Current Events > Man physically assaulted and dragged off United flight by airport security

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2017/04/10/video-shows-man-forcibly-removed-united-flight-chicago-louisville/100274374/

The man was able to get back on the plane after initially being taken off - his face was bloody and he seemed disoriented

Another reason to avoid United Airlines at all costs. They intentionally overbook planes and if they need seats for their employees they'll drag you out for doing nothing wrong.
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Didn't watch the video, but if the people that forcibly removed him were security, and not cops, then he has a pretty good chance at lawyering up and getting a settlement. You can't just pick someone up and throw them off a plane when all they're doing is sitting in their seat, refusing to volunteer. Shame on United.
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Just another day in Murderville
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Apparently it was all because they overbooked and then wanted some of their own employees on the flight to catch another flight. Whole thing is a disgrace.
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Private company uses state power to enforce vagaries of property law.
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lots of airlines like to overbook but ive never seen or heard if a situation like this; incredibly messed up. especially when he's in a seat and already on the plane.
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Meadzy posted...

lots of airlines like to overbook but ive never seen or heard if a situation like this; incredibly messed up. especially when he's in a seat and already on the plane.

The go-to response is to offer clear incentives to passengers that someone is bound to take up. This airline however tried to cheap out on the problem and now has an incredible PR disaster on their hands. Whoever organised this fuck up needs to be out of a job.
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The article says they offered incentives but there were no takers.

I get why they overbook, but it seems like they could get better at figuring all this out. I don't think I've been on a flight where they didn't have to pay people out to take a different flight. And then that flight is probably overbooked too.
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pinky0926 posted...

Apparently it was all because they overbooked and then wanted some of their own employees on the flight to catch another flight. Whole thing is a disgrace.

Even worse. The plane was not overbooked but they needed to make space so 3 (or 4?) of their employees could take that plane so they could work on a different flight the next day. So "the computer" picked up people to boot off the plane.

It's an outrage.
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eston posted...

The article says they offered incentives but there were no takers.

I get why they overbook, but it seems like they could get better at figuring all this out. I don't think I've been on a flight where they didn't have to pay people out to take a different flight. And then that flight is probably overbooked too.

From what I heard, they stopped at a few hundred bucks. I mean they could have shelled out more to prevent this.
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garbage airline, I hope they get fucked hard from this

pinky0926 posted...

eston posted...

The article says they offered incentives but there were no takers.

I get why they overbook, but it seems like they could get better at figuring all this out. I don't think I've been on a flight where they didn't have to pay people out to take a different flight. And then that flight is probably overbooked too.

From what I heard, they stopped at a few hundred bucks. I mean they could have shelled out more to prevent this.

apparently they increased the offer to $800 but did they ever consider that one day there might be a flight full of people that wouldn't take the offer
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pinky0926 posted...

This airline however tried to cheap out on the problem and now has an incredible PR disaster on their hands. Whoever organised this f*** up needs to be out of a job.

Airline culture has a a clear issue, and especially United's, but airline culture in general right now is down right scary, it's almost like if passengers were considered the enemy.

The fact that overbooking flights on purpose is part of their business model is very fucked up. But that's the least of the issues. Flight attendants and other airline personnel have so much power it's not even funny. I'v read so many stories where a passenger pisses off a flight attendant so she simply calls the cops on some poor soul who ends roughed up, humilliated and kicked off the plane.

Do you remember that United story where a girl was kicked off the plane for wearing yoga pants?

I also read a story where some italian professor teaching at an Ivy League was solving equations before take off, and a MAGA-type flirted with him and he wasn't receptive, so he "clearly" must be up to no good, and "that weird language" (mathematical equations) must be some middle eastern evil language so.... she proceeded to call the flight attendants on him, who called the cops on him, who kicked him off the flight and held him up as a suspect for hours.

Now turns out you can buy you plane seat, have a flight not be oversold, and if some employee wants to give a ride to a co-worker or a buddy or something they can totally kick you off the plane and call the cops on you and have them bloody up your face, it's terrifying. At this point ordering extra sugar on one's coffee might put that person in Gitmo.

Lowly flight attendants and airline personnel are becoming judge, jury and executioner, it's insane.
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pinky0926 posted...

eston posted...

The article says they offered incentives but there were no takers.

I get why they overbook, but it seems like they could get better at figuring all this out. I don't think I've been on a flight where they didn't have to pay people out to take a different flight. And then that flight is probably overbooked too.

