offered monetary compensation prior to anyone boarding and they had their 4 seats. The Dr took the offer and then decided he wanted his ticket back.

 

I am not totally sure, but I think that he is the wrong one.  Had it happened the way he says, we would have heard it a hundred times in the news, AND the airline would have argued this immediately to cover themselves.

[PeterRS]

In what way am I wrong?

I appreciate your experience firecat69, but you say I am wrong. In what way am I wrong in suggesting that United must have known before all the passengers were seated that they needed four seats for crew? And why did they not stop four at the gate?

[firecat69]

You are wrong from the reports I saw initially on Major news outlets in the USA. Possible they are no better in this instance then Fake News online. Really does not make much difference. The airlines always have the right to remove you for reasons such as transporting crews to that city.

 

I have been on smaller jets where they came on and said weight and balance was off and they needed volunteers to get off the airplane or they can't go. I'm pretty sure in all cases I personally witnessed , people took the offer and volunteered to wait for another flight. But if they had not they would have picked who had to get off.

 

I am in no way commenting that this was not handled horribly but fact is they are in control of the aircraft and if they tell you to get off you get off. It really is that simple. When this individual refused they should have offered so much compensation that someone would have taken it but instead they screwed up and the Captain allowed airport employees ( not police ) to forcibly remove the passenger.

 

Believe me Sully would have never allowed it.

[PeterRS]

It really does make a difference. You have twice said I am wrong. But in no way have you explained why I am wrong nor how it is that United would suddenly realise they had to eject 4 passengers AFTER all had boarded and were seated. Yes I understand about weight, especially cabin baggage on these commuter flights. But weight was not the issue in this case. Lack of available seats was. So if they needed the seats, it is impossible to believe they only had a few minutes notice. Otherwise they would have denied boarding and done it before the passengers boarded.

[firecat69]

You are wrong from the reports I saw initially. I may be wrong from the reports you saw. Who cares? The point is the airline can remove passengers and compensate them any time they want. Of course the preferred way is in the boarding area!

 

What they should have done is said this airplane does not move until we get x number of passengers to take our offer . They had the right under guidelines I believe to offer $1300 . I find it hard to believe someone would not have accepted that offer and walked down to Avis and make the 5 hour drive. I certainly would have.

 

I'd volunteer for those injuries for the Millions he will get.

[steveboy]

No; I have already said repeatedly that the airline handled the situation very poorly. But I am trying to give a nuanced view. The passenger escalated the situation by refusing to get off the plane. The passenger had every right to feel wronged and to question the staff. But once he was asked by the airline to deplane, he had a legal obligation to comply with that instruction. That he got bumped in such a fashion was a grievous error but that he was physically removed is on him. He had every opportunity to leave on his own accord, and choose to to remain. He knew the risks such behavior posed, and he chose to take them. 

 

We have not yet heard from the policemen who removed Dao from his seat.  The airline employees must have been stunned, flabbergasted by the nerve of a passenger challenging their ABSOLUTE authority. Who knows what they told the policemen! They might have been inclined to portray him as a dangerous troublemaker, a criminal who could endanger their operation. And so they called the police to report, not a commercial dispute in violation of their contract of carrier, but a dangerous criminal situation.  If so, they made a false accusation, a violation of the law in itself.

[forky123]

We have not yet heard from the policemen who removed Dao from his seat.  The airline employees must have been stunned, flabbergasted by the nerve of a passenger challenging their ABSOLUTE authority. Who knows what they told the policemen! They might have been inclined to portray him as a dangerous troublemaker, a criminal who could endanger their operation. And so they called the police to report, not a commercial dispute in violation of their contract of carrier, but a dangerous criminal situation.  If so, they made a false accusation, a violation of the law in itself.

