Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
Aquila3 wrote:Keith2004 wrote:
The security officers are legally in the wrong for the abusive treatment not United Airlines. Security officers who are not even law enforcement
United is in the wrong for allowing the situation to get to that point, they should not have boarded passengers if enough seats were not available, if they get in any legal issues it will be for this
Thank you for the explanation, and sorry, I misjudged you.
Also I thought that the Gentleman in jeans that used violence on the Passenger (so-called Security) was an employee or contracted by United. Not that this makes the situation humanely less worrying if he was a plainclothes policeman. I mean we are not speaking about a gangster, a drug dealer or a raper. Just a mabe non-compliant passenger. If anybody in this industry (and especially at United), accepts this pure violence, what next? Taser him? Shoot him in the mouth? Did you see the video clip?
glbltrvlr wrote:goCOgo wrote:"Failure to follow flight crew instructions" - you mean the instructions to leave in violation of the Contract of Carriage? Rule 21 spells out the only reasons United can remove someone from an aircraft, none of which applied to this customer. By boarding him, they threw Rule 25 out the window.
Doesn't sound like you have a good backing in aviation law. I'm referring to:
Interference With Flight Crew Members Or Flight Attendants -- 49 U.S.C. 46504
One who assaults, threatens, or intimidates a flight crew member or attendant while aboard an aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States, and thereby interferes with the performance of that crew member's duties...goCOgo wrote:You sound like one of those cops that thinks they can arrest someone on the sole charge of resisting arrest.
You may not like it, but the police were acting within their lawful authority. An no, I'm not a cop or a United employee.goCOgo wrote:This guy isn't going to Cook County Jail. He is instead going to split a few fat checks with his lawyer from United, Republic, and the O'Hare PD.
Sorry - O'Hare airport is owned and operated by the City of Chicago. The police at O'Hare are Chicago police.
ROSWELL41 wrote:
So this passenger gets to hold up the flight for everyone else? He gets to dictate to the police and the airline as to how they do their jobs? I don't think the outcome was good for anyone, but at that point the passenger IS getting off and it's up to the passenger to decide how it's going to go. He chose to be non compliant and to resist. That situation is not a negotiation.
goCOgo wrote:glbltrvlr wrote:goCOgo wrote:"Failure to follow flight crew instructions" - you mean the instructions to leave in violation of the Contract of Carriage? Rule 21 spells out the only reasons United can remove someone from an aircraft, none of which applied to this customer. By boarding him, they threw Rule 25 out the window.
Doesn't sound like you have a good backing in aviation law. I'm referring to:
Interference With Flight Crew Members Or Flight Attendants -- 49 U.S.C. 46504
One who assaults, threatens, or intimidates a flight crew member or attendant while aboard an aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States, and thereby interferes with the performance of that crew member's duties...goCOgo wrote:You sound like one of those cops that thinks they can arrest someone on the sole charge of resisting arrest.
You may not like it, but the police were acting within their lawful authority. An no, I'm not a cop or a United employee.goCOgo wrote:This guy isn't going to Cook County Jail. He is instead going to split a few fat checks with his lawyer from United, Republic, and the O'Hare PD.
Sorry - O'Hare airport is owned and operated by the City of Chicago. The police at O'Hare are Chicago police.
Where do you see where he "assaulted, threatened, or intimidated" anyone?
And whoever the PD is, they will be paying up.
Rdh3e wrote:goCOgo wrote:Read it for yourself. Nowhere else does it call for removing people. Only denied boarding, which does not apply once the passenger boarded.
You seem to be defining denied boarding as simply getting on the plane. Denied boarding is not a defined term in the contract of carriage and is used more broadly than your suggestion. You can get on the plane, and be asked to leave and that considered denied boarding. It actually happens all the time due to weight restrictions. Sometimes a flight will board, but weather conditions will change and force the crew to take fewer passengers after the boarding is completed. Those passengers are thus "denied boarding" because they were not allowed to complete the flight.
You're reading too tightly to the language and not the intent of the language.
