News United Airlines is a terrible business

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The discussion centers around the controversial incident involving United Airlines and the forced removal of Dr. Dao from a flight, highlighting significant issues in airline policies and customer treatment. Participants express frustration with United's handling of overbooking and the use of force by security personnel, arguing that the airline's approach reflects a failure to manage customer relations effectively. There is a consensus that the situation escalated unnecessarily, with suggestions that better communication and increased compensation offers could have resolved the issue without violence. The conversation also touches on the broader implications of airline practices, including overbooking and the ethical considerations of passenger treatment. Many contributors emphasize that the incident has led to a public relations disaster for United, with potential legal ramifications and a call for improved policies to prevent similar occurrences in the future. Overall, the thread critiques the airline industry's need for better competition and customer service standards.
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It seems that they don't know how to run their own business. From their policies that allows for the possibility of an incident like this, to their handling of the situation once it happened.

At this point, they probably wish that they can pay the guy 20 million dollars to make the problem go away. It's interesting to see how this would all play out.
 
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I wonder if it is simply a follow up on the TSA treatment of passengers? I've been manhandled pretty badly by them, to the point that I rarely fly these days and dread it when I do. The whole airline industry is in severe need of some real competition.
 
They initially called it overbooking, but the four seats involved were for employees. It's not clear if these empoyees were just getting free flights, were traveling to staff other planes or some combination. Either way, it's not overbooking.

Dr. Dao was more severely injured than originally reported.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/us/united-passenger-david-dao-chicago.html?_r=0
 
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I think that the overbooking is being used incorrectly in this case. My understanding is that the four employees were being transited to the other city in order to serve on a flight departing from there. Transits like that are pretty routine but I haven't heard of that many passengers being removed from a flight before.

As for Dr. Dao, I consider his actions to be extremely childish. Four people were removed from that flight - I wonder why the other three weren't injured? People get bumped from flights all of the time but he chose to fight with four officers while trying to hang on to his seat like a child that doesn't want to give up a toy. His face was injured when the officers had to pull so hard that when he lost his grip on the seat, he got slammed into a seat on the other side of the aisle. His injuries are a result of his own behavior from resisting when it was clear that they weren't going to take no for an answer.
 
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Borg said:
As for Dr. Dao, I consider his actions to be extremely childish. Four people were removed from that flight - I wonder why the other three weren't injured? People get bumped from flights all of the time but he chose to fight with four officers while trying to hang on to his seat like a child that doesn't want to give up a toy. His face was injured when the officers had to pull so hard that when he lost his grip on the seat, he got slammed into a seat on the other side of the aisle. His injuries are a result of his own behavior from resisting when it was clear that they weren't going to take no for an answer.

This line of thinking strikes me as very odd. It's not as though he was abusing the staff, or getting drunk and urinating in the isle or acting with a lack of decorum. He was being stubborn after he was told to leave. It doesn't matter how stubborn a customer is being, you can't manhandle them in a way that causes injury. If it's clear he's not going to play ball, then the most pragmatic thing to do is select another passenger and increase their level of compensation.

They can then take the moral highround that the passenger who refused to be removed was being a PITA.

The series of events that occurred is indicative of people who act like automatons. My orders are to remove you. You are not complying. MOAR FORCE!

The result is a PR disaster that ultimately does far more damage than being tactful.
 
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I am not saying that the situation couldn't have been handled better by United. However, this would have never happened to myself since I would have acted like an adult and complied with the https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract.aspx that are written on the ticket. No, I wouldn't have liked it but, like the other three passengers who were bumped, I wouldn't be injured and all over YouTube either. He's an adult and should have acted like one.
 
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Dr.D said:
I wonder if it is simply a follow up on the TSA treatment of passengers?
It could be. I think our post-911 security situation has ratcheted up the tension and seriousness of security and airline personnel, such that their tolerance level/tact has dropped below what is reasonable.
 
xxChrisxx said:
This line of thinking strikes me as very odd. It's not as though he was abusing the staff, or getting drunk and urinating in the isle or acting with a lack of decorum. He was being stubborn after he was told to leave. It doesn't matter how stubborn a customer is being, you can't manhandle them in a way that causes injury. If it's clear he's not going to play ball, then the most pragmatic thing to do is select another passenger and increase their level of compensation.
In hindsight, the most pragmatic thing to do would have been to not do random selections, but to increase the compensation until 4 people volunteered. But it isn't just about this flight/passenger: United and other airlines bump thousands of people a year. Upping the bid until someone bites would cost them millions of dollars a year.

But you can't pick another passenger; that's rewarding the stubbornness, which only encourages more.