Sorry but all of that is nothing but innuendo and wag's. There were obviously lots of really bad decisions made and short cuts taken which resulted in the assault of a passenger. My suspicions would be that the rules followed by the flight crew and airport police don't properly define or explain what you are allowed to do in such situations and it's obvious that the people involved in this altercation were improperly trained. I would love to know what the person with responsibility here, the captain, has to say about it. Overall though, I'd guess we are never going to know. It will be settled out of court with an NDA attached.

[reader]

From Wikipedia

 

The strict legal definition of PIC (pilot-in-command) may vary slightly from country to country. The International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency, definition is: "The pilot responsible for the operation and safety of the aircraft during flight time." Flight time for airplanes is defined by the U.S. FAA as "Pilot time that commences when an aircraft moves under its own power for the purpose of flight and ends when the aircraft comes to rest after landing."This would normally include taxiing, which involves the ground operation to and from the runway, as long as the taxiing is carried out with the intention of flying the aircraft.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_in_command

[steveboy]

Sorry but all of that is nothing but innuendo and wag's. There were obviously lots of really bad decisions made and short cuts taken which resulted in the assault of a passenger. My suspicions would be that the rules followed by the flight crew and airport police don't properly define or explain what you are allowed to do in such situations and it's obvious that the people involved in this altercation were improperly trained. I would love to know what the person with responsibility here, the captain, has to say about it. Overall though, I'd guess we are never going to know. It will be settled out of court with an NDA attached.

 

Yes, at this point it is all innuendo, or nicer said, speculation.  But I am not speculating about the nature of United employees, I have personal experience with them.  All I can say is that by generalizing one may be lumping together some very nice people, which some of them are.

 

It is very possible that this event gets settled out of court, the airline has too much to lose if it goes to trial. Although the Non Disclosure Agreement only binds those who sign it, the potential plaintiffs. Others may have some more information to disclose.   

[brall3]

Reported on the news: the passengers on the flight are sueing United for millions because they are traumatized for being on that flight - WOW! GET REAL. I was traumatized when I saw the incident on the news. Maybe I should also sue United Airlines.

 

None of the passengers did anything to help or aide the poor guy, and now they want to benefit financially by his misfortune! UNBELIEVABLE. Only in the USA!

[fedssocr]

You keep saying that and you are wrong. They knew they needed the seats and had offered monetary compensation prior to anyone boarding and they had their 4 seats. The Dr took the offer and then decided he wanted his ticket back.

 

This is when the decision went bad. The gate agent should have refused to return his ticket and problem would have been solved. Instead for some strange reason she allowed him to Board . Then they had to try to get someone already on the plane to accept an offer, usually much harder to get and when they did not get a taker they were forced to remove someone.

 

None of this mitigates how the passenger was removed and he will get a big pay day but this is failure by the gate agent plain and simple in allowing the Dr to get on the flight after he had agreed to compensation.

 

You may be right about many crew movements being planned in advance but there are also needs because of sickness, weather delays etc that they need to move crew members to fill in those gaps and at the last minute.

 

Your narrative about what happened and the timeline is completely different to everything I have read, including UA's own timeline as Munoz set out in his letter to UA employees.

[PeterRS]

You are wrong from the reports I saw initially. I may be wrong from the reports you saw. Who cares? 

Clearly you dont care making wrong statements about other guys posts and then not withdrawing them. 

 

This is from the statement by the United Airlines Pilots Association 

 

On April 9, 2017, United Express Flight 3411, operated by Republic, was preparing to depart Chicago O’Hare (ORD) to Louisville (SDF). Republic Airline made the decision to assign four of their crewmembers to deadhead on Flight 3411 within minutes of the scheduled departure.

 And that was my point all along. Sorry but I was not wrong (twice!)

[steveboy]

Clearly you dont care making wrong statements about other guys posts and then not withdrawing them. 

If you make this too obvious to him, he will put you on his "ignore" list.

[kokopelli]

Reported on the news: the passengers on the flight are sueing United for millions because they are traumatized for being on that flight - WOW! GET REAL. I was traumatized when I saw the incident on the news. Maybe I should also sue United Airlines.

