UA pilot's union bashes police/security for the fiasco at ORD. Of course, if law enforcement were not called things could have gone down better. Big solid for the company.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/infuriate ... 21180.html

The story in most peoples mind is already written. This is a late (and self-serving) footnote.

Well, it did take them awhile.

Seems like the best thing to do here would have been to keep quiet. In all of the ensuing media coverage, I haven't seen much blame directed at the pilots to begin with - just the company in general. The Union appears to be inserting itself into an already-crowded mud-slinging match for no good reason.

I guess you didn't see the news conference when the attorney blamed the Captain for the event then ?

Also what exactly other than facts is in the statement from the union.

Not sure why this remains such a big story other than everyone has opinion to offer when it comes to airlines/

I was in SLC several years ago when a woman sitting close to the back of the plane refused to deplane under different circumstances and to airport police were called to forcibly remove her. Four cops, one on each arm and leg picked her up and brought her down the isle like a piece of cord wood. Not the same as this Dr. but still, what don't you understand about get off my plane?

I bet UAL could beat this deal, but all they want is to make it go away as fast as possible. You can be sure there will be any number of copy cats over the next couple of years.

Not sure why the pilots want to get into this fight, other than the fact that the Captain may have been the one who asked for police assistance?

30west wrote:

I guess you didn't see the news conference when the attorney blamed the Captain for the event then ?

No, guess I didn't - my apologies. In that case I can understand why they might wish to issue a statement. Is that the first time the Captain has been directly blamed? All other coverage I've seen has put the blame on the shoulders of the gate agents/cabin crew/United policy.

TVNWZ wrote:

Well, it did take them awhile.

And why should they comment at all?

Does anyone really care what ALPA pilots comments are? What, they waited to see which way the wind is blowing before they took a position?
Are Republic's pilots part of ALPA? Their union should be the one commenting since it was THEIR plane.

30west wrote:

I guess you didn't see the news conference when the attorney blamed the Captain for the event then ?

Also what exactly other than facts is in the statement from the union.

I find it ironic (at the very least) that Dao's attorney wants to involve the captain, while ignoring that his client apparently refused commands from the crew, the airline and the police. That is, at the press conference, the attorney noted that the captain is responsible for everything that happens about a flight, but side steps that his client ignored that authority.

727200 wrote:

Does anyone really care what ALPA pilots comments are? What, they waited to see which way the wind is blowing before they took a position?
Are Republic's pilots part of ALPA? Their union should be the one commenting since it was THEIR plane.

Why shouldn't the pilots make a comment about how unhappy they are about the way this was handled? They took their time to gather FACTS and write a response that directly addresses the issues. They could have responded right away with a knee jerk reaction like the rest of the world, but they didn't and I'm happy about that.

The pilots are not impressed with the way this went down and most believe that it would have been a different outcome on a United mainline flight. The pilots feel that this express carriers crew tarnished United's reputation by allowing it to happen. In no video or news article does it mention the Republic CA getting involved in any way. With the lawyer blaming the CA, the Pilot union wanted to address the facts that these were not UNITED pilots.

I will admit this statement addresses facts that most don't care about nor understand. There are so many moving parts that unless you understand the airline industry you won't care. However those who do work in the industry do appreciate the response from ALPA especially since the lawyer specifically addressed the lack of intervention by the CA in front of the entire world.

The OPs link merely demonstrates that by cherry picking facts you can create almost any story line to support any agenda.

The facts picked by the UA pilot union supports their view that UA is blameless and boarded customers should continue to be removed from planes to make room for crew. The excluded other facts, such as the questionable and unsettled legality of such removal, because that would conflict with the storyline and harm their agenda.

Happily, other sources present other facts, and the public can learn from all of them.

TheOldDude wrote:

The OPs link merely demonstrates that by cherry picking facts you can create almost any story line to support any agenda.

The facts picked by the UA pilot union supports their view that UA is blameless and boarded customers should continue to be removed from planes to make room for crew. The excluded other facts, such as the questionable and unsettled legality of such removal, because that would conflict with the storyline and harm their agenda.

Happily, other sources present other facts, and the public can learn from all of them.

Did you actually read it? Because that's not what the union said at all.

Well union did say this:

It is important to review these baseline facts:

1. This violent incident should never have happened and was a result of gross excessive force by Chicago Department of Aviation personnel.

The cherry picked fact here is that there is no mention about, or discussion of, calling police/security to physically remove someone. The outcry is about that and the subsequent handling of that. To dump on the DOA is to take out the company's culpability. Pretty cherry picky.

