United overbooked a flight so they dragged a passenger off the plane

[Raelbo]

It was wrong for United to overbook.

No it wasn't. This is something that is pretty much standard practice in the industry, and which benefits customers with lower ticket prices.

Airlines overbook to keep costs down. An empty seat is a cost to the airline, and they always have some passengers who don't pitch up in time. If you overbook, then you have less empty seats. In the end the actuaries do their thing and work out the best solution. It's about a compromise between reduced the average number of empty seats and the cost of placating the odd customer who might need to be deferred. And in most cases things work out fine (with 100 000 flights a day, there are likely millions of incidents a year that work out without any problems).

The problem here isn't just about overbooking. It's about the confluence of factors:

1) The practice of overbooking
2) The timing of the flight (apparently the next flight was a full 24 hours later)
3) The statistically unlikely lack of a willing volunteer to take even the increased offer
4) The extreme stubborness of the randomly selected passenger
5) The desire of people to rather video the conflict than just take it upon themselves to stand up and end it peacefully by volunteering
6) The unwillingness of United to keep increasing their offer
7) The ineptitude of the airport security staff in handling the stubborn passenger

[Otaka]

I heard airlines overbook flights all the time because there are always people who dont show up. And the reason for overbooking is because flying a plane is expensive so they want to have the flights full all the time... so its not necessary their fault but rather the customers fault who dont show up despite booking a flight.
Airplanes are pretty much like buses these days that people use them to travel anywhere but its no big deal if they feel like they cant make it... when in truth taking a train/bus is significantly less expensive for the companies.
Taking a massive plane up into the air is still not the easiest thing in the world... alot of things can go wrong and if they do its death. Where as if a bus has transmission issues or runs out of fuel it most likely wont result in any deaths.

But still this is quite brutal. I cant believe they arent reserving a few seats for their own employees and have those few seats available IF someone comes late or the employees dont make it... shouldnt be end of the world if few seats are empty? but oh well... corporates need money.

[zenkai]

I don't really agree with overbooking. If it bothers you and you want something done, write your congressmen, I suppose.

They didn't even follow the rules, they are suppose to offer up to 1,350 and they didn't

[zenkai]

No it wasn't. This is something that is pretty much standard practice in the industry, and which benefits customers with lower ticket prices.

Airlines overbook to keep costs down. An empty seat is a cost to the airline, and they always have some passengers who don't pitch up in time. If you overbook, then you have less empty seats. In the end the actuaries do their thing and work out the best solution. It's about a compromise between reduced the average number of empty seats and the cost of placating the odd customer who might need to be deferred. And in most cases things work out fine (with 100 000 flights a day, there are likely millions of incidents a year that work out without any problems).

The problem here isn't just about overbooking. It's about the confluence of factors:

1) The practice of overbooking
2) The timing of the flight (apparently the next flight was a full 24 hours later)
3) The statistically unlikely lack of a willing volunteer to take even the increased offer
4) The extreme stubborness of the randomly selected passenger
5) The desire of people to rather video the conflict than just take it upon themselves to stand up and end it peacefully by volunteering
6) The unwillingness of United to keep increasing their offer
7) The ineptitude of the airport security staff in handling the stubborn passenger

Just because you repeat your post doesn't mean it isn't shit. Maybe you enjoy getting fucked over by airlines but us normal people don't

UA didn't even follow the federal guidelines and offer up to 1,350, so they are in the wrong.

[Wyrt]

No it wasn't. This is something that is pretty much standard practice in the industry, and which benefits customers with lower ticket prices.

Airlines overbook to keep costs down. An empty seat is a cost to the airline, and they always have some passengers who don't pitch up in time. If you overbook, then you have less empty seats. In the end the actuaries do their thing and work out the best solution. It's about a compromise between reduced the average number of empty seats and the cost of placating the odd customer who might need to be deferred. And in most cases things work out fine (with 100 000 flights a day, there are likely millions of incidents a year that work out without any problems).

The problem here isn't just about overbooking. It's about the confluence of factors:

Why do people keep repeating this? If someone buys a ticket and then doesn't show up to the flight they already paid for that seat. It's done, paid for. They aren't getting a refund for not showing up. They aren't losing money.

[minteK917]

No it wasn't. This is something that is pretty much standard practice in the industry, and which benefits customers with lower ticket prices.