I'm sure the jury is going to reward this J.A. handsomely, but from a legal perspective he was near totally in the wrong. The airline procedure is set and the airline followed it. What they neglected was trying a little harder to explain it to him. But once he's been bumped from the flight, he is essentially trespassing on the plane and has to be removed, by force if necessary.
The result is a PR disaster that ultimately does far more damage than being tactful.
I agree, but unfortunately the message that is going to win-out here is something that seems to be spreading in the US: that childishly resisting authority/realities you don't like is a good/useful thing. And that's a pretty bad thing.
 
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xxChrisxx said:
This line of thinking strikes me as very odd. It's not as though he was abusing the staff, or getting drunk and urinating in the isle or acting with a lack of decorum. He was being stubborn after he was told to leave. It doesn't matter how stubborn a customer is being, you can't manhandle them in a way that causes injury. If it's clear he's not going to play ball, then the most pragmatic thing to do is select another passenger and increase their level of compensation.
Totally agree.
Thing is, the passenger was not denied boarding at the gate - he was already on the plane and was given his seat selection.
Terms and conditions of UA don't say anything about un-boarding - ie taking back what was already given and agreed to.
A lawsuit could come down to the actual particular meaning of a word, and whether or not industry practice has any actual basis in law.
Rule 21 - Refusal of Transport. What item in that list did the passenger breach?

It seems that UA then attempted to break their own terms of contract and tried to "involuntarily" remove him from the flight, for their own economic interests only.
Being not successful, they called in the Chicago Airport Security, whose actions led to the world wide attention.
Apparently, the Security over-extended the means by which they "convinced" the passenger that he must leave.
Most likely the Security were simply told by a UA personnel that there was a passenger on board who needs removal, and they acted as they should have under the limited information, by removing him.
Perhaps, hopefully, they will not be so keen to act before seeking explanations beforehand. Acting as enforcers of profit for the airline should not be their motivation.

In the end, bad PR, compensation for the traumatized passengers who witnessed the encounter, a potentially expensive lawsuit, and several employees who aren't too
 
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  • #10
256bits said:
Totally agree.
Thing is, the passenger was not denied boarding at the gate - he was already on the plane and was given his seat selection.
Terms and conditions of UA don't say anything about un-boarding - ie taking back what was already given and agreed to.
I don't know what your logic is here, but your conclusion is really, really wrong. Bumping often happens when the plane is already boarding, because that's when they know it is actually overbooked! It's a musical chairs game, where the last one on is left without a seat -- except that that's when the dance begins.

A passenger has very few rights when on the plane, and being on the plane is itself not among them. The terms are here:
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx

A lawsuit could come down to the actual particular meaning of a word, and whether or not industry practice has any actual basis in law.
As with most personal injury claims, it will come down to the sympathetic jury vs the big meanie company - which is probably United, the company that runs the airport and also the private security company if that's where they came from. Unfortunately, in the USA you don't have to be right to win a lawsuit, you only have to be sympathetic. Remember, this is the country that awarded a woman $2 million for essentially claiming that she was too stupid to know that hot coffee could burn her:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants
Rule 21 - Refusal of Transport. What item in that list did the passenger breach?
These:
Safety – Whenever refusal or removal of a Passenger may be necessary for the safety of such Passenger or other Passengers or members of the crew including, but not limited to:
  1. Passengers whose conduct is disorderly, offensive, abusive, or violent;
  2. Passengers who fail to comply with or interfere with the duties of the members of the flight crew, federal regulations, or security directives;

  3. Passengers who, through and as a result of their conduct, cause a disturbance such that the captain or member of the cockpit crew must leave the cockpit in order to attend to the disturbance;
Um:
...compensation for the traumatized passengers who witnessed the encounter...
Stop this country, I want off.
 
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  • #11
russ_watters said:
Stop this country, I want off.
Ha Ha.

http://fortune.com/2017/04/12/united-airlines-passenger-dragged-compensation/
United Airlines says it will compensate the cost of tickets for every passenger on Flight 3411, where a man was forcibly removed and dragged earlier this week, according to CNBC.
I was under the understanding that the brutal details ie blood, would have had to be cleaned up before departure. To do so, all the passengers would have to have debarked. UA would have to be admitting that the passengers were not likely to be conducive to be seeing the evidence of the mess while in air - in other words, minimize the reminder of a horrific scene of violence.

Did that plane actually take off to its destination? Eventually, yes, but still an unscheduled delay for UA.
Was the 4 person crew able to meet their timetable for duty rest for that scheduled flight that started this whole thing?
If they did not make it, the whole episode was totally unnecessary.
Someone forgot their customer training that day, and rather than diffuse the situation, they managed to escalate it, to the whole companies disadvantage, and to all its other employees and shareholders.