Ridiculous to try and shift the blame to the police. First do no harm. Did this statement help? I would say no. You now have given people the ability to criticize you for your (pilots' union) statement. If you don't want the police to help, don't call them. If the company calls police and wants someone removed, they should realize people don't always do what the police ask or tell them to do. That means the police will use force if you don't do what you are told to do. Don't want the police to forcibly remove a passenger from a plane, don't call the police to forcibly remove a passenger from the plane. Pretty easy to figure that out.

All this does is confirms that the UA culture is anti consumer and all about the company. I hope the general public gets to read what the pilots think because it will take them right back to the original Munoz ideology about this incident. At the very least, UA has a substantial amount of liability in this incident and for the UA pilots to try and spin it off to those 3 goons is wrong. And I can tell you this, if I am a UA pilot and I get pulled over by the fuzz and my uniform is either on or hanging up on the coat hook somewhere in the car, expect to get a ticket and lots of them. Shame on UA pilots.

jumbojet wrote:

All this does is confirms that the UA culture is anti consumer and all about the company. I hope the general public gets to read what the pilots think because it will take them right back to the original Munoz ideology about this incident. At the very least, UA has a substantial amount of liability in this incident and for the UA pilots to try and spin it off to those 3 goons is wrong. And I can tell you this, if I am a UA pilot and I get pulled over by the fuzz and my uniform is either on or hanging up on the coat hook somewhere in the car, expect to get a ticket and lots of them. Shame on UA pilots.

JumboJet........I have read this site for years and rarely post, as you can see. I can tell you that not many people, if anyone, values your opinion.

*****MODS. You need to do something about JumboJet. He will single handedly destroy this website. He already has caused the locking of threads.

CriticalPoint wrote:

jumbojet wrote:

All this does is confirms that the UA culture is anti consumer and all about the company. I hope the general public gets to read what the pilots think because it will take them right back to the original Munoz ideology about this incident. At the very least, UA has a substantial amount of liability in this incident and for the UA pilots to try and spin it off to those 3 goons is wrong. And I can tell you this, if I am a UA pilot and I get pulled over by the fuzz and my uniform is either on or hanging up on the coat hook somewhere in the car, expect to get a ticket and lots of them. Shame on UA pilots.

JumboJet........I have read this site for years and rarely post, as you can see. I can tell you that not many people, if anyone, values your opinion.

*****MODS. You need to do something about JumboJet. He will single handedly destroy this website. He already has caused the locking of threads.

A bit harsh in my judgement.....he is entitled to his opinion

jumbojet wrote:

All this does is confirms that the UA culture is anti consumer and all about the company. I hope the general public gets to read what the pilots think because it will take them right back to the original Munoz ideology about this incident. At the very least, UA has a substantial amount of liability in this incident and for the UA pilots to try and spin it off to those 3 goons is wrong. And I can tell you this, if I am a UA pilot and I get pulled over by the fuzz and my uniform is either on or hanging up on the coat hook somewhere in the car, expect to get a ticket and lots of them. Shame on UA pilots.

Of course you do realize, it was not a UA mainline flight??? So, perhaps you could explain your venomous comments about the UA pilots is based on?

I would bet UA pilots had the same debate we did, with about a 50/50 split until late in the game when Dao won all.

Everyone, even those who blame Dao, agree that "this should not have escalated into a violent encounter."

mmo wrote:

jumbojet wrote:

All this does is confirms that the UA culture is anti consumer and all about the company. I hope the general public gets to read what the pilots think because it will take them right back to the original Munoz ideology about this incident. At the very least, UA has a substantial amount of liability in this incident and for the UA pilots to try and spin it off to those 3 goons is wrong. And I can tell you this, if I am a UA pilot and I get pulled over by the fuzz and my uniform is either on or hanging up on the coat hook somewhere in the car, expect to get a ticket and lots of them. Shame on UA pilots.

Of course you do realize, it was not a UA mainline flight??? So, perhaps you could explain your venomous comments about the UA pilots is based on?

So, when DL fanboys brag about what a great job the airline does with no cancellations, the first thing that is brought up is, you guessed it, well what about their affiliates. So, UA pilots are trying to spin the story that because its Republic Airlines, it shouldn't count. Give me a bleeping break.

