Its hard to keep up with this thread, its moving so fast. Not sure if this was posted but a prime example of how United and Oscar should handle affairs like this, they could learn a thing or two from Delta. Does anyone remember the DL fiasco in 2011 when DL rightfully charged a bunch of military folks baggage fees for carrying a 4th piece of luggage? Two of those military guys took to social media to roast Delta, remember now? DL font line employees were following procedure, right? Maybe you remember and maybe you don't, but this was DL's response...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/delta-charges- ... d=13791417

Bolding mine.

Delta said that it was common policy to charge for that extra bag, although this afternoon the company did change its guidelines. At the time the complaint was posted by the two soldiers, service members were allowed to check three bags, and unless they flew first or business class, they were charged $200 for each additional piece of luggage.

PlanesNTrains wrote:

Tugger wrote:

PlanesNTrains wrote:

The problem is that people no-show and the airline prefers to overbook and allow reschedules (with and without penalties depending on the ticket) and they are left with perishable inventory at the point of departure. That's my take on it.

I understand the practice but when it is the last flight of the day maybe it should be modified because peoples schedules can also be perishable.

Tugg

1. This wasn't the last flight of the day.

If it wasn't the last flight of the day, why didn't the 4 crew who came late get moved to a later flight? There seemed to be plenty of time available.

PlanesNTrains wrote:

mortkork wrote:

The overbooking of flights seems to be more and more systemic and business as usual. The digital age has made easy work of dissemination of news, information, and misinformation. From the comfort of my airline seat at FL310 I can find out how many boxes of a certain product the store down the street from my house has and where they are located on their store. I can watch a giraffe on the other side of the globe give birth in real time. Why do the airlines have so much trouble counting asses and accurately matching them up with available seats. Yes, passengers are regulated to obey commands of flight crew, law enforcement, and their moms, but those flight crews, LEO agencies, and moms shouldn't be able to easily hide behind those regulations when their processes are so inherently flawed. It's time for an overhaul!

The problem is that people no-show and the airline prefers to overbook and allow reschedules (with and without penalties depending on the ticket) and they are left with perishable inventory at the point of departure. That's my take on it.

Considering the multiple fares you can pay for the same seat, if the airlines are overbooking AND issuing refunds for non-refundable tickets then they are asking for problems like this. I just looked and even the refundable ticket, their Economy(Flexible) on United's website is subject to fees upon cancelation. How can you consider an empty seat as "perished" if it has generated it's share of revenue. They get the same $$$, save fuel and a bag of peanuts. I have no doubts that they would want to double dip or take advantage of the no-shows, but encounters like this demonstrate a systemic problem with their procedures in filling those seats. If they don't issue a refund on a non-refundable ticket they upset one customer and it gets zero news coverage. I reassert, It's time for an overhaul!

jreuschl wrote:

https://hub.united.com/united-express-3411-statement-oscar-munoz-2355968629.html

Where was this urgency from the beginning?

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.

Sincerely,

Oscar

This is what they should have released from the jump!
A statement like this, compensation to the passenger that was removed and promises of action and steps to prevent future problems like this. The story would have moved along alot faster and done less damage.

It is laughable that fan boys and apologist here were praising his initial statements that proved to be as tone-deaf as they are to the realities of the general public.

EVEN IF UNITED was 100% RIGHT technically, the initial response was not one of a corporation of this size with a PR department

This topic is proof of how out of touch with reality some people are in the Aviation Geek bubble that is Airliners.net

Most of you won't change your minds or positions or admit you were wrong but hopefully this situation helps provide perspective of things outside the bubble

transswede wrote:

PlanesNTrains wrote:

Tugger wrote:

I understand the practice but when it is the last flight of the day maybe it should be modified because peoples schedules can also be perishable.

Tugg

1. This wasn't the last flight of the day.

If it wasn't the last flight of the day, why didn't the 4 crew who came late get moved to a later flight? There seemed to be plenty of time available.

It is possible they had to fly in to get rest for the next day to avoid cancelling flights, or they were flying later that night from the downline station. Its better to take 4 people off now then cancel hundreds tonight or tomorrow. The passenger was going to walk out with cash and probably home an hour or two late.