 

None of the passengers did anything to help or aide the poor guy, and now they want to benefit financially by his misfortune! UNBELIEVABLE. Only in the USA!

Usually when the police take off an unruly passenger the other passengers applaud!  Lots of these videos on youtube.

[PeterRS]

When he bought that ticket, he agreed to certain stipulations, one of which is that the airline reserved the right to remove you from the plane. He has no right to unilaterally declare that he is longer bound by those stipulations simply because it is now proving inconvenient. 

 

jfarmer017 bases his assertion very much on the terms in the Uniteds Conditions of Carriage.  Not so according to legal website Dorf on Law. The reason? Those exact same terms of the airlines conditions of carriage.

 

Inexplicably, it seems that nowhere in the COC is there a definition of “boarding”. Consequently the term must therefore be given its ordinarily accepted meaning in the active tense of “get on to the aircraft.” Dr. Dao was clearly already on the aircraft and in his seat.

 

Like all airlines, United has a very specific (and lengthy!) contract for carriage outlining the contractual relationship between the airline and the passenger. It includes a familiar set of provisions for when a passenger may be denied boarding (Rule 25 “Denied Boarding Compensation”). When a flight is oversold, UA can deny boarding to some passengers, who then receive compensation under specific guidelines. However, Dao was not denied boarding. He was granted boarding and then involuntarily removed from the airplane. What does the contract say about that?

 

It turns out that the contract has a specific rule regarding “Refusal of Transport” (Rule 21), which lays out the conditions under which a passenger can be removed and refused transport on the aircraft. This includes situations where passengers act in a “disorderly, offensive, abusive, or violent” manner, refuse to comply with the smoking policy, are barefoot or “not properly clothed,” as well as many other situations. There is absolutely no provision for deplaning a seated passenger because the flight is oversold …

 

One might argue that Dao had not completed “boarding” until the cabin door was closed. This argument would be wrong. The term “boarding” is not defined in the definition section of the contract, and absent an explicit definition in the contract, terms are to be afforded their plain meaning. “Boarding” means that the passenger presents a boarding pass to the gate agent who accepts or scans the pass and permits entry through the gate to the airplane, allowing the passenger to enter the aircraft and take a seat.

 

… the object and purpose of the contract of carriage is, among other things, to require the airline to transport the passenger from location A to location B aboard aircraft C. Being on the aircraft is the whole point of the contract, and it specifically lists the situations when the airline may deny transport to a ticketed customer. Since the airline did not comply with those requirements, it should be liable for the damages associated with their breach

http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2017/04/united-airlines-own-contract-denied-it.htm

[firecat69]

Clearly you dont care making wrong statements about other guys posts and then not withdrawing them. 

 

This is from the statement by the United Airlines Pilots Association 

 

 And that was my point all along. Sorry but I was not wrong (twice!)

Peter this was my last sentence on the subject try to digest it.

"You are wrong from the reports I saw initially. I may be wrong from the reports you saw"

 

Fact you were wrong from the reports I saw initially. You did not see what I saw so please don't presume you did. That does not make you wrong later on when more reports have come out . Then I said I may be wrong from the reports you saw. Is that not plain enough for you .

 

I did not sit in front of my tv set for hours or bother digesting all the news that has come out in the days afterward. To me it is a big story about nothing.

 

Some minimum wage employees made some bad decisions and then some fake police turned it into a national news story. Then the head of UA made it an even bigger story.

 

And of course the passenger should have been bright enough to leave his seat when airline security came on board.

 

All of it could have been avoided if just 1 employee had been smart enough to offer $1350 they could have. I cannot imagine someone would not have accepted that.

[steveboy]

Peter this was my last sentence on the subject try to digest it.

