United Airlines Flight

Am I the only person in the world who thinks this doctor is the one at fault here? Yeah, yeah, yeah, perhaps UA could have handled an overbooked flight better, but in the end, they randomly chose people to bump because nobody volunteered even after being offered $800 to do so. They gotta do what they gotta do, and I bet somewhere there is some legal language on your ticket that you did not read that says this may happen to you. In any case, it is the flight crew's prerogative to kick off anyone they think will be a problem. This guy was belligerent and refused orders to de-plane, even returning to the plane after he initially left. That sounds like a guy who could very well be a problem when you are in the air and the security is back on the ground. Backtalking the cops is NEVER going to go well for you and this guy got what he deserved IMO. What kind of authority do the cops have if they can only ask you the same thing as the flight crew did and you refuse? Just shrug their shoulders? They are only there because he would not obey the flight crew.

And yeah I know they were airport security not "real" cops but what difference does that make? Would people be all OK with it if it was the Chicago PD? Wouldn't those same people be saying it should be the FAA not the local police?

 

Doctor is at fault.

 

OK so at least I am not the only one in the world who thinks that.

 

Why wouldn't the airline keep increasing the compensation for taking a later flight? Surely someone would bite if the value hit the right point. Why stop at $800? Regardless of who was at fault, this PR nightmare will cost United $millions$ which will be enough incentive going forward to never forcibly remove a passenger due to the airline overbooking again.

 

IMO the doctor was at fault in this particular incident but in the bigger scheme all the airlines are at fault for this practice. It's BS to intentionally and routinely have to push people to alternate flights.

Crazy thing is that the dudes doing the physical removal aren't UA employees and had UA employee been doing the doing, they probably wouldn't have taken this approach. These guys are very likely "Airport" employees and not airline employees.

The doctor should have complied and then sought further compensation. He'll get his compensation now though. I bet the airlines dial it back a notch going forward.

 

So this passenger is a scumbag with a pretty sordid past.
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Link
Dr. David Dao, 69, who was captured in a now-viral video being forcibly dragged off the Louisville-bound flight at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on Sunday, was working as a doctor specializing in pulmonary disease in Elizabethtown when he was convicted of trading prescription drugs for sexual favors.

According to documents filed with the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure, Dao was arrested in 2003 on the drug-related offenses following an undercover investigation.

The board’s probe into the criminal charges found that Dao became sexually interested in a male patient, Brian Case, whom he gave a physical examination to, including a genital examination, and whom he eventually made his office manager.
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So the man's past has no legal bearing on the current issue, but frankly, it makes me far less sympathetic towards him. Do these personal revelations change how any of you other posters feel about the story?

 

Yeah, bad people deserve to be treated like ****. smh... lesson of the story dont do anything that may go viral or else people may dig around your past and character assassinate you.

Yahoo News Video
"Was United legally justified when it forcibly dragged a paying passenger off a plane in Chicago on April 9? The airline seems to think so, but it may come down to whether the company complied with government rules on what airlines must do when passengers are involuntarily bumped.

The Transportation Department says airlines must “give all passengers who are bumped involuntarily a written statement describing their rights and explaining how the carrier decides who gets on an oversold flight and who doesn’t.” There’s no evidence United did that. In an internal email published by the Associated Press, United CEO Oscar Munoz said company employees “followed our involuntary denial of boarding process (including offering up to $1,000 in compensation).” But he didn’t say whether those employees followed government rules, including issuing the written statement and giving an explanation for why a given passenger was singled out for bumping."

I see a government rule about to be ....poof. Why is it getting easier for businesses to treat their customers poorly.

 

Not me. As you you say, the man's past has no bearing on the issue. You don't allow paying customers to be treated this way. UA could have avoided all of this bad publicity by paying more to get volunteers. For a few thousand, they could have avoided all of this bad publicity that will cost them tens of thousands over the coming months.

 

I know it's FAA regulations that you must comply with airline employee instructions or you can be and certainly will be arrested. I also know this happens all too frequently and all the airlines are doing it. I've been flying a lot lately and almost every flight I've been on has been overbooked. The flights I used to take that were once 200+ passenger 757's & MD 80's are now the 100 or less seat ERJ's.