This is one main point . Security should not be used for economic reasons.
Some in Chicago voice the same opinion.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ual-passenger-idUSKBN17F1WT
At a later city council aviation committee meeting, Chicago Department of Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans said the department was investigating the incident and reviewing its training. Chicago Alderman Michael Zalewski, head of the committee, called the incident a nightmare that should have been avoidable.

United officials at the meeting apologized again and said they were reviewing all related company policies and would complete that process by April 30.

United Vice President John Slater said he was not at liberty to say who called the aviation police, but ruled out the plane's captain. United has no set policy for physically forcing passengers to deboard, he added.

"Chicago employees should not be doing the dirty work for the friendly skies airline," Chicago Alderman Edward Burke said at the meeting, adding Dao's civil rights had been violated.
 
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  • #12
I see overbooking as a breach of contract. When I buy a ticket to fly, I make a contract with the airline to perform a service for me at a specific date and place. They will not let me out of that contract, except under the most extreme circumstances. Why should i, a passenger, be inclined to let them out of the contract?

I understand that the airline needed to move four people from point A to point B. Would have not been better, since they knew they were oversold, to simply charter a plane and send their own on their way in luxury?

Air travel was once a real pleasure. Now, it is a most unpleasant ordeal, to be avoided if at all possible. I will certainly drive 1000 miles to avoid flying any day of the week.
 
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  • #13
Pilot's union trying to say it is all the Chicago Aviation Dept (security?)'s fault:
"This violent incident should never have happened and was a result of gross excessive force by Chicago Department of Aviation personnel," the union said.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/real-time/United-pilots-blast-police-David-Dao-removal.html

While that's almost true, it also never would have happened if United gate personnel and flight crew had handled it better. And either way, United can't totally separate themselves from a forceful removal they asked for, even if it was more forceful than they intended.
 
  • #14
Dr.D said:
I see overbooking as a breach of contract. When I buy a ticket to fly, I make a contract with the airline to perform a service for me at a specific date and place.
You should read the contract: it's in there.
 
  • #15
I liked UA's CEO's statement;

Oscar said:
Dear Team,

The truly horrific event that occurred on this flight has elicited many responses from all of us: outrage, anger, disappointment. I share all of those sentiments, and one above all: my deepest apologies for what happened. Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard. No one should ever be mistreated this way.

I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right.

It's never too late to do the right thing. I have committed to our customers and our employees that we are going to fix what's broken so this never happens again. This will include a thorough review of crew movement, our policies for incentivizing volunteers in these situations, how we handle oversold situations and an examination of how we partner with airport authorities and local law enforcement. We'll communicate the results of our review by April 30th.

I promise you we will do better.
Oscar
[ref]

I worked for mega corporations all of my adult life. The CEO is, IMHO, rarely aware of the minor details involved with running the company. But once a "minor detail" leads to a "MAJOR" problem, a good CEO will fix it.

So I just consider this a "teaching moment".

ps. Just checked the prices for a one way UA flight for Portland to Orlando: $122
from my rough calculations:
3000 miles
30 mpg (my truck)
100 gallons
2.50 $/gal
$250 in gas​

pps. I have no idea how airlines stay in business at these prices, nor why I didn't visit my friends in Florida this winter.
 
  • #16
OmCheeto said:
I liked UA's CEO's statement;[ref]

I worked for mega corporations all of my adult life. The CEO is, IMHO, rarely aware of the minor details involved with running the company. But once a "minor detail" leads to a "MAJOR" problem, a good CEO will fix it.

So I just consider this a "teaching moment".

ps. Just checked the prices for a one way UA flight for Portland to Orlando: $122
from my rough calculations:
3000 miles
30 mpg (my truck)
100 gallons
2.50 $/gal
$250 in gas​

pps. I have no idea how airlines stay in business at these prices, nor why I didn't visit my friends in Florida this winter.
If 200 passengers paid that price, approximately $25,000 US dollars to fly the plane one way ? :smile:
 
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  • #17
RonL said:
If 200 passengers paid that price, approximately $25,000 US dollars to fly the plane one way ? :smile:
Economies of scale!

ps.
I just noticed this:

When there's an overbooking issue the first step is to offer an inducement to the passengers to take a later flight. On Sunday passengers were offered $400 (£322), a hotel room for the night, and a flight the following afternoon.

When no-one took the offer, the amount was upped to $800. Still no-one bit, so a manager boarded the flight and informed passengers that four people would be selected to leave the flight.
[ref]

Perhaps we've evolved(devolved?) to the point where bidding should start not from the bottom down, but the other way around:
"Who will give up their seat for $10,000?"
200 hands go up
"Who will give up their seat for $5,000?"
200 hands stay up
"Who will give up their seat for $2,500?"
100 hands stay up...​

etc. etc. etc. until you get to 4 hands.

pps.
OMG! This was a 300 mile flight.
Flight origin O'Hare International Airport [Chicago IL]
Destination Louisville International Airport [Kentucky]​
[ref = wiki]

And... the price is the same as the PDX to MCO flight?

hmmm...