Hillis wrote:ExDubai wrote:ozark1 wrote:I get so tired of these social-media induced tales with only the side of the "victim" being told. Since when are airlines always guilty until proven innocent?. I've never seen an industry more abused in this manner. Yes they screw up. Sometimes badly. But it really gets old when there is another side to the story that we may never know about. If the airline tries to explain, big woo, they must be lying.
Agree, but not in that case. There are enough ways to solve such a case before boarding.
Compensation was offered. Apparently, no one took it. In that case, especially in the case of a crew that needed to be in SDF the next morning, else a flight could cancel, the airline can involuntarily deny someone boarding. Again, it happens more than people might imagine.
apfpilot wrote:goCOgo wrote:glbltrvlr wrote:
Doesn't sound like you have a good backing in aviation law. I'm referring to:
Interference With Flight Crew Members Or Flight Attendants -- 49 U.S.C. 46504
One who assaults, threatens, or intimidates a flight crew member or attendant while aboard an aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States, and thereby interferes with the performance of that crew member's duties...
You may not like it, but the police were acting within their lawful authority. An no, I'm not a cop or a United employee.
Sorry - O'Hare airport is owned and operated by the City of Chicago. The police at O'Hare are Chicago police.
Where do you see where he "assaulted, threatened, or intimidated" anyone?
And whoever the PD is, they will be paying up.
I doubt it - the PD will be covered under qualified immunity and nothing will happen to them (sadly)
Cubsrule wrote:Unless UA violated the contract of carriage -which does not appear to be the case based on the limited information available - this is no gaffe.
Airlines cannot and should not be in the business of picking IDBs based on whose time is most valuable. If this man's arrival in Louisville were truly as important as it evidently is in his head he should have (1) checked in sooner, (2) bought a more expensive ticket, (3) booked a flight that returned him to Louisville with more time to spare or (4) not traveled in the first place.
Like most people who travel a lot for business, I play the "take the last flight out" game from time to time. It is not without risk.
KFLLCFII wrote:Nothing in either video appears to suggest that the man's head hitting the armrest across the aisle was an intentional act by the officers, but merely incidental to the man's removal from the seat and his subsequent toppling over across the aisle.
As has been said earlier in the thread, noncompliance with an officer's request, then order, will lead to use of force. If, in the course of a struggle against lawful use of force the resisting party sustains injuries, even serious/potentially life-threatening injuries merely incidental to the lawful use of force (such as a head incidentally hitting an armrest during the course of detainment), then that liability is on the resisting party...NOT the detaining officer in the course of his/her official duties.
It's no different than if, in the course of the use of lawful and non-lethal self-defense during a street encounter using a hand-to-hand technique, the offending party happens to be tripped over by the defending party and incidentally smacks his/her head on a curb, causing death by severe head injury...Courts (at least in the U.S.) generally hold that death or great bodily harm resulting incidentally to the use of non-lethal defensive methods against an offending party is not the liability of the defending party, as the defending party generally would not have reasonably known that the use of a defensive method established by law and precedent to be "non-lethal" would have resulted in death or great bodily harm.
socalgeo wrote:Cubsrule wrote:Unless UA violated the contract of carriage -which does not appear to be the case based on the limited information available - this is no gaffe.
Airlines cannot and should not be in the business of picking IDBs based on whose time is most valuable. If this man's arrival in Louisville were truly as important as it evidently is in his head he should have (1) checked in sooner, (2) bought a more expensive ticket, (3) booked a flight that returned him to Louisville with more time to spare or (4) not traveled in the first place.
Like most people who travel a lot for business, I play the "take the last flight out" game from time to time. It is not without risk.
Seriously? You are blaming the passenger? As far as I can tell he broke no rules, was seated in his assigned seat, that he paid for, and was not affecting the safety of the other passengers. Surely you aren't saying that it was his fault? This video makes my blood boil. I won't be flying united again.
billreid wrote:When I worked for AA they had a program of NO involuntary bumps. So how did they manage this. They simply upped the compensation until someone got off. AA paid a family of four $16,000 to deplane. UA would have been wise to keep upping the the award. $10,000 in travel vouchures would have done it.