"You are wrong from the reports I saw initially. I may be wrong from the reports you saw"

 

Fact you were wrong from the reports I saw initially. You did not see what I saw so please don't presume you did. That does not make you wrong later on when more reports have come out . Then I said I may be wrong from the reports you saw. Is that not plain enough for you .

 

In other words:  " I have all the right to find you WRONG based on any stupid false reports that cross my eyes.  That you don't see such false information is not my problem. What you need to recognize is that you WERE wrong based in these false reports, So stop blaming me for that, is that not plain enough for you?  I am NEVER wrong, what sometimes is wrong is the source of false information that I am stupid enough to take at face value"

 

How comical  

[ChristianPFC]

http://www.easyjet.com/en/help/at-the-airport/oversales

 

Last year, nearly 3 million easyJet customers didn’t show for their flights. When this happens, it means aircraft leave with empty seats, increasing our costs and therefore the price you pay for your flight.

 

Can't let this go uncommented, as I think it's a blatant lie. If a passenger paid for a (non-refundable and not flexible) ticket and does not show up, he loses the ticket price and the airline has a empty seat that is paid for, REDUCING their cost (although only marginally: a little bit less fuel needed because the airplane is lighter and little bit less time needed because one passenger less to process).

 

Now they started counting on that out of 100 passengers one a plane, one might be late, die or have other urgent issues between buying ticket and time of flight, and sell 101 tickets. And often that works out, and for 101 tickets sold, only 100 passengers show up. This shows as well that we are talking about a difference in price of 1%. For that 1%, all these hassles and now this unforgivable event.

 

Trains and buses don't overbook, and don't have dynamic pricing, why do airlines? I think all explanations by airlines on this subject are bullshit, like the example above.

 

(And issue that was discusses before with much controversy, airlines selling flights A-B-C and passenger taking only A-B flight and being CHARGED for not taking B-C flight fits in here as well, another example of what strange things go in in airline pricing.)

[PeterRS]

Christian your basic argument is correct. But you forget one thing. Airlines permit those prepared to pay much higher prices to switch to a different flight at no cost and to obtain a full refund if they dont fly. This is especially true of biz class passengers and elite members of many frequent flyer programs. It is also true of some economy fares. I know in my business that some execs are never quite sure when a business meeting in somewhere like the east coast will end. Since they are in biz class they will try and book 2 or even 3 flights to their home on the west coast to ensure they will guaranteed one and be home for dinner. They can then get a refund on the unused tickets.

 

As for overbooking or overselling I think I am right that although the percentage varies from flight to flight in accordance with previous history, the average is much closer to 5%-7% than just 1%. Of course as we now know in this particular incident the flight was neither overbooked or oversold.

[firecat69]

Sorry Christian but when you go outside Thailand Topics you don't know what you are talking about. Easy Jet for 1 example has Flexi Fare which allows you constant changes of your flights with no penalty. A little bit like Business Class Fares on other airlines. You have no idea how many of those customers do not show up for their flights. But the computer programs do their best to predict what will happen and EasyJet oversells their seats so their flight will be full.

 

Most airlines do this because there are all sorts of fares that can be changed at the last minute for small or no penalty. You can't run any business breaking even and even yet most experts will agree that an airline must fill at least 85% of their seats to break even. So yes if 20 people don't show up on a 150 seat airplane then that flight will lose money.

 

Most passengers don't understand the dynamics of running an airline. Sometimes there have to be unsold seats because of fuel and weather constrictions that limit the number of seats. Sometimes certain routs have low passenger counts because they feed flights to other destinations or international destinations that are more profitable.

 

The bottom line in the USA less then 1 passenger for every 10,000 gets bumped and 90 % of those take the voluntary compensation and so less then 1/10 of 1% of passengers are ever denied boarding.

 

Lot of BS about nothing. Just 2 airlines out of the many I have flown I have over 3 million miles and have never been bumped.

 

The way UA's feeder airline Republic handled this thing is horrendous and it allows millions of people to comment on something they know nothing about.

 

https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_64.html