Ah ha!
 
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  • #18
I'm surprised they didn't start in first class, might be more greedy people ready to jump at a chance to make a fast buck ? :rolleyes: :biggrin:
 
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  • #19
RonL said:
I'm surprised they didn't start in first class, might be more greedy people ready to jump at a chance to make a fast buck ? :rolleyes: :biggrin:

I doubt the average first class passenger is any greedier than the average passenger anywhere else on the plane.
 
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  • #20
Drakkith said:
I doubt the average first class passenger is any greedier than the average passenger anywhere else on the plane.
I should not have used the word greedy, it is sometimes confused with the good business sense to not leave any money on the table. Twice I have been in a situation of being offered compensation for overbooking or error of type on the boarding pass, the first time was cash, but I was too sick to spend the night in a compensated room and the second involved travel vouchers for future flights, which in no way could I use in the allotted time frame.
I wonder if the $800.00 was actual cash? out of all the passengers and no one accepted the offer, I think I better go and recalculate my net worth ? :nb) :eek: :wideeyed: :biggrin:
 
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  • #21
I too find it infuriating that a flight can be overbooked, or as seems to be the case here, that a passenger can be bumped off a flight at the convenience of the company. From my point of view as a passenger, I see a plane with X number of seats. Selling X + d is clearly unethical.

However, I'm just a passenger, and I don't see the bigger picture. From an airline management point of view the problem is much bigger. You don't have a single flight. You have a network of hundreds of flights. Each flight - the airplane, the pilot and copilot, the aircrew, the ground crew, and the pre-flight management is subject to strict regulation. You can't fly some flights in some weather conditions, or if there are mechanical electrical failures of certain quality control tests, or if the airport gets clogged up because of problems with another airline. Or what if one of your pilots shows up drunk? Or a flight attendant calls in sick at the last minute? You have an ethical obligation (and financial incentive) to keep the network operating with minimal disruption.

So what happens when a hail storm rolls through the airport and a takeoff is delayed to the point where the air crew have been working past the regulated number of hours they can work? You have to call in a new crew. You can either put 300 people up for a night in hotels, or bump four from another flight, fly in a ground grew and minimize the degree of inconvenience. That's the most ethical solution under circumstances you can't control.

But what about the practice of selling X + d seats? Well, the problem there, I suspect is that while customers may complain about getting bumped, they will still generally sort flight options by price. If another airline can sell 301 seats for a 300 seat flight, knowing that statistically there's a very small probability that all 301 passengers will show up on time, they can offer their flight for a cheaper price and ultimately sell more seats. So even though it's an unethical practice, it's the direct result of customer pressure.

The problem goes away if you were to sell a seat guarantee at some kind of premium... pay an extra $50 and you go to the bottom of the bump priority list. But that's not without it's problems either. Who wants to pay an extra $50 for a low probability event, which in most cases ultimately results in only a temporary inconvenience?

So while it is frustrating, I don't see it changing any time soon.
 
  • #22
With respect to the actual video - as usual with these viral videos involving use of force - we don't really see or hear any of the events leading up to the altercation. We see the struggle and the ensuing "carnage" but all we can really do is speculate about the lead up.

I know it's already been brought up, but without even knowing any of the details of customer-airline contracts, I'm pretty certain of one basic rule: on a plane, the pilot is in command. What he or she says goes. If the pilot asks you to deplane. You have to deplane. Sure you can argue. You have a right to a grievance with the airline. But once you've been asked to leave, your options are limited to: leave with dignity or be dragged off.

If the airline staff and security officers were doing their jobs properly this should have been blatantly clear both to the passenger in question and the other passenger who were sitting there watching.

Once the passenger refuses all reasonable attempts at a peaceful, non-physical solutions, the security officers have to escalate the use of force. It would be nice if there was another option, but at some point, the decision's been made and the guy has to come off. Based on what I saw and heard, this passenger chose to become an active resistor. At that point the man was actually putting the other passengers (not to mention the security officers) at risk. A grown man throwing a tantrum like that, even he doesn't intend to hurt anyone could easily lash out and strike another passenger. The officers had to use force to subdue him.
 
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  • #23
United Airlines is a terrible business

I agree. I have flown more than 1.9 million miles on UA, so this is from experience.

Dr.D said:
hey knew they were oversold

They were not oversold. They had 70 seats and 70 confirmed passengers with seat assignments.

russ_watters said:
Bumping often happens when the plane is already boarding, because that's when they know it is actually overbooked!

