Overbooking On A United Flight

[emmie]

was this the only way for them to get this chap off the flight, surely not.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39563570

[CrapAtCryptics]

As an inveterate traveller I wouldnt want my plans messed about because some office erk cant add up passenger numbers correctly. The lawyers must be queueing up for this one, I`ll certainly never consider flying with, or recommending them again.

[mikey4444]

Bednobs....If anybody was being unreasonable, it was United !

[DTCwordfan]

this should have been handled before the passengers had boarded.

There, in the lounge, United staff would have had more leverage to effect a solution.

Once aboard, as in through the final ticket inspection, then that's a committal to serve, so United have shot themselves in their aero-balls. They should have flown their staff private or on another brand. Very poorly handled and the CEO has also added to the problem - 3% down on equity price today, they should be 5 to 7 at least.

[Old_Geezer]

They ought not overbook in the first place. If they had then they should compensate the last 4 who purchased tickets, assuming a request for volunteers to wait for the next flight had failed. Alternatively as it is they who screwed up then if any of their staff are on the flight they should be delayed instead. One thing you should never do is let on exactly what you think of those annoying folk who buy your service, and how much you value them, or human beings in general for that matter.

[Old_Geezer]

Seems the legal situation is that abuse of customers is ok, apparently. Tells everyone all they need to know of the legal system and how it protects the people.

[marval]

The way they handled it was dreadful, it certainly should have been dealt with before anyone boarded the plane.

Many years ago I flew from Spain back to England, with ye olde Freddie Laker. I was sat in my seat along with two children I had with me. Someone came up to me and said they had overbooked, and would we please vacate our seats. I was not happy to be asked to get off the plane. They eventually found three seats for us, but not all together. The children's mother and I never used that airline again.

[bednobs]

yes united were unreasonable, i have never disputed that. I just think that 3 other people managed to leave without being dragged off kicking and screaming and it was unreasonable of this man not to do the same, no matter how much he didn't want to

[ToraToraTora]

Guilbert at 17:29 - Bang on and yes, bednobs does have some strange ideas.

[bednobs]

I thnk everyone else has some strange ideas too though :)

[jno]

bednobs, I would guess that the three people who did leave thought the compensation offered outweighed the urgency of their trip. As I said somewhere else, I've done this myself. But that doesn't mean the doctor was in the same position.

[Old_Geezer]

On the contrary he was within moral rights to insist on staying. Legality is another matter. Overbooking should be illegal, certainly in it's present form. Once one has sold a ticket for a seat then it is sold, it ought not be possible to sell the seat twice. That is fraudulent. (Possibly non-show last minute bargains being an exception.) Refusing to move should not be considered disruptive, it should be the norm: demanding a fare paying passenger who has done nothing wrong, will move, should be considered disruptive and illegal. Assaulting them to force them off should result in immediate loss of the job of the individual committing the assault, and probably legal proceedings. But the law seems biased towards commercial companies, who in this case appear to be at liberty to do just what they want, and make the victim the one who has broken bad law.

[bednobs]

overbooking benefits everyone in the long run, enabling cheaper ticket prices. As i said, it was badly handled all round (including the passenger)

[ToraToraTora]

the overall point is that there where countless better ways to handle this and United chose the worst possible way. To me it demonstrated vast stupidity of the United staff involved. If I was handling this I'd be thinking, how to achieve the aim with minimum fuss and embarrassment. They probably though they were saving money but any solution would be cheaper than what the company will now suffer.

[emmie]

i felt very sorry for the man and his wife, quite frankly if it doesn't end up in some sort of law suit i wouldn't be surprised.

[bednobs]

ps they only assaulted him because he was behaving like a petulant child and wouldn't leave when asked to by the staff. Ok JNO so he might not have been in a position to want to get off, but cancellations and delays happen for all sorts of reasons

[murraymints]

he was assaulted for trying to enforce his rights , his contract with United..NOT because he was acting in a childlike manner...the staff that carried this out are now suspended from duty and it is highly likely a very expensive law suit will follow..see DT 's post above regarding legality of contractural arrangement....

[emmie]

MM
exactly

[mikey4444]

Entirely too harsh Bednobs.

Read what Cloverjo has said. It should have been sorted out at the check-in desk, not when everybody was seated and the plane due to take off.

The reason that it wasn't sorted out properly, is because United are so poor at dealing with their own staff's shift rotas, that they couldn't organise the proverbial pee-up in a brewery.

its also interesting that is happened on American soil. I doubt very much if would have happened at Heathrow.

Thank goodness for Mobile phones, otherwise this might have gone unreported.

[mikey4444]

I don't fly any more, but guess which airline I would avoid like the plague if I still did !

[Baldric]

From the Link
//Can an airline really treat passengers like this? - by Simon Calder, travel correspondent for the Independent
Yes. The captain is in charge of the aircraft. And if he or she decides that someone needs to be offloaded, that command has to be obeyed. From the moment that the unfortunate individual in this case said, "I'm staying put", he became a disruptive passenger//
Also
///(Only) One of the three security officers involved has been "placed on leave", the Chicago Department of Aviation said, and his actions were "obviously not condoned by the Department"///