From what I heard, they stopped at a few hundred bucks. I mean they could have shelled out more to prevent this.

Article says $400 vouchers were offered first, then $800. That's pretty standard as far as airlines go. My sister was recently offered $500 and then $1000 on a Delta flight.

The issue here is that all the other airlines aren't going to let people actually take a seat first, because there's not much you can do when somebody is already sitting down, as they showed.
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drunkmuggle posted...

garbage airline, I hope they get f***ed hard from this

They've had at least 4 scandals like this this year. Their PR team usually releases a very apologetic note and makes it sound as if it was a freak accident and that sort of conduct is highly unusual and strays away from United's high standards of ethics and customer service... only to have United do something worse in a couple weeks or months.


They need to get a millionaire fine or something.
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It says the guy was a doctor and had to take this flight to see patients at a hospital in the morning

Holy crap, they'd better make sure he's okay before he has to see his patients.
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Why didn't he just give the guy a Pepsi?
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Wow, I legitimately just took a United flight out of O'Hare yesterday evening too. My flight left just before this happened though. (6PMish)

They were doing the same thing with my flight. The Boston flight was overbooked and we had no idea why they were so adamant in getting these overbookees on board. We figured they were rich and were offering the money of their own pockets.

This is crazy.
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ROD posted...

pinky0926 posted...

This airline however tried to cheap out on the problem and now has an incredible PR disaster on their hands. Whoever organised this f*** up needs to be out of a job.

Airline culture has a a clear issue, and especially United's, but airline culture in general right now is down right scary, it's almost like if passengers were considered the enemy.

The fact that overbooking flights on purpose is part of their business model is very fucked up. But that's the least of the issues. Flight attendants and other airline personnel have so much power it's not even funny. I'v read so many stories where a passenger pisses off a flight attendant so she simply calls the cops on some poor soul who ends roughed up, humilliated and kicked off the plane.

Do you remember that United story where a girl was kicked off the plane for wearing yoga pants?

I also read a story where some italian professor teaching at an Ivy League was solving equations before take off, and a MAGA-type flirted with him and he wasn't receptive, so he "clearly" must be up to no good, and "that weird language" (mathematical equations) must be some middle eastern evil language so.... she proceeded to call the flight attendants on him, who called the cops on him, who kicked him off the flight and held him up as a suspect for hours.

Now turns out you can buy you plane seat, have a flight not be oversold, and if some employee wants to give a ride to a co-worker or a buddy or something they can totally kick you off the plane and call the cops on you and have them bloody up your face, it's terrifying. At this point ordering extra sugar on one's coffee might put that person in Gitmo.

Lowly flight attendants and airline personnel are becoming judge, jury and executioner, it's insane.

@ROD Well your part about kicking off yoga pants girl was because she wan an employee on an employee flight ticket and her wardrobe is against their employee dress code flight policy...the other united issues, I agree, are not cool.
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The math behind overbooking flights is sound, and every airline does it. They'd lose lots of money if they didn't.

This isn't how you're supposed to handle the unlikely event of actually not having enough space, but don't act like the problem is overbooking.
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Frostshock posted...

but don't act like the problem is overbooking.

in this case the problem was very much overbooking lol
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this is fucked up. I hope they get sued out the ass for this

Skurvy_1 posted...

@ROD Well your part about kicking off yoga pants girl was because she wan an employee on an employee flight ticket and her wardrobe is against their employee dress code flight policy...the other united issues, I agree, are not cool.

gotcha.

Your signature in the context of my post made me LOL IDK why XD
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I'm so sorry, guys.
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Holy shit. Watching that video, I walked by that exact blonde lady twice. She was upset at the airport because she couldn't find the info desk. Someone I guess told her it was passed an orange hazard sign and I later passed her again talking to another person. So bizarre.
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lilORANG posted...

Frostshock posted...

but don't act like the problem is overbooking.

in this case the problem was very much overbooking lol

The problem was United being cheap. Offer a sweet enough incentive and people will willingly get off the plane. Plan B is never "have police forcefully evict people from their seats."
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though after watching the vid that scream was definitely an overreaction lol.

I wonder if the couple that got off still got the 800 or if they missed out because it wasn't "voluntary"
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Passengers asked to get off the plane

Oh jeez good job guys be a bunch of stubborn dicks about not getting off the plane, then when they beat up a doctor now all the sudden you want to leave
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Frostshock posted...

