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No. But 'they racially discriminated against me' (even though the chaps ethnicity may have had sod all to do with it) is going to be squeaky bum time for any company, no?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
No. But 'they racially discriminated against me' (even though the chaps ethnicity may have had sod all to do with it) is going to be squeaky bum time for any company, no?

Nobody will care in 7 day, and the company will have plenty of proof that they didn't. But they don't have to bother explaining, because nobody will care in 7 days.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
No. But 'they racially discriminated against me' (even though the chaps ethnicity may have had sod all to do with it) is going to be squeaky bum time for any company, no?

Perhaps, if you can prove it*. But that's something to worry about once you have left the plane. "THIS IS RACIAL DISCRIMINATION" is not going to keep you on the plane, just like "IM A SOVEREIGN CITIZEN YOU CAN'T DO THIS" won't get you out of a speeding ticket.

*You almost certainly can't, but you might be able to win in the court of public opinion and get an out of court settlement even if your case has no legal merits.

 Peregrine wrote:

Perhaps, if you can prove it*. But that's something to worry about once you have left the plane. "THIS IS RACIAL DISCRIMINATION" is not going to keep you on the plane, just like "IM A SOVEREIGN CITIZEN YOU CAN'T DO THIS" won't get you out of a speeding ticket.

I was thinking that the "you can't deny me boarding after I've already boarded" might be an airline version of the sovereign citizen "I'm not driving, I'm traveling" shenanigans.

 d-usa wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Well in the discovery phase it will be interesting to see why an ethnic minority was picked out.

Hypothetical answer:

We looked at the itinerary of all passengers: we were able to re-book this passenger to get him to his destination with the shortest delay out of all the passengers on that plane. Deboarding anyone other than those four passengers would have resulted in longer delays for the passengers that would have been picked. In compliance with our policies, and the contract the passenger agreed to, he was picked because he was not a frequent flier, on the cheapest fare, and our ability to get him to his destination with only a minimal delay. {/quote]

*and how many other passengers were on the flight?
*how many had Asian names?
*Why did your group consist at least half from people with Asian sounding names?

United will settle this within 48 hours. The CEO is now getting flack over his stupid ass tweet.

Probably. But the public is stupid and it's often better to settle an issue where you did nothing wrong just to get people to shut up.

Oh they definitely did something wrong. Now they will pay.


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 Peregrine wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Looking pretty boned on the Contract of Carriage....

Overbooking onlyapplies to Passengers...

UA define Passengers as...any person except members of the crew (emphasis mine) carried or holding a confirmed reservation to be carried on the aircraft with the consent of the carrier.

Contact of Carriage doesn't seem to allow UA to hoy passengers off to make space for crew. A term which itself isn't defined in the T&C's.

So not only had they allowed this poor sod to board already, thus removing their right to refuse boarding (boarding not being defined, you'd go with the generally accepted term - and that's not 'already seated on the plane'), but their own Contract doesn't allow to remove passengers in favour of crew.

Whoopsadaisy...

Again, none of this matters. The pilot's word is law, period. If the pilot (whether on their own initiative or approving a request made by their employer) says "this person is getting off the plane" then that's the end of the discussion. The person is leaving, whether they leave voluntarily or are physically removed by the police. The passenger may be entitled to compensation for being moved to a different flight, and may be able to sue the airline for breach of contract or similar, but they are getting off the plane. No amount of "but you can't do this to me" or "I'm a really important person with really important places to be" will change this fact. And if you're dumb enough to resist the police in the process, well, you get what you ask for.

A pilot is an employee of the airline. The airline cannot discriminate or violate federal discrimination laws.
But the pilot is not the issue. United's boarding policies and methodologies are.

I suddenly feel a class action suit awaiting to be born. Muahahahahah

The issue is that he failed to comply with a legal order by the police and physically resisted them when they enforced their order.

United overbooked, United told him to get off the plane. That's where their responsibility ends.

The doctor is 100% responsible for his actions once the police got involved and for the results of his refusal to comply with their instructions.

Would it make any difference if they were not in fact Police, but Airline Security officers? I'm hearing they wernt actually police.

 d-usa wrote:
The issue is that he failed to comply with a legal order by the police and physically resisted them when they enforced their order.

United overbooked, United told him to get off the plane. That's where their responsibility ends.

The doctor is 100% responsible for his actions once the police got involved and for the results of his refusal to comply with their instructions.

Actually do you have video of him physically resisting?