I wouldn't blame United for this.

Did they overbook the flight? Yes
Did they offer compensation? Yes
Did they have to remove pax? Yes

United is no different from any other airline in any of the 3, this could just as easily have happened on DL and AA and neither would have any control over it. The US3 all overbook and there is an economically sound reason for it. Of course, sooner or later you are bound to be denied boarding and while I think it wasn't the best way to handle it, United probably wanted to get the crew positioned to avoid canceling flights. I don't see any foul intent, but it really is a lose-lose situation; do you remove paying pax or cancel entire flights the next day?

I blame the police 110%.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what the pax says or what company policy is, if you're the officer, the situation is completely in your hands and if you injure a pax, you should bear the full responsibility for it. Contrary to what most people believe, police is not in fact authorized to use force unless a criminal act has been committed or there is imminent threat to human life. People wonder why everyone gets so worked up about police brutality; this is why. It's the exception rather than the norm, but unfortunately it only takes one power hungry officer and a sensationalistic media story to turn an emerging incident into a PR disaster, and what's even worse is that people who are spreading boycotts on Twitter don't even take the time to read all the facts from both sides.

Keith, you are right but this upends 50 years of practice across the country. Could they have issued today's apology letter yesterday? That would be astonishing. I am not sure any company is that smart, that it can toss away 50 years of work based on a suspected, imminent twitter storm. "What we've done every day for 50 years? Dead wrong."

But that is where strategic communication is headed. It took a while but they got it right today IMO. 48 hours. I also think Munoz will step down.

Now Congress and the White House are involved. Congress wants investigation.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/whi ... be-n745256

Bradd Jaffy of NBC news is quoting on Twitter a statement from the Chicago Police Department saying that the injuries experienced by the forcibly removed passenger were the result of him "falling".

https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/8 ... 56/photo/1

PlanesNTrains wrote:

Kilopond wrote:

[...]If by "responsible" you mean that he's accountable as the CEO, absolutely.
If by "responsible" you mean he created the culture, then I disagree. UA has seemed to be a cultural mess since the days of squeezing every last golden egg from the goose.

Well, I could have come up with a more profound and fundamental criticism of capitalism... But if I look at things from within the ruling system, I dare say that an airline manager has failed if he regards his business simply as a part of the transportation industry. Passenger airlines belong to the sectors of service and hospitality at the same time.

This seems like a similar incident. Where was all the outrage in the past?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wom ... 11bfd4f928

Keith2004 wrote:

This topic is proof of how out of touch with reality some people are in the Aviation Geek bubble that is Airliners.net

Most of you won't change your minds or positions or admit you were wrong but hopefully this situation helps provide perspective of things outside the bubble

After the Leggingsgate thread I came in here quite expecting the RULES ARE RULES, SEIZE HIM!!~@2` and the IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE AS LONG AS THEIR TICKETS ARE $0.01 LOWER crowds to be well represented, and I was correct.

Here's another example of the impact on United's brand in the real world, as opposed to the A.nut bubble. It does come with all the usual discomfort about where social media ends and news begins, but at this point, sorry, it's news:

If you’ve ever watch a viral video on one of your favorite sites on the internet, it most likely was lifted from r/videos.

Reddit’s main video forum is one of the best incubators on the internet for virality, and editors for many of the web’s largest publications check it religiously for the next big thing.

([One] submission about the [United] incident, with 111,ooo upvotes, is now the fourth-most upvoted video on the forum’s history.)

On Tuesday morning, the subreddit dedicated its massive influence to bashing the airline for its actions.

Almost ever single story on the site was a link to videos of United’s misdeeds over the past few years, or spoofs about the incident, with astronomical numbers of upvotes.

https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/reddit-videos-forum-united-trolling/

(emphasis mine)



Get a heating pad to lay your scrolling finger on, because that's just the tip of the iceberg. Right or wrong, United isn't just getting roasted over this incident, it's getting incinerated.

I guess United didn't learn quickly enough when their PR team deliberately stepped in a steaming pile with Leggingsgate. You'd think a corporation that big would have been on the phone to a dedicated crisis management consultancy the instant somebody near the top of the food chain found out about the specifics of Volunteergate.

