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United passenger threatened with handcuff to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

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C

Crazymoogle

Member
xKilltheMx said:
Holy fuck WHAT
This story is fucking crazy. I would be livid.
Click to expand...

Just normal UA

My first United Flight, I was on the plane for 32 hours uninterrupted because of:
1) overbooking
2) failure to book a flight crew
3) failure to book stewards/stewardesses
4) inability to secure a landing strip for cargo

Not bad for what was supposed to be only 14 hours
 
H

Harpuia

Member
C'mon how do you not let this guy go after what's happening with the doctor being dragged out. This is like touching something hot even though you've been burned by it already.
 
H

hollomat

Banned
Onaco said:
Reading the article made it slightly less shitty. The man is white, so he gets refunded the difference of his $1000 first class ticket down to $500. He also got $500 in credit to use for a flight on United (LOL). He plans to sue and has resources supposedly. It isn't as dramatic. It is interesting that he was the least qualified to be in first class.

Another interesting thing is he emailed for a full refund and said he would like $25,000 donated to a charity of his choice. He only got his 50% refund and the $500 credit to come back.
Click to expand...

Its pretty shitty. They didn't even refund him for the ticket he bought. I guess you don't care based on the color of his skin though.
 
M

Makonero

Member
For those of you thinking this is "funky" it actually happened weeks ago. The story just got legs because of what happened with Dr. Dao. I posted this is that thread yesterday.

UA is a shit airline.
 
MsKrisp

MsKrisp

Member
Holy fuck United. I only flew them a few times on business travel. Never again.

Can someone explain to me why they overbook? I understand that planes need to fill the seats in order to offset the cost of fuel, but do people really cancel/miss flights that much where they must overbook and either pay off customers to wait for the next flight or have incidents like this and the other one? Is it really economical to pay off people or have these kinds of PR disasters because you're threatening force against paying customers who won't leave their seats because they're on a schedule?
 
J

Jeffrey

Member
Seems like standard stuff that I can imagine happening to any airline tbh. Probably should have got the shit sorted out before the gate though.

But yeah as predicted after the terrible handling of pr for the viral video, basically every incident people have had with the airline will be a news story.


Was it worth it united?
 
V

Violence Jack

Member
MsKrisp said:
Holy fuck United. I only flew them a few times on business travel. Never again.

Can someone explain to me why they overbook? I understand that planes need to fill the seats in order to offset the cost of fuel, but do people really cancel/miss flights that much where they must overbook and either pay off customers to wait for the next flight or have incidents like this and the other one? Is it really economical to pay off people or have these kinds of PR disasters because you're threatening force against paying customers who won't leave their seats because they're on a schedule?
Click to expand...

Probably because the average amount of people that don't show up for scheduled flights is around 5% and sometimes up to 15%. Here's an article on why they do it.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/11/overbooking/
 
MisterFalcon

MisterFalcon

Member
MsKrisp said:
Holy fuck United. I only flew them a few times on business travel. Never again.

Can someone explain to me why they overbook? I understand that planes need to fill the seats in order to offset the cost of fuel, but do people really cancel/miss flights that much where they must overbook and either pay off customers to wait for the next flight or have incidents like this and the other one? Is it really economical to pay off people or have these kinds of PR disasters because you're threatening force against paying customers who won't leave their seats because they're on a schedule?
Click to expand...

Apparently it makes a pretty big difference. JetBlue is an airline that does not overbook and a direct flight from New York to Ft. Lauderdale costs almost 40% more compared to Delta according to Skyscanner.
 
T

Tovarisc

Member
X-post

United won't use police to remove overbooked passengers - CEO

United Airlines will no longer use law enforcement officers to remove passengers from overbooked flights after global outrage erupted over a video showing a passenger dragged from one of its planes in Chicago.

"We're not going to put a law enforcement official... to remove a booked, paid, seated passenger," United Continental Holdings Inc Chief Executive Officer Oscar Munoz told ABC News on Wednesday morning. "We can't do that."