That's not what happens. Here's how it's supposed to work. Around 15 minutes before the flight starts boarding, it goes under what they call "gate control". At that point, they stop selling tickets and stop allowing people to change their flights to this one without going to the gate. Also at this point, they have N seats, M passengers with seat assignments, K passengers confirmed but without seat assignments, and L passengers on the standby list. For the flight in question N = 70, M was probably about 60, which would make K around 10, and I don't know what L was. In this case things are straightforward - print up K boarding passes and go.

Often things are more complicated - then first the M are boarded. Based on N, M and K, some number of the K are given seat assignments. The gate agent keeps a close eye on N - M - K (free seats) and K and L (the number of people she's trying to get out). At T-15, if you haven't boarded, you lose your seat assignment, so M drops and K grows. The GA continues to keep an eye on things (perhaps there are people not at the gate but connecting from a flight that has just landed) clearing passengers a few at a time as the situation with people who have seat assignments but are not there clarifies.

There is a bit of an art to this. If you have a frequent flyer and 3 non-frequent flyers who are likely to misconnect, the GA may drop three seats right away, and hold the fourth longer: the frequent flyer is likely to get off first, likely to better navigate the airport, and the airline wants to keep him happy. If after a few minutes, he's still not there, then drop him.

What if the flight is oversold (N < M + K)? Then, before boarding, the GA asks for volunteers for a given compensation. If you volunteer, you give the GA permission to reduce M or K by one - essentially, you can be moved to the top of L. This is called VDB: voluntary denied boarding. The VDB compensation is whatever you negotiate. I have received travel credits, cash, upgrades, lounge passes, hotel stays and frequent flyer miles at various times. If they can't get enough VDB's, they go to involuntary denied boarding or IDB. Here the compensation is legally mandated, and for the case in question is $1300. Cash. IDB's are reported to the DOT, so the airline has an incentive to avoid them.

In the Old Days, GAs were empowered to do whatever it took to get the flight out on time. When Continental took over...I mean merged with United, the new CEO, Jeff Smisek clamped down on this. SHARES, the reservation system, made it difficult and slow to offer any compensation other than what the computer thought was right - and ruthlessly audit any GA who offered more. It is faster to IDB passengers. To keep the compensation down, GAs were instructed to have the pax sign a statement that the deboarding was really voluntary, and they would usually receive compensation less than the IDB statutory - often as flight credits instead of cash. If the pax made a stink, the GA could give them the legally mandated IDB package, and if they still made a stink, the GA was instructed to call security.

Note that this all happens before boarding. United handles the capacity controls via boarding pass, and ensures that if there is drama, it happens off the plane.

OK, now the situation at hand. The plane was not oversold. For operational reasons, United needed 4 crew from Trans-States at SDF, otherwise they would have to cancel a flight. Inconveniencing 4 passengers by bumping them off the ORD-SDF flight was better than inconveniencing 50 (it was a flight on an Embraer 145) by cancelling the flight. So they added them to UX3411 - but they did this after the flight had gone under gate control, and according to accounts, after the flight had boarded. So the normal mechanisms didn't work. Nonetheless, the GA plowed on ahead with them as if they did - made a compensation offer, raised it once, and then did an IDB and called Chicago Aviation Security. Just as if this all happened in the boarding area. But a small aluminum tube is not the same as the boarding area.

So essentially United decided that it needed those seats, and that they didn't want to pay what the pax holding those seats thought they were worth, so they used Chicago Aviation Security to ensure they got their way. There are reports that before this happened, a passenger asked for $1600 in travel credits and was laughed at. United has travel credits on the books at 25% of their value, so the decision was made that it was worth bringing in some muscle to save the airline $400.

Passengers who fail to comply with or interfere with the duties of the members of the flight crew, federal regulations, or security directives;

The person informing the pax that he must vacate his seat should have been the GA, not any of the flight crew. The flight crew, by contract, is not allowed to handle these situations.

Because this was not an oversold situation, and the pax was actually boarded, this does not fall under Rule 25 (Denial of Boarding), but rather Rule 21 (Refusal of Transport) in the CoC. However, none of the conditions in 21 seem to apply here. It appears that United breached its own CoC.
 
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  • #24
Choppy said:
we don't really see or hear any of the events leading up to the altercation

Some of it was filmed:
Embedded media from this media site is no longer available
(for some reason, the link doesn't appear; you need to quote it to see it)

This was described as "PAX ATTEMPTED TO STRIKE LAW ENFORCEMENT" by the Gate Agent. That's not how I would describe it.
 
  • #25
pax?
 