This is beyond the realm of water cooler talk and into the realm of late-night TV, 2000 word thinkpieces in The Atlantic, and soon enough, case studies in whatever noxious underground cave where marketers are schooled. It will have a LOT of blowback on the United brand.

I'm a loyal UA customer/"fanboy" and generally defend them but they dropped the ball on this one. I see two major factors at play here.

1) The US3 + AS have farmed out quite a bit of feed to regional partners. This isn't necessarily a bad things because it broadens their reach and allows those of us in places like AMA to access their networks in a near seamless manner. Back in the late 90s the trend was for the airline to own the regional. I flew many miles on AA/MQ back then through the mid 2000s. While AA was not a shining example of customer service back then, they got the job done with consistency. Other than the smaller aircraft, the experience was pretty consistent. It seemed that policies and procedures were the same whether I was boarding an ERJ-140 to LBB in Terminal B or a Super 80 to SAT in Terminal A/C. The same could be said for Continental and Continental Express Continental Express (I flew DL a bit back then too but I never found their regional product to be as homogeneous). Fast forward to 2017 and we have three majors contracting not only regional feed but routes between bigger population centers out to several different regional airlines that are serviced both above and below the wing to ground handling companies. When you do this, you lose control of your brand unless you implement very strict standards. Depending on the airline and which hub one transits through, you can go from point a, connect at point b, and arrive at point c without ever interacting with an employee of the airline whose livery and interior the aircraft bears. When one of these contract employees messes up, it's not Republic, SkyWest, ExpressJet, Mesa, etc... that is plastered all over the web, it's American Airlines, United Airlines, or Delta Air Lines.

2) Companies have got to train their employees well and empower them to make good decisions. Sometimes a rule needs to be bent, and employees need to be empowered to think on their feet without fear of repercussions from management for doing so. Not every situation merits this, but in cases like this, where things start going downhill fast, a quick thinking employee can be the difference between a non event and a brand tarnishing fiasco that's plastered on computer screens all over the world. Just because the rule says do "x" doesn't mean that it won't lead to a backlash. Employees shouldn't bend the rules every time for every one but having to remove a passenger already seated is a whole different ballgame than taking care of the oversell (which this technically was't) situation at the gate.

UA's brand is not the strongest right now. They've made great strides to improve but stuff like this erases the brand equity they have been trying to build. It also appears that the news has made its way to China. Not good for the airline that is staking a good part of its future on expansion in that market.

United would have been better off cancelling the flight, and flying the crew on an empty plane than this PR disaster. It also would not surprise me if that started being the practice in the future.

Oh, this happens in China too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXyVGhA ... 72.7722063

Leslieville wrote:

Bradd Jaffy of NBC news is quoting on Twitter a statement from the Chicago Police Department saying that the injuries experienced by the forcibly removed passenger were the result of him "falling".

https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/8 ... 56/photo/1

It's amazing how unstable people become when they're around the police.

StuckinCMHland wrote:

Social media makes lots of mistakes along with its virtues, it will take weeks before all the facts that matter are made clear for all to see.

It's a damn sight better than the alternative though, which is no accountability at all.

United had, at minimum, 3 (possibly 4 or even 5) opportunities to do what most people would consider the decent thing.

1) They could have got their shit together before they boarded the flight, thereby avoiding having to actually remove the passenger.
2) They could have offered compensation commensurate with the inconvenience they caused. Since they had no takers, clearly they didn't.
3) They could have issued a proper apology instead of attacking the passenger.

They failed every single time.

If they had got even one out of three of these right, I might have some sympathy for them. But given their hopelessness the court of social media is justly punishing them, and I tend to think a world where there is some societal pressure on corporations to act morally, even when acting morally costs money, is a better world than the one we had twenty years ago.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/united ... 2017-04-11

So the stockmarket does not like bad news. United Continental Holdings Inc stock fell sharply, recovered a bit and closed 1.1% down today, wiping $225m off the airline's value. It's not 'real money' in one sense, but it just shows how volatile the market can be to bad news and dare I say ethical investments, particularly held by individual investors.