Do you really think a jury is going to agree with you? After all, it is plainly United's faul that they overbooked and then specifically targeted him for removal. Mmm I spell cash. After all if they lose then that helps precedent for future times. Yep so settling and in a phat way.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Looking pretty boned on the Contract of Carriage....

Overbooking onlyapplies to Passengers...

UA define Passengers as...any person except members of the crew (emphasis mine) carried or holding a confirmed reservation to be carried on the aircraft with the consent of the carrier.

Contact of Carriage doesn't seem to allow UA to hoy passengers off to make space for crew. A term which itself isn't defined in the T&C's.

So not only had they allowed this poor sod to board already, thus removing their right to refuse boarding (boarding not being defined, you'd go with the generally accepted term - and that's not 'already seated on the plane'), but their own Contract doesn't allow to remove passengers in favour of crew.

Whoopsadaisy...

Again, none of this matters. The pilot's word is law, period. If the pilot (whether on their own initiative or approving a request made by their employer) says "this person is getting off the plane" then that's the end of the discussion. The person is leaving, whether they leave voluntarily or are physically removed by the police. The passenger may be entitled to compensation for being moved to a different flight, and may be able to sue the airline for breach of contract or similar, but they are getting off the plane. No amount of "but you can't do this to me" or "I'm a really important person with really important places to be" will change this fact. And if you're dumb enough to resist the police in the process, well, you get what you ask for.

Nonsense.

To have someone removed you still need a reason, and I'd wager that unless it goes beyond 'I didn't like the cut of his jib', you'd be leaving yourself wide open to a law suit, yes?

So let's look at what this guy has actually done wrong.

The Contract of Carriage, as demonstrated, only allows UA to deny boarding, yes? As this Passenger was clearly already in his seat, he's already boarded the aircraft - so the 'refused boarding' clause cannot apply.

And even if it can (aircraft may have a different common understanding of boarding), their own Contract of Carriage simply doesn't allow for them removing paying customers (defined as Passengers) in favour of crew (who are explicitly not counted as passengers in their own glossary)

So, based on that, and with no evidence to the contrary yet, we see an innocent member of the public abused by Police at the behest of an airline breaking its own Contract of Carriage.

Good luck proving that was a fair and reasonable exercise of your powers skip.

Now, the guy's efforts to reboard the plane, as it seems he tried to (and that may be where the bloodied face pics come from) then at that point things do change - but the fact and the point that UA's own contract of Carriage, that they wrote and defined makes no provision at all for removing him from the flight in the first place.


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 Peregrine wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
No. But 'they racially discriminated against me' (even though the chaps ethnicity may have had sod all to do with it) is going to be squeaky bum time for any company, no?

Perhaps, if you can prove it*. But that's something to worry about once you have left the plane. "THIS IS RACIAL DISCRIMINATION" is not going to keep you on the plane, just like "IM A SOVEREIGN CITIZEN YOU CAN'T DO THIS" won't get you out of a speeding ticket.

*You almost certainly can't, but you might be able to win in the court of public opinion and get an out of court settlement even if your case has no legal merits.

At least we can agree Sovereign Citizens/Freemen On The Land are all nutters!

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
Would it make any difference if they were not in fact Police, but Airline Security officers? I'm hearing they wernt actually police.

Airport Police, as far as I know.

No idea how that particular airport is set up though.

I do know that even airport rent-a-cops would outrank the TSA in actual matters of authority, so there is that

 d-usa wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Perhaps, if you can prove it*. But that's something to worry about once you have left the plane. "THIS IS RACIAL DISCRIMINATION" is not going to keep you on the plane, just like "IM A SOVEREIGN CITIZEN YOU CAN'T DO THIS" won't get you out of a speeding ticket.

I was thinking that the "you can't deny me boarding after I've already boarded" might be an airline version of the sovereign citizen "I'm not driving, I'm traveling" shenanigans.

I disagree. They can refuse boarding - and fair enough. But here, they'd allowed him to board already.

Again, providing boarding isn't commonly defined differently when it comes to airlines - but even then, I'd look to the most common understanding.

 d-usa wrote:

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
Would it make any difference if they were not in fact Police, but Airline Security officers? I'm hearing they wernt actually police.

Airport Police, as far as I know.

No idea how that particular airport is set up though.

I do know that even airport rent-a-cops would outrank the TSA in actual matters of authority, so there is that

On airport property and legaly defined areas they likely have police powers to arrest, detain and seach persons in duty of ensuring passenger safety.
Though you'd have to have "real police " likely to change you with anything.

