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 Howard A Treesong wrote:
They shouldn't be overbooking the flights in the first place. If they've got the money for the seat then it doesn't matter if the person doesn't turn up. Taking advantage of the fact that often people miss flights as a reason to gamble by selling more tickets than there are seats is just plain greedy and frankly shouldn't be allowed because you're selling product you don't have. Burying reference to being expected to give up a seat in such circumstances in a 50 page contract isn't reasonable (if that is the case).

This is not actually true because the no-shows can still get refunds, put on later flights, etc. For example, if someone misses a connecting flight because of a weather delay they're going to take up a seat on some other flight, they don't just lose the money they paid for the original ticket. Or if someone pays to change their ticket to a different date because business plans changed suddenly there's an empty seat on the flight that isn't paid for. You can complain about overbooking if you like, but be aware that the result of banning it will be increased ticket prices. And that's probably a much greater concern than the very small chance (about 0.013% of passengers, based on a quick search) of being involuntarily booted from a flight.

And it's hardly buried, overbooking is common knowledge, especially if you travel at all frequently.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
Your reliance on contract law is interesting. This is not a contract dispute and United knows it.

You're the one who accused United of, in your own words, "intentionally designing the system to violate their contract".

They did. That is an escape clause. Intentionally designing a system to use that clause shows a pattern and practice of intending to violate the agreement.

I'm not sure many airlines do offer refunds for missed flights - that tends to be covered by one's travel insurance, and even then only in specific, contractually defined situations.

Indeed, I'm not aware of any flight I've ever taken where not showing up allowed for a statutory refund?

 Peregrine wrote:

And let's not wander off on a complete tangent here, whether it's a perk or an obligation they're still not part of the crew. Not all employees of United are crew, so merely acting as an employee is not sufficient to make you no longer a passenger. They are commuting between jobs, not performing any necessary crew functions aboard that particular flight. From the point of view of the actual crew of that flight the employees are just additional self-loading cargo, and the only difference between them and the other self-loading cargo is that those four are more likely to know how to behave in public.

Gotta agree with Peregrine on that one; "the crew" obviously refers to the people actually working as crew on the particular flight, not the hypothetical crew of some other flight.

Then the contract needs to define crew as just that - especially as it only says 'crew' and not 'the crew'

Doesn't matter what UA think it means, it's what it means to the Layman.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I'm not sure many airlines do offer refunds for missed flights - that tends to be covered by one's travel insurance, and even then only in specific, contractually defined situations.

Indeed, I'm not aware of any flight I've ever taken where not showing up allowed for a statutory refund?

You can get tickets that are refundable. When I am doing tickets for nonbusiness, thats what I do.
Edit: I just realized I answered a question you didn't ask. Sorry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Stock down 2% in pre-trading.

United announces a new seat class; Fight Club
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/64k96k/united_airlines_is_proud_to_present_their_new/
"Go Southwest. 25% cheaper, 100% less punching you in the head."

Refusing to comply with police orders and interfering with the operation of an aircraft is a crime, so that might contribute to the situation...

Uh Oh now Twitter getting egg on face for deleting negative United Tweets:
https://thenextweb.com/twitter/2017/04/11/twitter-delete-united-airlines-tweets/#.tnw_uv0NjzYq

EDIT: stock now down 4%

UA simply needs to settle this fast AND put on a good PR dog-n-pony show.

Also, I think this is a point that need to be addressed.

Unfortunately, ignorance of the law/regulations is NOT a defense.

When you purchase a ticket, you are bound by the contract that it stipulates. I'd bet 99% of the consumers don't even read the fine-print.

It is if the contract relies on non-standard terminology and singularly fails to explain those terms, leaving the consumer none the wise as to what is and isn't covered.

Very poor practice that.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It is if the contract relies on non-standard terminology and singularly fails to explain those terms, leaving the consumer none the wise as to what is and isn't covered.

Very poor practice that.

Possibly. That's going to take some attorney with some gumption to take on UA.

United's new slogan:
If you like your seat, you can KEEP your seat!

 whembly wrote:
UA simply needs to settle this fast AND put on a good PR dog-n-pony show.

Also, I think this is a point that need to be addressed.

Unfortunately, ignorance of the law/regulations is NOT a defense.

When you purchase a ticket, you are bound by the contract that it stipulates. I'd bet 99% of the consumers don't even read the fine-print.