Sandyb123

Trying to look at this from all angles, a whole bunch of people are right simultaneously. When there are no volunteers and people are removed involuntarily seems to actually be quite rare, but these are really disruptive incidents for the people involved and the attitude of many of airline workers about the topic is a big part of what people are reacting to. It's really not fair to blame United or Republic for the way the police reacted. It's the police behavior that has the temperature elevated on this issue, but I think people are twisting it all together with their frustrations over how they feel they are treated like big large companies like United.

Should the man have just complied? Of course! This is not the kind of thing we arbitrate on an airplane or argue over with a law enforcement officer. They have an important job to do and this doesn't help.

This is the worst thing that I have ever heard. If the man was actually a doctor and had patients he had to see, he shouldn't have been taken off the plane. It sucks that they grabbed him off the plane forcefully and made him passed out. The actions that were done were over the top, and straight up disrespectful. If a flight is overbooked, United should just put the overbooked people on another flight for another time or day instead of forcing any passenger off.

Flighty wrote:

She did her job description correctly. Was not authorized to create and implement a new volunteer auction program on behalf of United. She is neither an executive nor a corporate counsel. It's literally not possible for her to improvise that.

After 22 pages, will it finally be possible to know what, exactly, is United Airlines' policy about finding volunteers in case of overbooking? Is it usual, or even mandatory, to offer vouchers only? Is a voucher worth 800$ the limit for domestic flights? Or for short domestic flight?

Leslieville wrote:

Bradd Jaffy of NBC news is quoting on Twitter a statement from the Chicago Police Department saying that the injuries experienced by the forcibly removed passenger were the result of him "falling".

https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/8 ... 56/photo/1

It seems to be a common excuse in police reports.

Junction wrote:

This seems like a similar incident. Where was all the outrage in the past?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wom ... 11bfd4f928

It's not really that similar. The Delta passenger had boarded the flight without permission (she hadn't checked in at the gate), was apparently abusive and was apparently not injured in any way. None are true of the United passenger, at least based on what we know.

But anyway, lack of outrage over one incident is a crappy excuse not to be outraged over another.

LAXintl wrote:

Sausage making has always been a dirty thing, especially with millions of citizen journalist these days.

Ultimately one needs to remember airline (as in any private business) can refuse service and ask people to leave. In airline case its process of invoking involuntary denied boarding.

I guess the question is what should the airline do with customer that refuses to vacate the aircraft??
Obviously, law enforcement will be contacted, and so we end up potentially with an escalated or nasty outcome.

Over the years I've seen plenty of passengers (often drunk) end up in all types of altercations after refusing to follow crew or even worse security/law enforcement instructions while on the ground.

Drunk, unruly passengers deserve whatever nasty outcome awaits them. Flying is a privledge, and not a right.

Rally (read protest) and press conference at Chicago O'Hare at 6pm local (1 hour from now).

https://www.facebook.com/events/1895621 ... discussion

transswede wrote:

PlanesNTrains wrote:

Tugger wrote:

I understand the practice but when it is the last flight of the day maybe it should be modified because peoples schedules can also be perishable.

Tugg

1. This wasn't the last flight of the day.

If it wasn't the last flight of the day, why didn't the 4 crew who came late get moved to a later flight? There seemed to be plenty of time available.

Who knows? I would guess that this just kept rolling and rolling with no one expecting it to go this far. Once the police came in and roughed up the passenger, it was beyond salvaging.

mortkork wrote:

How can you consider an empty seat as "perished" if it has generated it's share of revenue. They get the same $$$, save fuel and a bag of peanuts.

I don't disagree with your point but perhaps would quibble with the details. For example, they might charge $200 to allow the no-show to move his reservation but the seat goes out empty when they might have been able to get $499 on the spot for a desperate soul. That's just an example.

32andBelow wrote:

The passenger was going to walk out with cash and probably home an hour or two late.

The problem appears to be that that wasn't the case. Apparently they told him it wouldn't be until 2pm the next afternoon, to which he objected.

Junction wrote:

This seems like a similar incident. Where was all the outrage in the past?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wom ... 11bfd4f928

I'm going to assume someone will point to her not complying. A subtle distinction, but a distinction nonetheless.