Airlines says it is now reaching out to the person to resolve the situation.

Mmm settlement.

At the end of the day, United has the "law" on it's side with regards to doing what was within their rights to do, but man, their execution failed just epically in the exercise of said. Absolute PR and customer service nightmare.




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 Frazzled wrote:
Airlines says it is now reaching out to the person to resolve the situation.

Mmm settlement.

Oh, yeah. You got that right!

Article I read on CNN said the guy who resisted told them he was a doctor and needed to get back due to patients. They should have found somebody else. Handled poorly and was very disappointing to read. The amount of physical abuse he went through is NOT okay, just for refusing to give up his seat. Again; doctor with patients. Not just random guy who would lose a few hours out of a vacation. It was a guy who had legitimate people to take care of. Honestly, seeing how my company does medical work for the US military, and having cancelled flights, you tell the airline to GET you there. Not tomorrow, but NOW!! I can sympathize with the guy. He had pressing patients and didn't wanna turn them away to reschedule. Now, with the abuse he went through, even MORE patients are gonna be on hold. Hope they get to join the impending lawsuit against United.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Article I read on CNN said the guy who resisted told them he was a doctor and needed to get back due to patients. They should have found somebody else. Handled poorly and was very disappointing to read. The amount of physical abuse he went through is NOT okay, just for refusing to give up his seat. Again; doctor with patients. Not just random guy who would lose a few hours out of a vacation. It was a guy who had legitimate people to take care of. Honestly, seeing how my company does medical work for the US military, and having cancelled flights, you tell the airline to GET you there. Not tomorrow, but NOW!! I can sympathize with the guy. He had pressing patients and didn't wanna turn them away to reschedule. Now, with the abuse he went through, even MORE patients are gonna be on hold. Hope they get to join the impending lawsuit against United.

Yeah a simple proof of his medical ID or such should of put him in the clear.
And given its medical work for Military... Oh id expect that that be handles with clear high priority.

 jhe90 wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Article I read on CNN said the guy who resisted told them he was a doctor and needed to get back due to patients. They should have found somebody else. Handled poorly and was very disappointing to read. The amount of physical abuse he went through is NOT okay, just for refusing to give up his seat. Again; doctor with patients. Not just random guy who would lose a few hours out of a vacation. It was a guy who had legitimate people to take care of. Honestly, seeing how my company does medical work for the US military, and having cancelled flights, you tell the airline to GET you there. Not tomorrow, but NOW!! I can sympathize with the guy. He had pressing patients and didn't wanna turn them away to reschedule. Now, with the abuse he went through, even MORE patients are gonna be on hold. Hope they get to join the impending lawsuit against United.

Yeah a simple proof of his medical ID or such should of put him in the clear.
And given its medical work for Military... Oh id expect that that be handles with clear high priority.

Well, my company does medical work for the military. Not sure about this guy. But yeah, if he has proof he isn't talking out of his ass about being a doctor? United is screwed. And rightfully so. You DONT screw with medical professionals.

After watching the video. Did they knock him out or did he stop resisting after a bit? Kind of hard to tell with the video.

There are plenty of doctors to cover for him if he's late getting back.

"Do you know who I am" shouldn't be part of any metric that decides who gets bumped.

 timetowaste85 wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Article I read on CNN said the guy who resisted told them he was a doctor and needed to get back due to patients. They should have found somebody else. Handled poorly and was very disappointing to read. The amount of physical abuse he went through is NOT okay, just for refusing to give up his seat. Again; doctor with patients. Not just random guy who would lose a few hours out of a vacation. It was a guy who had legitimate people to take care of. Honestly, seeing how my company does medical work for the US military, and having cancelled flights, you tell the airline to GET you there. Not tomorrow, but NOW!! I can sympathize with the guy. He had pressing patients and didn't wanna turn them away to reschedule. Now, with the abuse he went through, even MORE patients are gonna be on hold. Hope they get to join the impending lawsuit against United.

Yeah a simple proof of his medical ID or such should of put him in the clear.
And given its medical work for Military... Oh id expect that that be handles with clear high priority.

Well, my company does medical work for the military. Not sure about this guy. But yeah, if he has proof he isn't talking out of his ass about being a doctor? United is screwed. And rightfully so. You DONT screw with medical professionals.