GCT64 wrote:As a regular United customer and Star Silver, I am disgusted by the treatment shown in the video and by the responses of many of the people on this thread. This guy is a CUSTOMER, when I buy a ticket and sit in my seat I do not expect to then be physically assaulted by the airline's staff (I don't care if they are contractors or whoever, in my mind and 100% of other customers the airline I bought the ticket from, and whose name is all over the plane, is responsible for their behaviour).
Anyone who defends this video on the basis that "hired security can legally beat up passengers who don't do exactly what the airline staff say" has lost any sense of perspective or humanity.
Cyow wrote:Never flying United again. Bring back Continental. This merger has been a disaster.
exunited wrote:The flight was by Republic Airlines, not United mainline but then nobody would take the click bait if the headlines said Republic now would they?
EWR762 wrote:smokeybandit wrote:The Twitter link is already the top post on Reddit, so it's going to explode in the morning.
It appears that the Reddit post has been taken off the front page
Cubsrule wrote:He equally certainly is at fault for refusing to deplane when asked.
Cubsrule wrote:He equally certainly is at fault for refusing to deplane when asked.
Keith2004 wrote:[
I saw the clip, it was disturbing
Escalating level of violence is an ongoing problem in the USA, some law enforcement departments are better than others, it comes down to Training
Tugger wrote:Cubsrule wrote:He equally certainly is at fault for refusing to deplane when asked.
No he is not.
You are not required to follow improper or illegal instructions. You may get whacked over the head by a police officer but in court the right to refuse to follow improper orders will be enforced. As others have stated, the passengers were boarded, the airline decided to "confiscate" a a ticketed, boarded, and seated passenger's paid for seat for which there is no allowance for in the CoC.
United lost this battle and looks foolish.
Tugg
Cubsrule wrote:Tugger wrote:Cubsrule wrote:He equally certainly is at fault for refusing to deplane when asked.
No he is not.
You are not required to follow improper or illegal instructions. You may get whacked over the head by a police officer but in court the right to refuse to follow improper orders will be enforced. As others have stated, the passengers were boarded, the airline decided to "confiscate" a a ticketed, boarded, and seated passenger's paid for seat for which there is no allowance for in the CoC.
United lost this battle and looks foolish.
Tugg
I agree generally that he did not need to follow an improper or illegal instruction, but he got IDB'd. The IDB was unwise for all sorts of reasons that people have discussed in this thread, but how was the IDB "improper" or "illegal?" UA was well within its rights to IDB him.
wingman wrote:If UA can't catch this overbook prior to departure and select passengers beforehand by bidding up the compensation then their four employees should drive to Louisville.
Tugger wrote:Cubsrule wrote:Tugger wrote:No he is not.
You are not required to follow improper or illegal instructions. You may get whacked over the head by a police officer but in court the right to refuse to follow improper orders will be enforced. As others have stated, the passengers were boarded, the airline decided to "confiscate" a a ticketed, boarded, and seated passenger's paid for seat for which there is no allowance for in the CoC.
United lost this battle and looks foolish.
Tugg
I agree generally that he did not need to follow an improper or illegal instruction, but he got IDB'd. The IDB was unwise for all sorts of reasons that people have discussed in this thread, but how was the IDB "improper" or "illegal?" UA was well within its rights to IDB him.
Except they did in fact board the passenger.
Tugg
jfidler wrote:wingman wrote:If UA can't catch this overbook prior to departure and select passengers beforehand by bidding up the compensation then their four employees should drive to Louisville.
I agree they should have caught this before boarding in this case, but what about in cases when they can't? I was on a RJ years ago, and only after we all boarded did they determine we were over the weight limit. Some people volunteered (and received compensation) so we were fine, but what if no one did?
jfidler wrote:wingman wrote:If UA can't catch this overbook prior to departure and select passengers beforehand by bidding up the compensation then their four employees should drive to Louisville.