Thats not quite accurate. Contract law is a detailed beast with many assumptions, and frankly doesn't have much t do with the far more lucrative world of tort law which is where this one would be. The victim is not going to argue contract law, but torts and negligence baby.

UAL stock down 4.2% now and falling.

 Frazzled wrote:

 whembly wrote:
UA simply needs to settle this fast AND put on a good PR dog-n-pony show.

Also, I think this is a point that need to be addressed.

Unfortunately, ignorance of the law/regulations is NOT a defense.

When you purchase a ticket, you are bound by the contract that it stipulates. I'd bet 99% of the consumers don't even read the fine-print.

Thats not quite accurate. Contract law is a detailed beast with many assumptions, and frankly doesn't have much t do with the far more lucrative world of tort law which is where this one would be. The victim is not going to argue contract law, but torts and negligence baby.

UAL stock down 4.2% now and falling.

True enough... as that's where:

...be.

Oh yea. Its got my heart all a flutter...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It is if the contract relies on non-standard terminology and singularly fails to explain those terms, leaving the consumer none the wise as to what is and isn't covered.

Very poor practice that.

It's only "non-standard" because you are deliberately trying to find a way to blame the airline. Let us review. The people in question:

Are not on the clock.

Are not performing any job duties on the flight.

Are not given any authority over anyone else on the plane.

Are not given any responsibility for the safety of the flight.

Are not subject to FAA regulations regarding crew.

Are not considered crew by FAA regulations.

May not be counted towards the required minimum crew for the aircraft.

May not legally enter the cockpit, take over crew duties, etc.

Do not count the time spent on the flight towards maximum flying hours for a given period.

So, by any common-sense definition they are not crew on that flight. And the only argument you seem to be able to make for their status as crew is that they are employees of United Airlines and not explicitly designated as "not crew". And it should be pretty obvious that defaulting to considering all airline employees to be crew unless proved otherwise is not a reasonable position to take.

And of course even if you do establish that the employees are "crew" you're still resorting to nitpicking the exact details of the CoC. There's no argument that removing passengers in general is unacceptable, only that technically the people involved were not "passengers" in some legal sense. If the flight had been overbooked for the standard reason of selling more tickets than seats the passenger in this incident would have been bumped to a different flight in the exact same way, a practice that is going to continue because it is profitable for the airline. And the passenger who was removed from the flight was still arguably guilty of a federal crime (interfering with the operation of the aircraft), still certainly guilty of refusing to obey instructions from the crew (which is, itself, grounds for being removed from the flight), and still guilty of resisting lawful actions by the police. The absolute most you could possibly hope to get out of this is that United changes the CoC to explicitly allow them to boot passengers to make room for their own employees, and everything continues on exactly as it does now.

Well, it is the airlines fault. Or is it the passenger's fault that United overbooked?

This thread is crazy far from the norm of the public opinion. I haven't seen victim-blaming of this caliber in quite a while.

No wonder United is being raked over the coals, they have the mindset of Peregrine where they believe they did nothing wrong.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
Well, it is the airlines fault. Or is it the passenger's fault that United overbooked?

This thread is crazy far from the norm of the public opinion. I haven't seen victim-blaming of this caliber in quite a while.

No wonder United is being raked over the coals, they have the mindset of Peregrine where they believe they did nothing wrong.

I like the one meme with the TWD guy with the bat as UA's new director of customer relations.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
This thread is crazy far from the norm of the public opinion.

That's because public opinion is based on ignorance and reflexive "THE POOR MAN WITH THE BLOODY FACE" instead of looking at the facts of the situation. United had every right to bump him under the terms of service that he agreed to when he bought the ticket, and the story conveniently leaves out the fact that this wasn't some United employee going back to beat him into submission, he was hurt in the process of resisting lawful orders from the police. If public opinion is in his favor it's only because the public is ignorant and entitled.

I haven't seen victim-blaming of this caliber in quite a while.

It's hardly victim-blaming to point out that, when the police tell you to do something (and are legally entitled to give the order), resisting is probably not going to end well for you. Nor is it victim-blaming to point out that the passenger in question agreed to a contract saying "we can bump you if we need to", and then tried to pull a ridiculous "DO YOU KNOW HOW IMPORTANT I AM" act when the airline tried to enforce that part of the contract. Sorry, but they agreed to the deal and were perfectly happy to take advantage of the lower ticket prices that are the result of overbooking, they forfeit the right to complain about the airline bumping them.

They wernt police, they were airport security. Do they have the same jurisdictional powers as actual police?