NichCage wrote:

This is the worst thing that I have ever heard. If the man was actually a doctor and had patients he had to see, he shouldn't have been taken off the plane. It sucks that they grabbed him off the plane forcefully and made him passed out. The actions that were done were over the top, and straight up disrespectful. If a flight is overbooked, United should just put the overbooked people on another flight for another time or day instead of forcing any passenger off.

1. This cannot be the worst thing that you've have heard. If so, I'm seriously jealous.
2. Him being a doctor is irrelevant in my opinion.
3. Clearly they screwed the whole thing up.

AMALH747430 wrote:

2) Companies have got to train their employees well and empower them to make good decisions. Sometimes a rule needs to be bent, and employees need to be empowered to think on their feet without fear of repercussions from management for doing so.

YES.

I think people around here get caught up in this like we're asking a pilot to bend the rules and take off overweight with inoperable flaps. But the reality is that a safety culture empowers employees to bend the rules towards safety without fear of undo repercussion.

You'd think they would work on a customer service culture with a little more empowerment towards bending the rules in favor of humanity and decency, or at least simply avoiding this sort of PR catastrophe.

One can pin this whole thing on one date and action: Oct. 24, 1978, the Airline Deregulation Act. It was then that airlines were no longer run by the CEO, telling his accountants what to do. The whole circus of running an airline was turned upside down on that day, with the word of the accountants being more important than just about everyone else in the airline. You want to know why someone got dragged out of an airplane on some random Sunday? Because at the end of the day, in some basement at United's headquarters on Wacker Drive in Chicago, a beancounter determined that a crew needed to be deadheaded, a flight needed to pay out only so much for volunteers and come hell or high water that plane needed to leave on time.

When airlines are again run by guys who started off as bag handlers and lav service personnel and not by a bunch of MBA's and Accounting Degree holders who think that it is enough to bust open the accounting book to determine how to run an airline, than maybe this nonsense is going to stop.

gatibosgru wrote:

grbauc wrote:

N212R wrote:

Not surprisingly, the "trend-makers" working overtime and to what end?

Yea the new offended class waiting for something to be outraged about.

This whole argument is getting so exhausting.
The entire outrage is so this does not happen again to someone else. What an awful thing to be offended by...

Waste of energy and time to accomplish what? to be outraged and offended. To each his own I suppose.

He Refused to listen to directions and right or wrong you do need to obey directions IN 2004 HE was ARRESTED for not following the RULES. I would of unloaded the whole plane before removing him. No way they should put others through this. I don't like the airlines system overbooking but no way do I have much sympathy for his refusing to leave the aircraft. I also agree the airlines handled it according to its rules and then airport security made a mess of it. COC right place right time he seems selfish with making a scene for himself. Getting involuntary bumped does suck I feel for him in that but his refusal and actions caused everything else.

32andBelow wrote:

transswede wrote:

PlanesNTrains wrote:

1. This wasn't the last flight of the day.

If it wasn't the last flight of the day, why didn't the 4 crew who came late get moved to a later flight? There seemed to be plenty of time available.

It is possible they had to fly in to get rest for the next day to avoid cancelling flights, or they were flying later that night from the downline station. Its better to take 4 people off now then cancel hundreds tonight or tomorrow. The passenger was going to walk out with cash and probably home an hour or two late.

Not an hour or two late. Almost 24h later. That is why they didn't find any volunteer with a 800 $ voucher. I still don't get why they didn't try to rebook the 4 passengers in another flight the same day.

Flighty wrote:

Keith, you are right but this upends 50 years of practice across the country. Could they have issued today's apology letter yesterday? That would be astonishing. I am not sure any company is that smart, that it can toss away 50 years of work based on a suspected, imminent twitter storm. "What we've done every day for 50 years? Dead wrong."

But that is where strategic communication is headed. It took a while but they got it right today IMO. 48 hours. I also think Munoz will step down.

In 2017 corporations have to be that smart or become that smart. They have the resources to hire people that smart. We got a brief preview of how United's social media and PR team could have unforeced errors and give stories legs with the "leggings fiasco"...pun intended

Social media and live streaming of incidents changes the game.