The math behind overbooking flights is sound, and every airline does it. They'd lose lots of money if they didn't.

This isn't how you're supposed to handle the unlikely event of actually not having enough space, but don't act like the problem is overbooking.

The sole reason for over booking is that they don't want to lose money if a passenger books a flight but doesn't actually take it without cancelling before hand. But by that point they already took money for that flight (literally taking money for a service not provided), they are not giving it back (good luck trying to get money back from them!) and this doesn't happen as often anyway.

Would they lose some money without overbooking? Perhaps. Would they go bankrupt or in the red because of it? LOL no.

Some overbooking may be necessary, sometimes, maybe, but not as often and blatant as it is right now, and the way they handle it ("buy a ticket from us, they get denied your seat and then have our rent-a-cops beat the shit out of you and drag you off the plane") leaves a lot to be desired.

This wasn't due to overbooking, though. They said it was about overbooking. It was about them needing to make room for their own employees, who aren't even paying customers anyway.
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But some on CE will defend this because the security is authority and he should have just listened regardless right you guys?

United_World posted...

I'm so sorry, guys.

underrated post
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ROD posted...

Would they lose some money without overbooking? Perhaps. Would they go bankrupt or in the red because of it? LOL no.

I should probably clarify that in addition to profit it's also about throughput.

Say you didn't overbook, and N people want to travel by air to some destination. So you sell all M seats, and you're left with N -M people who need to be put on other flights. But in reality, some of them could have fit on the first flight because the flights that are oversold are statistically likely to have people cancel or miss at the last moment.

Would you be happy if you had to fly out the next day when a perfectly good plane was leaving with empty seats?
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ROD posted...

pinky0926 posted...

Apparently it was all because they overbooked and then wanted some of their own employees on the flight to catch another flight. Whole thing is a disgrace.

Even worse. The plane was not overbooked but they needed to make space so 3 (or 4?) of their employees could take that plane so they could work on a different flight the next day. So "the computer" picked up people to boot off the plane.

It's an outrage.

That's what overbooking is ROD.

ROD posted...

drunkmuggle posted...

garbage airline, I hope they get f***ed hard from this

They've had at least 4 scandals like this this year. Their PR team usually releases a very apologetic note and makes it sound as if it was a freak accident and that sort of conduct is highly unusual and strays away from United's high standards of ethics and customer service... only to have United do something worse in a couple weeks or months.


They need to get a millionaire fine or something.

That's not how it works @ROD. Why are you having a meltdown over this?
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hey guys, lovefist found me again and will continue to harass me as usual. Please ignore his insane ranting at me or else he will derail this topic too, thanks :)
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Frostshock posted...

ROD posted...

Would they lose some money without overbooking? Perhaps. Would they go bankrupt or in the red because of it? LOL no.

I should probably clarify that in addition to profit it's also about throughput.

Say you didn't overbook, and N people want to travel by air to some destination. So you sell all M seats, and you're left with N -M people who need to be put on other flights. But in reality, some of them could have fit on the first flight because the flights that are oversold are statistically likely to have people cancel or miss at the last moment.

Would you be happy if you had to fly out the next day when a perfectly good plane was leaving with empty seats?

not sure I follow...
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ROD posted...

hey guys, lovefist found me again and will continue to harass me as usual. Please ignore his insane ranting at me or else he will derail this topic too, thanks :)

You are on my friends list ROD.
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StucklnMyPants posted...

Didn't watch the video, but if the people that forcibly removed him were security, and not cops, then he has a pretty good chance at lawyering up and getting a settlement. You can't just pick someone up and throw them off a plane when all they're doing is sitting in their seat, refusing to volunteer. Shame on United.

Would probably depend on state. I hate United and have had many problems with them but in many states including CA where I have worked security you are well within your legal rights to physically remove someone from property.

Normally you'd call the cops or threaten to and it's never anything you want to do (I'd assume definitely as a major airline) because it's bad press but still legal.
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If I booked my flight for the next day, there's no reason I would be aware of any empty seats on a previous flight
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ROD posted...

pinky0926 posted...

This airline however tried to cheap out on the problem and now has an incredible PR disaster on their hands. Whoever organised this f*** up needs to be out of a job.

Do you remember that United story where a girl was kicked off the plane for wearing yoga pants?

Lowly flight attendants and airline personnel are becoming judge, jury and executioner, it's insane.