Nor was their request apparently lawful, or else the authority in question would not be on leave and federal investigation would not be going on. But the Security Officer in question is on leave, and there is a federal investigation going on.

The guy paid of his fare and was seated on the plane, I believe thats past the point of it being unreasonable for him to expect to not reach his destination per his purchase of ticket and contract with airline

Its far from ignorance to expect that if you buy a plane ticket, you're not later punched in the face and knocked out and drug along the isle off of the plane for no good reason other than "random" (which may have not been entirely random) selection

So yes its victim blaming

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
No wonder United is being raked over the coals, they have the mindset of Peregrine where they believe they did nothing wrong.

Oh, I acknowledge that United did something wrong. They made the mistake of trying to win the court of public opinion with facts instead of emotions. They should have killed the story as soon as it appeared by apologizing, giving the guy some "now STFU" money, and making some comments about disciplining the people involved. But instead they forgot that the public is a horde of ignorant spoiled children with the attention span of a goldfish, and let this turn into a PR debacle.

 Peregrine wrote:

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
No wonder United is being raked over the coals, they have the mindset of Peregrine where they believe they did nothing wrong.

Oh, I acknowledge that United did something wrong. They made the mistake of trying to win the court of public opinion with facts instead of emotions. They should have killed the story as soon as it appeared by apologizing, giving the guy some "now STFU" money, and making some comments about disciplining the people involved. But instead they forgot that the public is a horde of ignorant spoiled children with the attention span of a goldfish, and let this turn into a PR debacle.

Uh huh.

How dare the public expect to be treated like people instead of cattle.

 Peregrine wrote:

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
No wonder United is being raked over the coals, they have the mindset of Peregrine where they believe they did nothing wrong.

Oh, I acknowledge that United did something wrong. They made the mistake of trying to win the court of public opinion with facts instead of emotions. They should have killed the story as soon as it appeared by apologizing, giving the guy some "now STFU" money, and making some comments about disciplining the people involved. But instead they forgot that the public is a horde of ignorant spoiled children with the attention span of a goldfish, and let this turn into a PR debacle.

Here's what they did wrong.
1. They bought Continental. Wait thats another thread.
2. They intentionally overbooked the flight.
3. They let everyone board.
4. THEN they decided four people needed to go in violation of the agreement they made with those passengers, due to their INTENTIONAL act.
5. They did not offer just and fair compensation.
6. Instead of offering just and fair compensation, they called in the police. In addition to being a PR disaster in the US and China, this harmed the passenger physically, emotionally, and reputation-ally. Additionally all those who witnessed the event were negligently harmed.

Intentionally overbooking is standard practice, it shouldn't be but it's likely done to compensate the lower fares by not missing out on those who don't show. I saw an analogy later about airlines being somewhat like a bakery, they have an amount they can sell during a day and any they have leftover they can't sell later.

The dodgy thing about this besides the way the security treated the passengers more, was them bumping 4 people just to transport their own guys. This guy in question was a doctor and claimed he had patients he had to see the next day, that seems somewhat important so they could have looked around a bit more for more to bump or instead figure a better way to send their employees or maybe split their flights instead. It was mentioned they offered lower compensation prior to boarding then the compensation rose later on. As for reputation, I figure this is like mixing slightly more dog gak into the flaming bag they must seem to be already.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
They wernt police, they were airport security. Do they have the same jurisdictional powers as actual police?

Same thing. They have police power in that particular jurisdiction, and you'd think that in the post-9/11 world people would understand that "don't mess with airport security" is a rule to live by.

Nor was their request apparently lawful, or else the authority in question would not be on leave and federal investigation would not be going on. But the Security Officer in question is on leave, and there is a federal investigation going on.

Investigation =/= conviction. I strongly suspect that this is the "OMG BAD PR" kind of investigation, where they need to be seen to be Doing Something About This regardless of the reality of the situation. And the reality is that United had every right to remove him, and request that the police deal with the trespassing situation (and, arguably, the federal crime of interfering with the aircraft/crew).

The guy paid of his fare and was seated on the plane, I believe thats past the point of it being unreasonable for him to expect to not reach his destination per his purchase of ticket and contract with airline

Only for a definition of "reasonable" that includes expecting something that the airline never promised him. Flights often get delayed/canceled once passengers are in their seats, if you assume that sitting down means you're guaranteed to get to your destination on schedule that's your fault, not the airline's. And of course nothing in the CoC states that you're guaranteed to keep your seat once you're in it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
How dare the public expect to be treated like people instead of cattle.