Munoz said the incident on Sunday resulted from a "system failure" that prevented employees from using "common sense" in the situation and that Dr. David Dao, whom security officers pulled by his hands from the cabin before takeoff, was not at fault.

An online petition calling for Munoz to step down as CEO had more than 45,000 signatures on Wednesday morning, but he told ABC that he had no plans to resign over the incident.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ual-passenger-idUSKBN17E1GN
 
S

shnurgleton

Member
My heart goes out to everybody in places where United has a near stranglehold on air travel. It really sucks when the only economical option would be the qualitatively worst option if you had literally any other choice
 
C

CSJ

Member
Violence Jack said:
Probably because the average amount of people that don't show up for scheduled flights is around 5% and sometimes up to 15%. Here's an article on why they do it.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/11/overbooking/
Click to expand...

It should save them money, no?
Don't refund no shows, seats are theoretically taken, less weight, more fuel savings.

Oh right it just hit me.... Makes them more money overbooking.
They should have zero obligation refunding people who don't turn up, so that article seems a bit off if that's the case. They are not losing money, they are MAKING money.

Do they even cancel flights if some how not enough turn up?
 
V

Vixdean

Member
This is like when the first person goes public accusing a serial sex abuser and then a many more start coming forward to tell their story.
 
T

turtle553

Member
CSJ said:
It should save them money, no?
Don't refund no shows, seats are theoretically taken, less weight, more fuel savings.

Oh right it just hit me.... Makes them more money overbooking.
They should have zero obligation refunding people who don't turn up, so that article seems a bit off if that's the case. They are not losing money, they are MAKING money.

Do they even cancel flights if some how not enough turn up?
Click to expand...

Some no-shows may be from people missing connecting flights because of delays. Can't charge them if you caused them to miss the flight.
 
I

iammeiam

Member
SteveWD40 said:
How are they ranking customers?
Click to expand...

Probably frequent flier membership status? Flying a lot gets you a higher tier and a number of small benefits, and can be pretty serious business to people. The amount that you have to fly on a single airline to hit Diamond or Platinum Plus or whatever status is usually a ton. United's top tier brags about access to most sold-out flights.

What United did was shitty no doubt, but I have watched Diamond/Platinum Plus/etc people at gates absolutely lose their shit over not getting their way. Usually employees just start trying to bribe people to give up seats to accommodate, but I'm not incredibly surprised an employee would decide to risk getting yelled at by a random passenger over crossing one of the higher tiered flyers. Shitty and wrong but I guess not super surprising to me.
 
G

GifGafIsTheBestGaf

Member
Bollocks said:
pretty professional of united, they could argue back and forth to no avail but instead they laid the cards on the table, "look, someone is more important than you, we kindly ask you to leave on your own behalf or you can make a scene about it where we then have to force you off the plane, your choice".
Click to expand...

they tell it like it is!
 
P

psynergylover

Member
Crazymoogle said:
Just normal UA

My first United Flight, I was on the plane for 32 hours uninterrupted because of:
1) overbooking
2) failure to book a flight crew
3) failure to book stewards/stewardesses
4) inability to secure a landing strip for cargo

Not bad for what was supposed to be only 14 hours
Click to expand...

How?......like how is this even possible!?!?!?
 
C

Crazymoogle

Member
psynergylover said:
How?......like how is this even possible!?!?!?
Click to expand...

The thing that bothers me, is if you watch (ugh, I know) TLC or something, they have that show with the airport staff, dealing with the 1 million crazy problems that happens in airport. The whole situation requires lots of "flex", even when the rules are solid.

But when it comes to asking people to opt out of a flight, it's

1) overnight
2) overnight + 200
3) overnight + 400
4) overnight + 800
5) random removal

Just insane, on my flight and plenty of others, if you upped the deal more, someone would take it. Hell, I would have taken it if I got the cost of my ticket or a bump to biz/1st class another day. But once the 800 offer passes, it's over. Just wtf.
 
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