Airlines overbook to keep costs down. An empty seat is a cost to the airline, and they always have some passengers who don't pitch up in time. If you overbook, then you have less empty seats. In the end the actuaries do their thing and work out the best solution. It's about a compromise between reduced the average number of empty seats and the cost of placating the odd customer who might need to be deferred. And in most cases things work out fine (with 100 000 flights a day, there are likely millions of incidents a year that work out without any problems).

The problem here isn't just about overbooking. It's about the confluence of factors:

1) The practice of overbooking
2) The timing of the flight (apparently the next flight was a full 24 hours later)
3) The statistically unlikely lack of a willing volunteer to take even the increased the initial offer
4) The extreme stubborness of the randomly selected passenger
5) The desire of people to rather video the conflict than just take it upon themselves to stand up and end it peacefully by volunteering
6) The unwillingness of United to keep increasing their offer
7) The ineptitude of the airport security staff in handling the stubborn passenger

Actually its not how overbooking work. They dont do it to keep cost down. They do it to make extra money. You dont get a refund for not showing up. Its clear you never traveled. They do it so that some seats will give double the revenue. So yes its a practice law makers needs to deal with already. At least the video made my own country wake the fuck up. They are planning to get a law against it before the end of april.

[DrMcNinja]

"Up to $1,350"

Indeed. For many airlines, the amount of compensation can rise depending on several factors, with distance being the biggest one.

[Deleted]

"Up to $1,350"

Which means they offered only 59% of the maximum amount they can offer according to aviation guidelines. They should have gone up to $1,350 before exploring other options. The fact that they didn't and immediately decided to employ force is an issue you'll probably ignore.

[caervek]

I'm aware. He was bumped.

Being bumped is being denied boarding, he was forcibly removed from the plane.

Once seated that's normally it, if the plane is fully occupied then any more passengers at the gate get bumped. The issue here is that after the plane was boarded and ready to leave the gate the airline then decided it needed to remove people from the flight to put some of it's employees on, they tried bribing people to give up their seats and when that didn't work they called security to forcibly remove him.

All in all the blame for this cluster**** can be laid 100% at UA (or at least the employees at the gate who caused this mess) because the security were just following their orders.

[minteK917]

"Up to $1,350"

They beat the shit out of him before reaching the limit the law demands. Thats only in America, some Airlines gives more then that too. So yeah. Its costing them millions in market share lmao. Im sure they regret not paying someone more then even the maximum the law ask. I bet the CEO would go back in time and pay someone $5000 in retrospective.

[GreenJesus]

1+2) 'Reasonable' is in the eye of the beholder. If no one was willing, it means the offer wasn't reasonable enough. The reasonable thing to do was to increase the offer until someone accepted, which would've cost more in a singular compensation but avoided the PR disaster that this became. Even if they went all the way to $ 8000, it's a pittance compared to the cost of this incident. And no, this does not create a dangerous precedent, as argued before that compensation bidding wars find their own equilibrium.
3) Random selection to remove someone from the plane is not reasonable at all. Reasonable is to continue working out an offer until someone voluntarily relinquishes his seat.
4) The first couple had a lower subjective value to their flight than others. There's nothing inherently reasonable about it. 2 Scenarios:
- You're a frequent flyer with a few days off and you booked a flight to visit your grandparents. On your way home you're asked to give up your seat and travel the next day. You've got no obligations the next day so you decide to take the offer.
- You're traveling for work and need to make it to your destination so you can join the meeting early next morning. Missing your flight means missing your meeting and messing up the schedule of other invitees. You don't want to skip this one, an important client is involved and you want to seal the deal. It might even be that any possible compensation the airline offers does not compare to the potential loss of the client. You don't give up your seat.

Neither of these 2 travelers are unreasonable. They both have attached a different value to their seat and will both settle for different compensations. There's no objective guidebook because you cannot fully objectify value and intent.
5) The doctor not wanting to miss his scheduled appointments is not unreasonable. Whether this is an argument to prioritize him over other passengers is something I disagree with, but the doctor his reason for not wanting to give up his seat is entirely valid and reasonable. A simple "No, I don't want to" is already fundamentally reasonable: they paid for their seats and demanding they give them up to ferry employees to an assignment is not reasonable. You've got your priorities mixed up.
6) Calling in the police is absolutely unreasonable. The doctor wasn't a danger to other passengers. If the doctor doesn't want to give up the seat he paid for to a non-active employee, there's no policy in aviation history that gives the police a legal mandate to have him removed, by excessive force, from the plane. The involvement of the Chicago Police is excessive and disastrous. It escalated the situation to something that could have been completely avoided by the airline.
7) The racial profiling is unreasonable, I'm not going to go into that. The doctor not wanting to cooperate is reasonable: there's no reasonable reason why he should be forced to give up his seat. Give me 1, there isn't any. He paid for his seat like everyone else.
8) Force, in this case, is by no means reasonable in any circumstance. You cannot force a paying customer to give up what he paid for against his will. There were plenty of options that weren't exhausted before they decided to assault the man.