Like it or not, you're self-loading cargo. You want cheap tickets, you deal with airline travel being a bus with wings.

 n0t_u wrote:
Intentionally overbooking is standard practice, it shouldn't be but it's likely done to compensate the lower fares by not missing out on those who don't show. I saw an analogy later about airlines being somewhat like a bakery, they have an amount they can sell during a day and any they have leftover they can't sell later.

Standard practice doesn't mean legal, fair, or equitable.

 n0t_u wrote:
Intentionally overbooking is standard practice, it shouldn't be but it's likely done to compensate the lower fares by not missing out on those who don't show. I saw an analogy later about airlines being somewhat like a bakery, they have an amount they can sell during a day and any they have leftover they can't sell later.

The dodgy thing about this besides the way the security treated the passengers more, was them bumping 4 people just to transport their own guys. This guy in question was a doctor and claimed he had patients he had to see the next day, that seems somewhat important so they could have looked around a bit more for more to bump or instead figure a better way to send their employees or maybe split their flights instead. It was mentioned they offered lower compensation prior to boarding then the compensation rose later on. As for reputation, I figure this is like mixing slightly more dog gak into the flaming bag they must seem to be already.

I don't have time to search, but has it been verified he actually is a doctor? If so, it will make United look worse.

The leggings was one thing, especially since it involves employee passes. I've flown on those before and there is a dress code. The media minimized that part but United should have emphasized that more. But a respectful-looking Asian dude who claims he is a doctor with a bloody face is a PR nightmare...

Not that it matters, but I fly Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airlines (ANA) and Cathay Pacific (Hong Kong) at times and the service and treatment on those three non-U.S. carriers kills that on U.S. airlines. You do pay more of course.

 Frazzled wrote:
4. THEN they decided four people needed to go in violation of the agreement they made with those passengers, due to their INTENTIONAL act.

There is no violation of the agreement, because the agreement includes "we can bump you to a different flight if we need to". The violation was of one entitled passenger's expectation that United would provide him with service that was never promised, simply because he's a Very Important Doctor who shouldn't have to be bound by the terms he agreed to when he bought the ticket if it would be any inconvenience to him.

5. They did not offer just and fair compensation.

Wrong. Compensation is not something that is "offered" in this case. If you are bumped involuntarily you get paid, period. The compensation is set by law, and if he had walked off the plane without incident he would have received his money. The issue here is that your definition of fair compensation seems to be "as much money as he wants", not "the compensation specified in the contract he agreed to when he bought the ticket".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 n0t_u wrote:
The dodgy thing about this besides the way the security treated the passengers more, was them bumping 4 people just to transport their own guys.

There's nothing wrong with that. As mentioned before, the employees in question were not random customer service people traveling on vacation or whatever, they were the crew for later flights on their way to work. If they don't get where they need to be then other flights get delayed, and it potentially turns into a chain reaction of delays and missed connecting flights. The end result is that way more than four people get inconvenienced by the situation.

Paying for a ticket and expecting transportation is "Entitlement" now?

 WrentheFaceless wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
No wonder United is being raked over the coals, they have the mindset of Peregrine where they believe they did nothing wrong.

Oh, I acknowledge that United did something wrong. They made the mistake of trying to win the court of public opinion with facts instead of emotions. They should have killed the story as soon as it appeared by apologizing, giving the guy some "now STFU" money, and making some comments about disciplining the people involved. But instead they forgot that the public is a horde of ignorant spoiled children with the attention span of a goldfish, and let this turn into a PR debacle.

Uh huh.

How dare the public expect to be treated like people instead of cattle.

People willingly agree to be cattle, it's their decision.

It's not United problem that people are ignorant.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
Paying for a ticket and expecting transportation is "Entitlement" now?

When the terms of the ticket include "we have the right to bump you to a later flight", yes, it's entitlement to expect that you can't be bumped because you're a Very Important Doctor Who Can Not Be Inconvenienced. United stated up front that bumping is a possibility, if you accept a deal you don't get to whine and complain when that deal is actually enforced.

And note that he was still going to get his transportation. Getting bumped doesn't mean you get left in the middle of nowhere, it just means the airline puts you on a later flight and hands you a check for your trouble. If you're a reasonably intelligent person you understand that airline flights can end up delayed or canceled for a variety of reasons, and make sure that your travel schedule can accommodate the delay. If it was so urgent that he get back home to see his Very Important Patients then what was he planning to do if there was a weather delay or mechanical problem?