You think United is bad don't get me started on American. I honestly don't know an industry with worse customer service, maybe cable companies, that's about it.

 

So was the guy a legit paying customer, and was forced to give up his seat because they overbooked and nobody took the compensation offer?

 

I think there's a lot of fault to go around. United should have dealt with the issue before anybody boarded. United should have increased the compensation. However, once the guy was ordered off the plane, he should have left without playing the "doctor card." And he sure as hell shouldn't have gotten physical with air marshals.

 

$1,000 bucks? Too bad I wasn't on the plane.
There are a lot of people with narcissistic personality disorder. Typically there's no problem if you can work around them ... you give them space because when they don't get their way, they immediately escalate to infinity (basically screaming and fighting with security guards.) Alas on airlines there are times when interests of competing narcissists clash ... say the one with the knee protector and the one in the seat in front who insists on leaning all the way back. When you are the most important person in the world, any affront is likely to produce a social media event.

 

But why was this individual ordered to deplane? Maybe I’m missing something here. Why not someone else? Why should any paying customer be forced to give up the seat they paid for?

 

In defense of airlines, they only do this on days that end in y.

 

Because once the plane had already boarded customers United decided to bump paying customers in favor of getting their employees to Louisville or maybe it was just overbooked.

 

Oh boy. If I bought my seat fair and square and the airline tells me I have to give it up because they overbooked, well, F you United. You need a plan B.

 

UA claims the 4 individuals to be removed were decided at random outside of unaccompanied minors and disabled customers. This raises the question...how do they define random?

 

These 4 were bumped to give up the seats for employees of a UA affiliate who had to get to Louisville for a flight they are working there.

 

As someone who flies as many as 100 flights per year, I have never seen anyone forcibly yanked off the plane. This would have never happened under Bethune and Continental. I can certainly tell you SWA would have been smarter as well.

They offer a credit to fly their airline and it expires in 12 months. If you do not fly often or do not fly United often, no voucher is worth missing something important.

In the end, they did this to accommodate four United employees. If anyone thinks that is a good idea, I do not know what to tell you. The airlines often fly on each other's planes to make these type of trips. Easily one of the dumbest PR moves I have seen in my lifetime. Someone needs to remind the CEO as well. "When you are in a hole, stop digging."

 

The 4 employees were a flight crew headed to Louisville to work on a flight starting there. Absent that crew, that Louisville flight would have been cancelled.

Easy solution, simply keep increasing the value of the voucher until you get enough takers. Per reports, they capped the voucher giveaway at $800 and couldn't get anyone to bite so they took the next step and randomly chose people to miss the flight. What's sad is that you can drive from Chicago to Louisville in 4.5 hours.

 

Hey ... glad to see the sensation made it to the West Mall.

First ... the airline is Republic, not United ... though UAL has done a remarkably poor job of making that distinction; it's become part of the industry to have these sub-contracted carriers perform the flying on behalf of the mainline. Even wifey gets it fouled-up on some Texas destinations served by a contractor and not The Outfit ... but nevertheless.

(copied/modified from a FB friend)

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let me break this down for the non-airline folks threatened due to federal or contractual hour limits or weather etc...the airline...and I mean ANY airline tries to cover those positions whether they be pilots or flight attendants. They are deadheaded which means to ride as a passenger to get in place for a flight where they would be the working crew. They are classified as "must ride". If the airline didn't do this the flight to which they are "deadheading" would have to cancel.

Federal law states that any passenger must comply with crew member instructions.

Almost every airline out there over sells. This has been industry standard for decades. When you have the hub and spoke system, flights feed into a large hub from smaller destination enabling a large aircraft at the hub to fill up. Think Kalamazoo, MI to Chicago and then onwards to Hong Kong. Now multiply that by hundreds of flights and passengers. Say one flight cancelled or is delayed. Instead of letting that seat on the Chicago to Hong Kong flight go empty, they basically sell that seat twice. There is a no-show factor for almost every flight. Since airlines are businesses they obviously want to make money. Airlines run a razor thin margin at times on certain routes. This enables them to make more money. Does it make sense...not to most people. But again...its industry standard. Here is a post from a friends page on the specifics. But I hope my break down helps.....