I agree they should have caught this before boarding in this case, but what about in cases when they can't? I was on a RJ years ago, and only after we all boarded did they determine we were over the weight limit. Some people volunteered (and received compensation) so we were fine, but what if no one did?
Cubsrule wrote:Tugger wrote:Cubsrule wrote:
I agree generally that he did not need to follow an improper or illegal instruction, but he got IDB'd. The IDB was unwise for all sorts of reasons that people have discussed in this thread, but how was the IDB "improper" or "illegal?" UA was well within its rights to IDB him.
Except they did in fact board the passenger.
Tugg
Why does that matter? If the weather changes after boarding and the airplane becomes weight restricted, what are the passengers removed in that situation if not IDB?
mia wrote:I came here looking for matue discussion on what is an OBJECTIVELY appalling situation. I would expect more nuanced discussion from 4chan that the trash that has been written by commenters.
Are we so immune to violence in our society that there are people actually finding justifications for the fact that hired security assaulted a passenger to involuntarily remove him from a flight?
I hope this passenger finds a lawyer and takes United/Republic/security company for all they got.
Can someone that knows more about operations than me chime in here: how do other airlines handle this situation? Do they tell the folks that haven't boarded to pound sand and give them their denied boarding compensation? Or do they also forcibly remove passengers on board like this? I would think that non physical coercion could get this man off the plane quicker including but not limited to threatening to ban him should he refuse to deplane. What do I know?
Tugger wrote:Cubsrule wrote:He equally certainly is at fault for refusing to deplane when asked.
No he is not.
You are not required to follow improper or illegal instructions. You may get whacked over the head by a police officer but in court the right to refuse to follow improper orders will be enforced. As others have stated, the passengers were boarded, the airline decided to "confiscate" a a ticketed, boarded, and seated passenger's paid for seat for which there is no allowance for in the CoC.
United lost this battle and looks foolish.
Tugg
Varsity1 wrote:atcsundevil wrote:Cubsrule wrote:The way security handled the situation was a gaffe, but that's really not UA's gaffe.
Do I understand correctly that you believe that you and I ought to be able to decline an IDB because we don't feel like dealing with the inconvenience? I'd point out also that ORD-SDF is a doable drive.
No, I don't think it should be an option, but if the passenger is putting them in a position where they have to forcibly remove him (as in this situation), then some sort of alternative would need to be devised. Physically dragging a non-violent individual off the aircraft isn't a proper solution.
He was non compliant with their orders. They did what they had to for removal.
Special snowflakes.
apfpilot wrote:goCOgo wrote:glbltrvlr wrote:
I doubt it - the PD will be covered under qualified immunity and nothing will happen to them (sadly)
socalgeo wrote:KFLLCFII wrote:Nothing in either video appears to suggest that the man's head hitting the armrest across the aisle was an intentional act by the officers, but merely incidental to the man's removal from the seat and his subsequent toppling over across the aisle.
As has been said earlier in the thread, noncompliance with an officer's request, then order, will lead to use of force. If, in the course of a struggle against lawful use of force the resisting party sustains injuries, even serious/potentially life-threatening injuries merely incidental to the lawful use of force (such as a head incidentally hitting an armrest during the course of detainment), then that liability is on the resisting party...NOT the detaining officer in the course of his/her official duties.
It's no different than if, in the course of the use of lawful and non-lethal self-defense during a street encounter using a hand-to-hand technique, the offending party happens to be tripped over by the defending party and incidentally smacks his/her head on a curb, causing death by severe head injury...Courts (at least in the U.S.) generally hold that death or great bodily harm resulting incidentally to the use of non-lethal defensive methods against an offending party is not the liability of the defending party, as the defending party generally would not have reasonably known that the use of a defensive method established by law and precedent to be "non-lethal" would have resulted in death or great bodily harm.
You seem to feel like this gentleman deserved this treatment. Do you work for United?