You should be ashamed of yourself for believing in these 8 opinions. Your warped sense of authoritarian reality is dangerous. Let's hope you remain a danger to yourself only.

Only legal reason is that a captain of a plane has the authority to kick people off of a plane for not following orders given by flight crew or himself.

[zenkai]

"Up to $1,350"

It's 400% or 1,350 what ever caps out first, I couldn't find a UA ticket from Chicago to SDF under 200. in fact UA was 430. 430*4 = 1,720 they are required by law to offer more than they did.

[Deleted]

Why do people keep repeating this? If someone buys a ticket and then doesn't show up to the flight they already paid for that seat. It's done, paid for. They aren't getting a refund for not showing up. They aren't losing money.

Because these people hardly ever travel.

[Rotted]

This would be a good argument if they refunded the passenger that missed the flight if they had a replacement. They don't however, so the empty seat is not a loss and this argument is moot.

Also I still have seen no confirmation one way or the other if they offered (near worthless) $ 800 Vouchers or actual cash. I've refused to take them up on the offer for vouchers in the past, as should everyone. If they bump you involuntarily, they have to pay cash. How about they pay the same amount - up to 4x the ticket price in cash - for volunteers.

The call for volunteers is just to get away cheap with their overbooking practices.

Valid point, but without knowing exactly how much it costs to send a specific flight up, charging people for missed seats still contribute to it,

But by no means, don't think I'm defending them, it is a douche bag practice and it is completely reliant on people agreeing to things like compo or vouchers

[caervek]

the reason for overbooking is because flying a plane is expensive so they want to have the flights full all the time

You don't get a refund if you don't show up to your flight lol.

Incidentally over in Europe an overbooked flight usually means that the originally scheduled plane is unavailable so a smaller one is taking it's place (it's considered bad practice to deliberately overbook a flight).

[Spectral]

That is part of what plan better means. Randomly selecting people is asinine. They shouldn't be randomly selecting people to kick off - it never should have gotten that far. If they can't get someone to leave voluntarily, maybe the flight crew they decided to board last minute should go elsewhere.

This doesn't make sense to me - delaying the crew delays another entire flight. To try to avoid inconveniencing one guy? I don't see how that's a good idea. Obviously they didn't handle this well, but I really don't know how most people think this should work. There's a lot of "do something!", but solutions like "don't send the crew" or "stop overbooking" are pretty naïve.

[Deleted]

So yeah. Its costing them millions in market share lmao.

Honestly, I hope it does. The more the better. It doesn't matter if it's common practice in the industry or not - it's an entirely bad practice that should neither be allowed, nor exist in the first place; and just because airlines usually get away with it doesn't change that fact.

[caervek]

Being bumped isn't always being denied boarding.

No that's what it means, being bumped is slang for being denied boarding: "If this happens to you, it means you have been ‘bumped’ from your flight. It is also called ‘denied boarding’."

If the plane is waiting to leave and they start asking people who have been boarded for volunteers to give up their seat so somebody else can come on that's actually different, in this situation they are supposed to bump the person at the gate but here UA chose to give their employees special treatment to say a few $'s and now they are paying for their greed lol.

[Wyrt]

This doesn't make sense to me - delaying the crew delays another entire flight. To try to avoid inconveniencing one guy? I don't see how that's a good idea. Obviously they didn't handle this well, but I really don't know how most people think this should work. There's a lot of "do something!", but solutions like "don't send the crew" or "stop overbooking" are pretty naïve.

Send the crew on a flight with another airline then.

[caervek]

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet but the Chicago Department of Aviation have condemned the incident and suspended the security personnel.

*EDIT*

Also it wasn't even UA employees they were trying to make room for, they were employees of another airline UA were doing a favour for.