No, and given if true, and of true flying out to see patiants.
Then its not known but safe guess he may be some kind of consultant, specialist or such If your flying someone to see someone then its probbly pretty serious reason why your going to that cost and effett.

Or he just flying home .....

 d-usa wrote:
There are plenty of doctors to cover for him if he's late getting back.

"Do you know who I am" shouldn't be part of any metric that decides who gets bumped.

As far as I've read the random selection is not authorized to make exceptions legally. So doctor or not, with patients or not. He got picked he has to go.

Wow. I mean, I wondered if there was any kind of line the Corporate Autocracy fanclub wouldn't cross, but evidently some folk are happy to excuse even beating a small man unconscious and dragging him off a plane in response to him peacefully refusing to leave a seat he bought & paid for which the airline were demanding he give up for no good reason, because said man was a Doctor who needed to get home to treat his patients.

Those scum should be ashamed, but of course they won't be because there are plenty of folk willing to cheer them on and tell them they're Doing Their Duty. I suppose the best that can be hoped for is he sues the balls off the airline, and that one by one all the people who're OK with this get to experience exactly the same treatment.

It wasn't one guy that was singled out there were others that had to disembark it is just that he was the only one that decided to resist police. It is hard to pretend that it was racially motivated against an individual without knowing what the ethnicity of the other passengers were that decided not to fight the airport police.

This seems more like one of those times where people want to get emotional and throw fits but the facts don't really line up with that. Overbooking is not a new practice, being bumped from a plane is not a new practice, and the results of fighting the police instead of leaving an aircraft shouldn't surprise people either. Instead the myth propagated is that a mean ol' greedy company has security beat up random Asian man for no reason. As far as I can tell the story being used to anger people isn't an accurate one to what happened.

 Ahtman wrote:
It wasn't one guy that was singled out there were others that had to disembark it is just that he was the only one that decided to resist police. It is hard to pretend that it was racially motivated against an individual without knowing what the ethnicity of the other passengers were that decided not to fight the airport police.

This seems more like one of those times where people want to get emotional and throw fits but the facts don't really line up with that. Overbooking is not a new practice, being bumped from a plane is not a new practice, and the results of fighting the police instead of leaving an aircraft shouldn't surprise people either. Instead the myth propagated is that a mean ol' greedy company has security beat up random Asian man for no reason. As far as I can tell the story being used to anger people isn't an accurate one to what happened.

"Fight" the police, LOL.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Wow. I mean, I wondered if there was any kind of line the Corporate Autocracy fanclub wouldn't cross

This is a ridiculous bit of a false dichotomy, and the rest was a pretty good fantasy about the situation as well. Companies are sometimes right and sometimes wrong but it isn't some homogeneous group where one can just assume either based solely on the fact it is a company. Also, it wasn't the company that physically removed the man after he refused to leave multiple times, it was the police.


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 Yodhrin wrote:
"Fight" the police, LOL.

Ask any barrister or lawyer what will happen on an aircraft when told by the Airline and the state authority to exit the plane and you tell them 'no' repeatedly. Just as breaking and entering doesn't literally require the breaking of material items neither does resisting mean that one has to physically assault police. Just sitting there and refusing to leave the aircraft won't get them go "oh well he really wants to stay I guess we should be ok with it".

 Ahtman wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Wow. I mean, I wondered if there was any kind of line the Corporate Autocracy fanclub wouldn't cross

This is a ridiculous bit of a false dichotomy, and the rest was a pretty good fantasy about the situation as well. Companies are sometimes right and sometimes wrong but it isn't some homogeneous group where one can just assume either based solely on the fact it is a company. Also, it wasn't the company that physically removed the man after he refused to leave multiple times, it was the police.

Yes, and you'll note I have plenty of disdain for those thugs as well. As for assumptions, I'm assuming nothing - I watched the video, I read the accounts of what occurred, I read the responses released by the airline, and I conluded that they were wrong because an airline shouldn't be throwing paying bloody customers off a plane because they're too cheap to figure out another way to get their staff where they need to go. They asked, they offered compensation, people still said they wanted to stay on the flight, and that should have been the end of the matter since those customers had no responsibility whatsoever for the airline's feth up and trying to shift the blame on to them is despicable. And the Corporate Autocracy comment was in reference to the regular band of folk around here who will reliably defend any corporation and the poilice acting on their behalf in any situation, case in point.

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 Yodhrin wrote:
"Fight" the police, LOL.