CriticalPoint wrote:

jumbojet wrote:

All this does is confirms that the UA culture is anti consumer and all about the company. I hope the general public gets to read what the pilots think because it will take them right back to the original Munoz ideology about this incident. At the very least, UA has a substantial amount of liability in this incident and for the UA pilots to try and spin it off to those 3 goons is wrong. And I can tell you this, if I am a UA pilot and I get pulled over by the fuzz and my uniform is either on or hanging up on the coat hook somewhere in the car, expect to get a ticket and lots of them. Shame on UA pilots.

JumboJet........I have read this site for years and rarely post, as you can see. I can tell you that not many people, if anyone, values your opinion.

*****MODS. You need to do something about JumboJet. He will single handedly destroy this website. He already has caused the locking of threads.

CP, I for one get fed up with the way the big 3, well at least 2 out of the 3, airlines treat the flying public. Its no secret that flying has become very stressful for many people and you can directly thank certain airlines for that. And to make matters worse, airline enthusiasts on this site try to justify the crappy service that the consumer gets. That my fellow Anetter, is disgusting, maybe those people should be banned to. We all need to be treated better, treated like human beings again.

While I do get on JetBlue, they do have very good customer service ratings as does Southwest. AA and UA, god help them.

n471wn wrote:

CriticalPoint wrote:

jumbojet wrote:

All this does is confirms that the UA culture is anti consumer and all about the company. I hope the general public gets to read what the pilots think because it will take them right back to the original Munoz ideology about this incident. At the very least, UA has a substantial amount of liability in this incident and for the UA pilots to try and spin it off to those 3 goons is wrong. And I can tell you this, if I am a UA pilot and I get pulled over by the fuzz and my uniform is either on or hanging up on the coat hook somewhere in the car, expect to get a ticket and lots of them. Shame on UA pilots.

JumboJet........I have read this site for years and rarely post, as you can see. I can tell you that not many people, if anyone, values your opinion.

*****MODS. You need to do something about JumboJet. He will single handedly destroy this website. He already has caused the locking of threads.

A bit harsh in my judgement.....he is entitled to his opinion

I'm not sure how saying if you are wearing a United uniform be prepared to be harassed by the police has any bearing on this conversation or real world practicality.

Harassed may be a little harsh, but you probably are not talking your way out of that ticket.

Not sure if it has anything to do with anything, but the website "The Smoking Gun" dug the dirt on Dao:
http://thesmokinggun.com/documents/crim ... nes-879032

jumbojet wrote:

All this does is confirms that the UA culture is anti consumer and all about the company. I hope the general public gets to read what the pilots think because it will take them right back to the original Munoz ideology about this incident. At the very least, UA has a substantial amount of liability in this incident and for the UA pilots to try and spin it off to those 3 goons is wrong. And I can tell you this, if I am a UA pilot and I get pulled over by the fuzz and my uniform is either on or hanging up on the coat hook somewhere in the car, expect to get a ticket and lots of them. Shame on UA pilots.

So lets analyze this, the flight crew from Republic shows up to DH and YOU don't know when, so YOU don't know if they followed procedure or not. Next the the UAL gate agent goes down to remove involuntarliy 4 passengers that the computer told the agent to remove after asking for voluntary removals. Then the Dr says no to the agent then the FA asks the Dr to leave again he says no, so now the Chicago Aviation Department is called, by whom YOU don't know (agent, ops flight crew, supervisor), the first cop on the scene asks the Dr to leave he says no again, so the cop calls his supervisor who comes with another cop, the supervisor asks the Dr to get off and he says no again so the 3rd cop drags him off the plane.

So explain to me how a UAL mainline pilot has anything to do with any of this and its clear to me whom didn't follow procedures , they are the only ones suspended at this time.

NamGunner wrote:

Not sure if it has anything to do with anything, but the website "The Smoking Gun" dug the dirt on Dao:
http://thesmokinggun.com/documents/crim ... nes-879032

His past record has no bearing upon the treatment he received. So why post it?

Does his being a Vietnamese "boat person" have any bearing on this matter?

How about his wife and four of his kids being physicians?

CriticalPoint wrote:

TheOldDude wrote:

The OPs link merely demonstrates that by cherry picking facts you can create almost any story line to support any agenda.

The facts picked by the UA pilot union supports their view that UA is blameless and boarded customers should continue to be removed from planes to make room for crew. The excluded other facts, such as the questionable and unsettled legality of such removal, because that would conflict with the storyline and harm their agenda.

Happily, other sources present other facts, and the public can learn from all of them.

Did you actually read it? Because that's not what the union said at all.

Exactly WHY would he care what the UNION said, OR what the FACTS are??
He's already made up his mind and has assumed the Mantle of Judge, Jury and Executioner!!