  • #26
pax = passenger
 
  • #27
If there was such a desperate need for seats available for moving staff,
it might have been an idea to charter a light airplane to do that job, 16 seater or so.
 
  • #28
Vanadium 50 said:
I have flown more than 1.9 million miles on UA, so this is from experience.
It saddens me because my mother worked as a ticket and gate agent for United and it used to be well respected. As a result, I flew quite a bit on United as a kid in the 60's and 70's and still do whenever I fly. I also heard many stories first hand of how passengers behaved. God help the agents when a flight has to be cancelled.
 
  • #29
rootone said:
it might have been an idea to charter a light airplane

They didn't need to do that. They could have simply increased their offer. There was an AA flight; they could have put one of the crew on that. There was a second UX flight, also full, but they could have offered VDB compensation there. But all of these cost money (much less than chartering a plane, of course). It's better for the airlines bottom line to simply use Chicago Aviation Security.
 
  • #31
Vanadium 50 said:
They didn't need to do that. They could have simply increased their offer. There was an AA flight; they could have put one of the crew on that. There was a second UX flight, also full, but they could have offered VDB compensation there. But all of these cost money (much less than chartering a plane, of course). It's better for the airlines bottom line to simply use Chicago Aviation Security.

In arriving at your bottom line figure, I think you may have neglected to include the cost of all the adverse publicity they have gotten.
 
  • #32
Borg said:
I am not saying that the situation couldn't have been handled better by United. However, this would have never happened to myself since I would have acted like an adult and complied with the https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract.aspx that are written on the ticket.
Without taking a position on who could have handled it better... it is not clear that Dr. Dao was violating the rules of carriage.

The contract allows United to cancel a reservation and not let you on the plane because they need the seat for someone else. But is the general language about cancelling reservations in section 5, and especially section 5G, intended to allow removing a passenger who has already been boarded and seated in their properly assigned seat? Probably not, because if it were we wouldn't have Section 21 which enumerates the specific reasons for which a boarded and seated passenger may be involuntarily removed, none of which apply in this case. (And to the extent that the contract language is ambiguous, the ambiguity must be resolved against the party who drafted it).
.
 
  • #33
Vanadium 50 said:
They didn't need to do that. They could have simply increased their offer.
Agreed. I think it's fairly clear they may have had a right to do what they did according to policy, but that doesn't make it a good business decision. Proper compensation from the beginning and even a much better/quicker apology from the CEO would have nipped this PR disaster in the bud. Sometimes I don't understand how these big shot business minds don't learn these lessons about customer treatment and public relations. Don't they spend millions hiring PR specialists. What the heck was the advice from them? Suddenly video capture, social media and mob mentality is a new thing to them?
 
  • #34
I've heard that they lost around 250 million dollars due to this fiasco. Seriously, what did they think was going to happen?

Dr. Dao is obviously going to emerge rich out of all this. But I feel sorry for the shareholders, some of whom may have their retirement/family funds tied into the company.
 
  • #35
Borg said:
I think that the overbooking is being used incorrectly in this case. My understanding is that the four employees were being transited to the other city in order to serve on a flight departing from there. Transits like that are pretty routine but I haven't heard of that many passengers being removed from a flight before.

As for Dr. Dao, I consider his actions to be extremely childish. Four people were removed from that flight - I wonder why the other three weren't injured? People get bumped from flights all of the time but he chose to fight with four officers while trying to hang on to his seat like a child that doesn't want to give up a toy. His face was injured when the officers had to pull so hard that when he lost his grip on the seat, he got slammed into a seat on the other side of the aisle. His injuries are a result of his own behavior from resisting when it was clear that they weren't going to take no for an answer.

His actions may have been childish, but when there are thousands of flights, eventually someone like this would show up. United should have known this and should have taken extreme caution to not arouse the anger of social media with actions that are generally highly disapproved of by the public.

And also, the CEO's initial tweet was ridiculous. Yes the security's actions were within the company's set procedures but he didn't have to mention that; it just made them look worse. People now believe that its wasn't just the actions of a lone buffoon, but the entire company as a whole.
 
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  • #36
FallenApple said:
His actions may have been childish, but when there are thousands of flights, eventually someone like this would show up. United should have known this and should have taken extreme caution to not arouse the anger of social media with actions that are generally highly disapproved of by the public.
I find it interesting what social media gets angry about. People can mouth off, forcibly resist and even take a swing at police but if a cop uses any force in return, social media gets upset at the police. It really makes me wonder what it would take for social media to fault the person who won't cooperate and purposely escalates the situation. All this makes me of the situation in Arizona in January when a bystander shot and killed a man who was beating a state trooper on the side of the road. I wonder what the reaction would have been if another cop had shot the assailant instead?
 