Toss away 50 years of work mayb/mayb not but companies have to adapt to survive. Sometimes an incident seemingly small can result in industry wide change

Oscar promises action by 4/30, im curious to what this will be.

sergegva wrote:

32andBelow wrote:

transswede wrote:

If it wasn't the last flight of the day, why didn't the 4 crew who came late get moved to a later flight? There seemed to be plenty of time available.

It is possible they had to fly in to get rest for the next day to avoid cancelling flights, or they were flying later that night from the downline station. Its better to take 4 people off now then cancel hundreds tonight or tomorrow. The passenger was going to walk out with cash and probably home an hour or two late.

Not an hour or two late. Almost 24h later. That is why they didn't find any volunteer with a 800 $ voucher. I still don't get why they didn't try to rebook the 4 passengers in another flight the same day.

Because based on history they assumed they could get away with bumping him to the next day's flight that had an open seat rather than inconvenience themselves more by cascading things along. In short, they took the easy way out.

enilria wrote:

I wonder who released his name to the press and perhaps helped dig up dirt on him? Who would have the list of passenger names on the plane to release that? Any idea who?

Since police were called they would have to do a report. His name would be on that report. That report would be public record and readily accessible by the media. Easy Peezy.

NichCage wrote:

This is the worst thing that I have ever heard. If the man was actually a doctor and had patients he had to see, he shouldn't have been taken off the plane. It sucks that they grabbed him off the plane forcefully and made him passed out. The actions that were done were over the top, and straight up disrespectful. If a flight is overbooked, United should just put the overbooked people on another flight for another time or day instead of forcing any passenger off.

So what if he's a doctor Im a independent contractor and If I was I to miss the flight Id not get paid or could lose the job over missing. There are a million reasons why we fly because he's a doctor means nothing. He also was convicted of dealing out prescriptions and Id in most cases say so what also but it does show a pattern of not caring for the rules. Even if the rules stupid.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WRONG !!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLBuiC1z6Kw

grbauc wrote:

NichCage wrote:

This is the worst thing that I have ever heard. If the man was actually a doctor and had patients he had to see, he shouldn't have been taken off the plane. It sucks that they grabbed him off the plane forcefully and made him passed out. The actions that were done were over the top, and straight up disrespectful. If a flight is overbooked, United should just put the overbooked people on another flight for another time or day instead of forcing any passenger off.

So what if he's a doctor Im a independent contractor and If I was I to miss the flight Id not get paid or could lose the job over missing. There are a million reasons why we fly because he's a doctor means nothing. He also was convicted of dealing out prescriptions and Id in most cases say so what also but it does show a pattern of not caring for the rules. Even if the rules stupid.

What if you work an wal mart and now your fired for missing your shift? who is going to have a more negative impact on their life. I'd say a professional could weather a IDB better than anyone.

grbauc wrote:

NichCage wrote:

This is the worst thing that I have ever heard. If the man was actually a doctor and had patients he had to see, he shouldn't have been taken off the plane. It sucks that they grabbed him off the plane forcefully and made him passed out. The actions that were done were over the top, and straight up disrespectful. If a flight is overbooked, United should just put the overbooked people on another flight for another time or day instead of forcing any passenger off.

So what if he's a doctor Im a independent contractor and If I was I to miss the flight Id not get paid or could lose the job over missing. There are a million reasons why we fly because he's a doctor means nothing. He also was convicted of dealing out prescriptions and Id in most cases say so what also but it does show a pattern of not caring for the rules. Even if the rules stupid.

Isn't it great when the middle class who claims about special treatment of the 1% feel entitled the same way. Could you imagine a world where the airlines get to decide who gets IDB based upon class status in society? Talk about discriminatory. This doctor represents an ever growing entitlement mentality today. And, to think of the lawsuits that would follow if the crew decided, "OK, you can stay, we'll remove the guy beside you instead". What a lawsuit that would be!

102IAHexpress wrote:

The damage will be widespread and everlasting. Case studies about this will be taught in business schools. The only way to save this airline now, is to do a total re-brand. Re-brand the airline Continental Airlines, and get the HQ out of Chicago.