1. No one at the airline got mad.
2. The employees were not standby, they were a must ride. (Meaning that they had to get to that destination to operate a flight while maintaining FAA regulations due to weather impacting operations)
3. Whenever you purchase a ticket, you are agreeing to abide by the passenger agreements and Code of Federal Regulations.
4. He wasn't randomly chosen, the computer system used goes by who paid the cheapest ticket, whether or not luggage was checked, status, boarding priority, etc.
5. The flight wasn't originally oversold until the deadheading crew encountered a missed connect due to weather impacting operations and legality issues which is why these 4 employees had to get onto this particular flight to avoid a cancellation of the morning flight as this particular flight from Chicago only flies once at 3pm.
6. The passenger (Dao) was asked numerous times to leave the aircraft by airline officials, he leaves, changes his mind then decides to run past the gate agents back to the aircraft. At this point, he is classified as non-complaint and a security issue which is why law enforcement was called. This is post 911. That's a federal offense, you don't run onto an aircraft after being removed. Period. Point. Blank. Once the law gets involved, it is no longer the airline. That's Chicago O'hare Int'l Airport and Chicago PD. They told him numerous times to exit, nicely, and he didn't comply so there you have it.

Once again, everyone is stuck in their own ways that they can't see the bigger picture. I can guarantee that if the morning flight would have been cancelled due to no crew, everyone would still be enraged. I would rather remove this one pax, provide them with an $800 voucher (doubled of what he paid), a hotel, meal vouchers, and an upgraded seat on the next available flight (all which they offered) than having to accommodate 60 to 70 pax because we had to cancel a flight.

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Sangre asked about the history of this individual and its relevance. Great question. No, it really doesn't, but it makes certain things clear like his dubious claim to being a practicing doctor ... this link is to a file which is quite lengthy, but clearly this guy has big problems. One of which is manifested by refusal to deplane after having purchased the cheapo ticket with no frequent flier status, no checked bags, and checked-in at/near the end of the list.



There are bad experiences on airlines. I get it. Despite United taking the heat for this deal, it should raise the issue of operational control over their brand/ticket. These folks were being flown by another airline, NOT United. There wasn't United personnel within two terminals of this airplane.

What I'd like to know from the "experts" is ... if capitulating to a 6 year old-like tantrum is done, what does that say? Does it say, if I throw a big enough fit, I'll get what I want???

What a sad testimony to expectations of behavior and of a lacking self-discipline.

I trust HornFans folks will do better.

 

Deez ... I wasn't there, but there are reports of other passengers saying the offers/requests for volunteers happened on the airplane during boarding. I'm pretty sure that means the need to remove 4 passengers became realized AFTER boarding began.

Perhaps they could have deplaned everyone and started over? ... hindsight being 20/20 and all ... but who would expect a wall-eye'd fit being thrown by an adult when presented with the need for their removal ... per the Conditions of Carriage policy which was agreed at the point of reservation???

 

Wait what???

Are you one of those who throw a toddler's fit and bang the seat because someone is using the seat like it was designed for? You poor tall person...haha.

It must be annoying...but that's Life. Life could be worse. Like you could be a short person and every day in general is annoying. Those few hours of uncomfort is a small price to pay.

I'm just ribbing you Crockett, but I do laugh when my 6'3" buddy whines about the same thing.

 

I'm not sure anyone here is defending this gentleman's behavior. Where this airline erred was simply not raising the voucher amount to a point where passengers would opt to take the next flight. The customer service exhibited in this instance was abhorrent, regardless of what they were offering. Clearly, it still wasn't enough for a plane full of people to opt to take the deal.

 

IIoftx ...

The employees wernen't on leisure travel. They weren't even on company business to hold a meeting ... they were being flown to operate another flight. So ... inconvenience 4 or an entire plane load.

If you're one of the plane load (higher probability, btw) ... I'm thinking you'd like that crew to be "deadheaded" to the flight with all the regulatory requirements met.

 

Uhhh...who reads those? Do they vary differently by major US carrier which dominate 85% of all air travel?

 

IDK about the policy/decision making but I do know about TIME. Again, in hindsight, what you suggest is probably what they'd do, but who expects an adult to throw a fit about it?

 

Perhaps we should all take notice and pay better attention to that of which we are agreeing in a transaction, eh?

 

Do you read it? What about the last cell phone you purchased...the terms and conditions?