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  • #37
Borg, in this case they weren't police. Yes, two of them are wearing jackets that say "police". They are not allowed to do that. Indeed, according to the Chicago Tribune, Jeff Redding (deputy commissioner of safety and security for the city's Department of Aviation) has said that they are not even supposed to board a plane for a customer service issue. He said "If it is a customer-service related incident, then you don't need to board the plane at all. If there's no threat, there's no imminent threat or no charges being drawn, then you don't need to board the plane."

So we don't have cops. We have people dressed like cops enforcing an airlines unwillingness to pay out an additional $400, even though they are told not to. Real cops are trained to de-escalate the situation. These escalated it almost immediately. Real cops are aghast at their behavior (here's one link).

There was an earlier post on the economics of this. United does around 65,000 VDB's a year. If everyone gets an extra $200, that's $13 million. United has a great deal of incentive to call airport security rather than raise their offer. However, as I mentioned earlier, there is a big difference between a boarding area and a tiny metal tube.
 
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  • #38
Greg Bernhardt said:
I think it's fairly clear they may have had a right to do what they did according to policy, but that doesn't make it a good business decision.
I don't think it was clear that they had the right according to their policy to remove the passenger from the plane. In any case, it was certainly a bad decision to remove already seated passengers to make room for employees. I don't like how many in the media keep making the claim that the problem arose because of overbooking. It wasn't overbooking; it was UAL deciding to remove passengers that had already boarded and were in their seats because UAL decided to put its needs before the customers'. I expect that instead of improving its service, UAL will amend its policy to explicitly allow for removal of already seated passengers in cases like this.
 
  • #39
All I know is, United has gone onto my "do not patronise unless no other choice" list. I got PO'd at Exxon about 40 years ago and have bought their gasoline three times since then. I know it doesn't matter to them but it does to me.
 
  • #40
Oscar Munoz, CEO of UnitedContinental, announced a new policy regarding crew movements. NPR reported that a new policy '"to make sure crews traveling on our aircraft are booked at least 60 minutes prior to departure." I don't know how that would have worked in Chicago for flight 3411.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...es-changes-its-policy-on-displacing-customers

There are three airports within two hours drive (Lexington, Cincinnati and Indianapolis) and one airport within 3 hours (Nashville).

Update:
Forbes - The United Flight Was Not Overbooked, Airline Admits
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christ.../united-flight-not-overbooked-airline-admits/

Washington Post - Here’s what United will do differently after the infamous dragging incident
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-infamous-fiasco-involving-dragged-passenger/
No crew member “can displace a customer who has boarded an aircraft,” according to the email, which was sent Friday. Schmerin confirmed the authenticity of the published email.
 
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  • #41
I think that United (and other airlines) could have saved themselves considerable trouble by allocating a small number of seats (say, 4 seats, the number who were to be "bumped" off the now-infamous flight) for potential crew on each plane, and not have those available for sale. Having these redundancy in seats available would have allowed the required flight crew to be transported to the next airport on a future shift without anyone else being forced off a paid flight, as well as allow for vacancies in case of passengers who need to make last-minute changes.
 
  • #42
StatGuy2000 said:
I think that United (and other airlines) could have saved themselves considerable trouble by allocating a small number of seats (say, 4 seats, the number who were to be "bumped" off the now-infamous flight) for potential crew on each plane, and not have those available for sale. Having these redundancy in seats available would have allowed the required flight crew to be transported to the next airport on a future shift without anyone else being forced off a paid flight, as well as allow for vacancies in case of passengers who need to make last-minute changes.

Not likely. Commericial airlines generally operate on tight profit margins and high occupancy routes that often run fully booked are their bread and butter. The government subsidizes airlines to serve unprofitable routes, but airlines probably just break even on these. Their incentive is that they feed traffic into hubs.

https://www.transportation.gov/poli...unity-rural-air-service/essential-air-service
 
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  • #43
SW VandeCarr said:
Not likely. Commericial airlines generally operate on tight profit margins and high occupancy routes that often run fully booked are their bread and butter. By regulation, they are required to serve unprofitable lower occupancy routes usually using subsidiary or contract airlines.

But I don't see how setting aside a small number of reserve seats for airline staff on planes will change high occupancy routes that are fully booked. After all, these seats are simply taken off of whatever seats that are available. For example, if a plane has a total of 70 seats, and if say, a maximum of 4 seats are taken out, that still leaves 66 seats which can be fully booked. And somehow, I don't see how 2-4 seats that are not made available will really hit the profit margins by that much.

At any rate, if the profit margins are so tight, then the negative PR that United Airlines is facing will hardly help them in seeking ways to boost those margins if there is a flood of passengers seeking other flight alternatives.
 