No it won't. The internet court of public opinion has short memory as do media cycles. The next public outrage will appear on the Twitterverse by tomorrow, and the world will move on. Trump declares war on Uruguay, Tesla's auto-piloted car crashes in to a school bus full of nuns in training, John Bon Jovi announces his surprise marriage to the ghost of Fay Wray.

Airlines survive much worse than some dumb-ass airport LEO/security guard dragging a guy off a contracted regional jet, and UA will move on and get by just fine.

Disclaimer: I loath UA with a passion and I avoid them at nearly every cost. Nearly half my flights on UA over the past decade has resulted in me wanting to slam a car door on my own dork for flying on them; so it pains me to actually defend UA in this instance, however, this could have been ANY airline these days. Between self-entitled mentality of most pax these days, events like this are nearly weekly if not daily occurrences anymore.

EDIT: I didn't want to double-reply/double quote separate responses.

Flighty wrote:

Excellent memo from Munoz. It is time for United to defend itself strongly. The criminal was removed so the lawful passengers could continue.

The story is an utterly routine day at the airport. Other than the fact that a licensed doctor was an irate passenger and needed to be helped off the aircraft. Any injuries sustained were his responsibility. Emphatically.

UAL will settle because as another poster said, they do not want to risk changing longstanding process has evolved for 50+ years and works well.

Do you still think it was an "excellent memo"?

https://hub.united.com/united-express-3 ... 68629.html

I think the best thing the lawmakers could do to improve the process is force the IDB's to be the highest fare paid / most senior frequent flyer person be the one that is involuntarilty bumped. Involuntary bumping would almost instantly go out the window, and likely dutch auctions until only the required number agree to being bumped. It's still a nicer set up for everyone than no overbooking, but it's much more likely to result in only volunteers.

Munoz surely has to go though, his comments are grossly incompetent - his very first one he should've at least screwed the LEO's, they're not his staff to protect and encourage, he could've pinned all the blame on them, instead he's just an accomodating dick who followed it up with more incompetence.

Apparently their new theme tune is going to be Rhapsody in Black and Blue...

JibberJim wrote:

Munoz surely has to go though, his comments are grossly incompetent - his very first one he should've at least screwed the LEO's, they're not his staff to protect and encourage, he could've pinned all the blame on them, instead he's just an accomodating dick who followed it up with more incompetence.

I think part of the issue though is that one of Munoz's key remits when he became CEO was to improve internal morale. Dropping the staff in it wouldn't exactly have endeared him to them, regardless of whether they were mainline or not.

mortkork wrote:

The overbooking of flights seems to be more and more systemic and business as usual.

The flight wasn't overbooked.

Flighty wrote:

UA people basically did the right things yesterday, as explained by Munoz.

No, United did the wrong thing at pretty much every turn.

1.) United or Republic should not have scheduled things this tight for the crew.
2.) United should have begun boarding knowing that the flight was overcapacity (and if the crew didn't call a head to indicate they were on their way, they should have done that).
3.) United should have offered more money to entice people to leave
4.) United or Republic should have looked for alternative transport for the crew
5.) Failing #4, United or Republic should have looked for alternative transport for the passengers they wanted to bump.

There were ten other flights that night that would've dropped passengers off either at SDF or within a 2 hour drive of SDF. Plus a flight departing around the same time (crew should've checked if it was as full full). Plus an air taxi that serves MDW, ORD, and SDF. United could've hired the taxi, they could've placed people on the other flights and given them rental car vouchers, cash, or whatever. Instead United took the cheap bastard route and did the bare minimum (overnight hotel stay) and then jumped to the nuclear option: calling the cops. The United employees and the cops are professionals, a such they should be held to a higher standard than civilians. Both United and Chicago PD should've deescalated the situation, instead both made it worse.

11725Flyer wrote:

Flighty wrote:

Excellent memo from Munoz. It is time for United to defend itself strongly. The criminal was removed so the lawful passengers could continue.

The story is an utterly routine day at the airport. Other than the fact that a licensed doctor was an irate passenger and needed to be helped off the aircraft. Any injuries sustained were his responsibility. Emphatically.