Yes I do remember that story quite well. They have a policy for people riding for free or at a huge discount using employee benefits that requires professional attire and enforced that policy.

Oh I see you're upset that airlines have policies and are then calling flight attendants and other workers following policy lowly people. What a class act you are.
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Frostshock posted...

The math behind overbooking flights is sound, and every airline does it. They'd lose lots of money if they didn't.

This isn't how you're supposed to handle the unlikely event of actually not having enough space, but don't act like the problem is overbooking.

You'd solve the overbooking problem by just not allowing ticket refunds past a certain point. As a result flights would be underbooked, but the seats would still be paid for. You will have some angry customers but it's their fault if they bought a plane ticket and then they didn't show up. An angry customer on a plane is always much worse than an angry customer who didn't even make it to the airport.
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ROD posted...

Frostshock posted...

ROD posted...

Would they lose some money without overbooking? Perhaps. Would they go bankrupt or in the red because of it? LOL no.

I should probably clarify that in addition to profit it's also about throughput.

Say you didn't overbook, and N people want to travel by air to some destination. So you sell all M seats, and you're left with N -M people who need to be put on other flights. But in reality, some of them could have fit on the first flight because the flights that are oversold are statistically likely to have people cancel or miss at the last moment.

Would you be happy if you had to fly out the next day when a perfectly good plane was leaving with empty seats?

not sure I follow...

They overbook because some people inevitably don't end up on the flight for whatever reason. If they booked the exact amount of seats they have they'd end up flying with empty seats
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Don't worry, Yahoo is here

https://twitter.com/YahooFinance/status/851456514883760128
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I understand having a policy for removing customers from the flight in these situations, but they really need to add some kind of exception for medical personnel.
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Mother fuckers need to lose their jobs and that dude better get paid. I'll never fly United again, usually who I use when flying from North America to Asia, I'll just stick with China Eastern. Their flights are never overbooked let alone full from my experience.
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lmao $UAL is up more than 1%
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Antifar posted...

Don't worry, Yahoo is here

https://twitter.com/YahooFinance/status/851456514883760128

You're mad they tweeted this? It's just explaining how to increase the odds you won't be asked to not board. (They even throw shade saying he already boarded so they're talking about how odd this situation was)

pinky0926 posted...

Whoever organised this fuck up needs to be out of a job.

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ROD posted...

pinky0926 posted...
<blockqoute>This airline however tried to cheap out on the problem and now has an incredible PR disaster on their hands. Whoever organised this f*** up needs to be out of a job.

they offered $800 vouchers and a hotel, pretty fair, hotel offers are rare

Airline culture has a a clear issue, and especially United's, but airline culture in general right now is down right scary, it's almost like if passengers were considered the enemy.

not really

The fact that overbooking flights on purpose is part of their business model is very fucked up. But that's the least of the issues. Flight attendants and other airline personnel have so much power it's not even funny. I'v read so many stories where a passenger pisses off a flight attendant so she simply calls the cops on some poor soul who ends roughed up, humilliated and kicked off the plane.

Do you remember that United story where a girl was kicked off the plane for wearing yoga pants?

was completely fair

I also read a story where some italian professor teaching at an Ivy League was solving equations before take off, and a MAGA-type flirted with him and he wasn't receptive, so he "clearly" must be up to no good, and "that weird language" (mathematical equations) must be some middle eastern evil language so.... she proceeded to call the flight attendants on him, who called the cops on him, who kicked him off the flight and held him up as a suspect for hours.

yeah that was fucked up

Now turns out you can buy you plane seat, have a flight not be oversold, and if some employee wants to give a ride to a co-worker or a buddy or something they can totally kick you off the plane and call the cops on you and have them bloody up your face, it's terrifying. At this point ordering extra sugar on one's coffee might put that person in Gitmo.

yeah thats not true at all, airlines will always have a paying passenger on a plane over an employee if its not work related and especially over an employees "buddies" they are dead last priority and are stand by in the first place, this was a deadheading united flight crew, only reason they were given priority, even a commuting flight crew wouldn't have been given any sort of priority

Lowly flight attendants and airline personnel are becoming judge, jury and executioner, it's insane.

shut the fuck up
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and yeah this situation is completely fucked up and is completely on united, and yeah that dude hopefully sues the fuck out of them
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When they pulled him out of his seat they hit his head on the adjacent arm rest.

Lmao, /r/videos has melted down over this

www.reddit.com/r/videos
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