  • #44
StatGuy2000 said:
At any rate, if the profit margins are so tight, then the negative PR that United Airlines is facing will hardly help them in seeking ways to boost those margins if there is a flood of passengers seeking other flight alternatives.

Of course bad PR can be disastrous for the bottom line, but this is not something businesses usually plan for. Maybe they should, but I don't know how one does that. In the normal planning, most routes may barely yield a profit 24/7 so the small percentage of the best routes at the best times must yield substantial profits to make profit goals. CEOs are under constant pressure to increase the bottom line year to year.

BTW I edited my previous post re unprofitable routes.
 
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  • #45
StatGuy2000 said:
But I don't see how setting aside a small number of reserve seats for airline staff on planes will change high occupancy routes that are fully booked. After all, these seats are simply taken off of whatever seats that are available. For example, if a plane has a total of 70 seats, and if say, a maximum of 4 seats are taken out, that still leaves 66 seats which can be fully booked. And somehow, I don't see how 2-4 seats that are not made available will really hit the profit margins by that much.

Just a guess, but if United were to do this, they would likely need to increase their prices to compensate. If one of their competitors oversold those same seats, then they would be able to offer lower priced seats. Customers sorting their flight options by price would likely show a strong preference for the cheaper seats. Perhaps it could be communicated that there is a lower probability of being bumped with the higher price, but I suspect most people would still go for the cheaper seats. It's not so much the loss of those individual seats, but that would lead to a loss in market share.

And that wouldn't solve the problem completely. It would only make an overbooking or flight bumping scenario less likely.

It seems that it would make a lot more sense to simply increase the compensation when such situations occur.
 
  • #46
Heh, could implement an auction like system for the always fully booked routes,
Staff seats are always guaranteed, customers pay a price to turn up for the auction but get a refund if they don't end up with a seat.
(and maybe hotel room + free entry to the next auction.)
 
  • #47
StatGuy2000 said:
could have saved themselves considerable trouble by allocating a small number of seats (say, 4 seats

Too expensive. The average seat on that flight is $180, so you're talking $720. United was willing to send in the brute squad so they wouldn't have to shell out compensation that would cost them $200, so they sure won't see $720 as an advantage. At 1.6M flights per year, for a similar cost, this would cost them over a billion dollars, or 25% of their total profit.
 
  • #48
IMO, the best solution is not to overbook at all and not reimburse customers who fail to cancel in time. A reasonable appeals mechanism for reimbursement can be worked out. This will work best if adopted by the entire industry. If seats are needed for employees, voluntary bumping only would be allowed.
 
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  • #49
SW VandeCarr said:
IMO, the best solution is not to overbook at all and not reimburse customers who fail to cancel in time. A reasonable appeals mechanism for reimbursement can be worked out. This will work best if adopted by the entire industry. If seats are needed for employees, voluntary bumping only would be allowed.

My understanding is that is what hotels do -- set various conditions on which customers can be reimbursed if they cancel a reservation. For example, in many hotel booking sites (e.g. Priceline, Expedia) there are hotel rooms for a reduced cost under the strict condition of no refunds. Similar rooms would be available with various options for cancelling/reimbursement (typically, cancelling within 24 hours or within an hour's time) but at a higher cost.

I don't see why similar methods can't be adopted throughout the entire industry. After all, my understanding is that airlines don't so much care about full occupancy as much as all available seats that are paid for (after all, an empty seat that is paid for is the same as a filled seat).
 
  • #50
Vanadium 50 said:
Too expensive. The average seat on that flight is $180, so you're talking $720. United was willing to send in the brute squad so they wouldn't have to shell out compensation that would cost them $200, so they sure won't see $720 as an advantage. At 1.6M flights per year, for a similar cost, this would cost them over a billion dollars, or 25% of their total profit.

The irony is that sending in the brute squad will end up costing United far more than the $200 that they would have lost with the compensation.

BTW, I dispute the logic you use to determine the cost to United to following my proposal. You are essentially assuming that those 4 additional seats will have been sold otherwise, but if they are simply not available for sale, there is no additional cost. In essence, revenues will be based on having, say, 66 seats on the plane, which could be thought of as the equivalent of flying a smaller plane (which airlines already do to cut costs). If this is applied throughout the entire industry (not just at United), perhaps mandated by the TSA (assuming that the TSA has the ability to mandate this), then all airlines will forego the same additional revenue, so United will not be in any worse shape than other airlines.

Of course, there could be unintended consequences through this mandate (e.g. overall higher ticket prices). But this would at any rate reduce the probability of overbooking. (I am also in favour of @SW VandeCarr's proposal, which is essentially what the hotel industry does to avoid the situation of overbooking).
 
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