UAL will settle because as another poster said, they do not want to risk changing longstanding process has evolved for 50+ years and works well.

Do you still think it was an "excellent memo"?

https://hub.united.com/united-express-3 ... 68629.html

Flighty obviously didn't get the memo, seems like a change of PR tactics. United can obviously still strongly defend itself, but how does it strongly defend itself against people not booking with United?

I love this notion that a fare paying customer is regarded as a "criminal" for expecting to receive the service he paid for. This 'overselling' culture needs to be sorted out once and for all. If the airlines are so concerned with 'no shows' then make better T&C's that discourage the culture. Don't then punish the customer for turning up to eat at the restaurant table they booked.

Outrage over United Airlines’ violent removal of a passenger in Chicago has crossed the Pacific, extending the company’s public relations fiasco to one of its most crucial international markets. The haunting cellphone video, which shows an Asian man hurled from his seat and dragged off a flight Sunday, inundated Chinese social media Tuesday and evoked tens of thousands of livid responses. Viewers picked up on translated comments from a fellow passenger that suggested the unidentified man thought he was selected “because I’m Chinese.” Many accused the company of racism and urged customers to stop booking flights on United. The topic drew 110 million readers on Weibo, a Chinese rival to Twitter,

Varsity1 wrote:

precure787 wrote:

What's more, the doctor was Chinese. The day after the incident, people of China (PRC) became resentful towards the airline, and even called for boycotts against the airline.

Vietnamese.

Sources stated that when China's people watched that incident (with their country's own social media website, not YouTube which they banned already along with Facebook and Twitter), they thought that the doctor was Chinese, which prompted the boycott against United.

Tugger wrote:

I had thought it was the last flight and why they were forcing the issue for getting their crew where they needed to be.

UA 3411 was scheduled to depart at 5:40pm. Alternative flights included (I've only listed the non-stop options):

ORD-SDF
American/Envoy 6:40pm
United/Republic 9pm

ORD-IND (+2hr drive)
American/Envoy 6:25pm, 9:50pm
United/Republic 6:42pm

ORD-CVG (+1.5hr drive)
American/Envoy 6:35pm, 9:40pm
United/Republic 5:35pm

MKE-SDF (+1hr drive)
United/SkyWest 7:10pm

MDW-SDF (+1hr drive)
Southwest 10:25

MDW-IND (+1hr drive, +2hr drive)
Southwest 9pm

Put the crew on the American fight an hour later, or they should've just bitten the bullet and checked if the United flight to CVG as as full and taken that instead. Better to have your crew drive 90 minutes than give a paying customer a concussion. Or, you know, hire that air taxi that services ORD and SDF. Were all of these flights full? Somehow I doubt it.

Question for those more experienced than I, since I am seeing this discussed elsewhere...

When are pax "legally" boarded? Colloquially we all know what boarding is... you're sitting in your assigned seat on the plane. But for the purposes of United's inevitable legal argument... are you not "legally" boarded until the door is closed and the pax manifest is final? There has to be some legal demarcation point between boarded and not boarded that define where the "involuntary denial of boarding" clauses apply.

JannEejit wrote:

I love this notion that a fare paying customer is regarded as a "criminal" for expecting to receive the service he paid for. This 'overselling' culture needs to be sorted out once and for all. If the airlines are so concerned with 'no shows' then make better T&C's that discourage the culture. Don't then punish the customer for turning up to eat at the restaurant table they booked.

Ultimately if the airline's revenues drop due to empty seats, then we're all going to pay for it.

There is a middle ground- continue to overbook, but when you need to offer compensation you offer more, perhaps via some sort of auction system. If the compensation is starting to cost you more than you make in overbook revenue, you cut down on the overbooking.

The reality is that 99 times out of 100 you will find somebody willing to take a small amount of $$$ as compensation. When you can't, you just have to accept it as a cost of obtaining the overbook revenue.

cpd wrote:

Flighty obviously didn't get the memo, seems like a change of PR tactics. United can obviously still strongly defend itself, but how does it strongly defend itself against people not booking with United?

In the coming months, it will be interesting to see how bookings from Asia are affected.