Ask any barrister or lawyer what one should do on an aircraft when told by state authority to exit the plane and you tell them 'no' repeatedly. Just as breaking and entering doesn't literally require the breaking of material items neither does resisting mean that one has to physically assault police. Just sitting there and refusing to leave the aircraft won't get them go "oh well he really wants to stay I guess we should be ok with it".

Resisting is not "fighting", and if you seriously believe that peacefully refusing to comply with an instruction permits a police officer to beat someone senseless and drag them down an aisle like a sack of fething potatoes, there's no point continuing to discuss this because we don't merely disagree, we live on entirely different planets.

 Yodhrin wrote:
I read the accounts of what occurred

Then your response doesn't make much sense beyond facile outrage that isn't based on how airlines or laws work.

 Yodhrin wrote:
And the Corporate Autocracy comment was in reference to the regular band of folk around here who will reliably defend any corporation and the poilice acting on their behalf in any situation, case in point.

Perhaps I misundertood what you were trying to say but it seemed initially that you were saying anyone that didn't agree with your interpretation of events was corporate stooge.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Resisting is not "fighting", and if you seriously believe that peacefully refusing to comply with an instruction permits a police officer to beat someone senseless and drag them down an aisle like a sack of fething potatoes, there's no point continuing to discuss this because we don't merely disagree, we live on entirely different planets.

And again it doesn't matter if you don't literally 'fight' them. They did not 'beat him senseless' randomly or without cause. He trespassed on an airplane and he decided to do what any attorney would advise against, which is telling the cops to, essentially, feth off. The passenger deciding to make a foolish stand there and then guaranteed there wouldn't be a good outcome. I've never met a defense attorney who would advise trying the police in that moment as you will never win. If he thought it was unjust you deal with it by suing the airline, or any of several other avenues available, but trying to get into an impasse with police right then is always a bad idea. I have to imagine that even in the UK telling the police that you aren't moving when told to vacate would end with them just letting you go either, same as if they asked you to step out of your car and you refused. Police deal with a lot of crap, airport or otherwise, and they don't typically have the luxury of hindsight when someone chooses to confront them.

I even explicitly stated it could have been handled better above but that doesn't matter when we can choose unnecessary moral outrage using selective information. If the information changes I'm more than willing to change but as it stands pretending this guy did absolutely nothing wrong is just as silly as assuming that he was absolutely right.

The only real lesson is that if you give an airline money and agree that they can kick you off a plane by finalizing the transaction, then don't refuse to follow that contract and interfere with the operation of the aircraft.

I know contracts for our purchases are like the Terms and Agreements we ignore every time we update our phone, but just because you don't read them doesn't mean that you didn't agree to them. And it looks like a lot of folks never read the fine print on their tickets.

 Frazzled wrote:
A pilot is an employee of the airline. The airline cannot discriminate or violate federal discrimination laws.

They can't, but claiming discrimination still isn't going to keep you from being removed. What would happen in that case is that the passenger would be removed (by whatever means are necessary), and would have to sue the airline for discrimination afterwards.

(Of course in this case there's no evidence at all that any discrimination occurred, so the case would not succeed.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
To have someone removed you still need a reason

No you don't. You might get sued afterwards, but the passenger is still getting off that plane.


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 timetowaste85 wrote:
The amount of physical abuse he went through is NOT okay, just for refusing to give up his seat.

It wasn't just for refusing to give up his seat, it was for ignoring instructions from the police and flight crew. And remember that refusing to comply with those instructions is potentially a federal crime, so he should consider himself lucky that the worst that happened was that the police dragged him out one he refused to go voluntarily. If you disobey lawful instructions from the police you shouldn't be surprised when it doesn't go well for you.

Hope they get to join the impending lawsuit against United.

You mean the lawsuit in the court of public opinion, where he hopes to force United to settle out of court to avoid bad PR? Because there's certainly no grounds for a lawsuit in real court. The airline indisputably has the ability to remove passengers (with specific compensation required if they do), and nothing in the law allows the passenger to say "but I'm a Really Important Person so you can't remove me".

If they overbook they should kick off the last people to check in at the gate, especially if they were late boarding. Nothing sucks more than the plane having to sit in the gate while some moron is still racing to the terminal. If you care about flying get there early so everyone is on time.

Also the airline shouldn't overbook they know exactly how many seats they have and it's their own fault if they overbook, they should never bump customers for employees trying to ride on pass. Flying has degenerated into a canned sardine bus service in the sky, it's sad really.