Friendly skies

April 10, 2017 9:01 AM

Raising that last offer of $800 might not sound so bad...when you are facing protests and lawsuits after having a passenger dragged and injured, due to your overbooking of a flight. While perhaps within their legal rights, United Airlines is not looking good after they physically removed a passenger this weekend, despite his impassioned pleas.

Further information, with response from the airline.

posted by TreeRooster (663 comments total)

I couldn't tell from the articles, only the "Further information" one seems to have actual information beyond the pull quote, but how do they end up letting more people on the actual plane than they have seats for?? And how does not a single person on a largish flight not want to take $800 for a 24-hour delay? Lots of people have jobs or family responsibilities and can't, but still surprising that there was no one.
posted by skewed at 9:07 AM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

I am not surprised but I am disgusted that after the passenger in question said he was a doctor that no one at that point was willing to volunteer to take his place.
posted by FritoKAL at 9:07 AM on April 10, 2017 [13 favorites]

I'm more disappointed some of the folks seated seem to be OK with a guy being dragged off the plane like that.

Several people I follow on Twitter have done battle with United over the years, though this is a new level of suck on United's part.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 9:15 AM on April 10, 2017 [10 favorites]

So we're basically in Children of Men territory now.
posted by ethansr at 9:15 AM on April 10, 2017 [46 favorites]

I know the answer is "don't overbook in the first place" but I am curious what choice they had*? They had too many passengers, nobody would volunteer to go. What then? Do they just not fly the plane? If all the seats were filled there must have been four people standing in the aisle or the gate, why not just tell those people "sorry, no more seats."

And how does not a single person on a largish flight not want to take $800 for a 24-hour delay?

Apparently they doubled that from the originally offered $400, so if I'm a passenger I'm probably wondering how high they'll go. Maybe they'll offer $2000.00 so why not wait? It's sure going to cost United more than that in PR.

*I do want to be clear I in no way condone what they did, it is terrible, I'm just trying to think of what options they had.
posted by bondcliff at 9:16 AM on April 10, 2017 [7 favorites]

Why is it the responsibility of any other passenger to correct United's mistake? People have children to go home to, elders they may be responsible for, critical jobs that can't wait - the fuck-up is 100% on United for this one, sorry. And what contempt for their customers. I hope they get sued into oblivion, and I hope the thugs that injured the passenger as they were dragging him out see jail time.
posted by aiglet at 9:16 AM on April 10, 2017 [179 favorites]

> I am not surprised but I am disgusted that after the passenger in question said he was a doctor that no one at that point was willing to volunteer to take his place.

Perhaps they were in shock at the knowledge that being forcibly dragged from the plane was apparently a legit tactic by United? I mean, who calls attention to themselves in this kind of situation?
posted by desuetude at 9:17 AM on April 10, 2017 [43 favorites]

bondcliff - people have pointed out it's about a 4.5 hour drive to Louisville from Chicago, and the 'overbooking' was because United was trying to move four of their own flight crew to Louisville airport, presumably for another flight. Put them in a cab.
posted by aiglet at 9:17 AM on April 10, 2017 [132 favorites]

I guess I had not considered the question "does an airline have the right to boot a paying customer because they failed to provide other transportation options for their own staff?" before.

This and the leggings thing are not making United look good.

@tomtomorrow mentioned on Twitter that United was also the airline that left a dog on the tarmac in the rain, broke a guy's guitar, and forced off an autistic passenger.
posted by emjaybee at 9:18 AM on April 10, 2017 [36 favorites]

My favorite part of all of this is how United's Twitter team relentlessly replies with the same response to everyone tweeting about this, as if "we apologize for the overbooking situation" is going to help improve their PR.

Crazy idea, though - what if your company policy was to not use law enforcement to fix your overgreedy booking strategy?
posted by 0xFCAF at 9:18 AM on April 10, 2017 [28 favorites]

The Boston Globe says they removed those passengers favor of 4 employees who were flying standby.
posted by jamjam at 9:19 AM on April 10, 2017 [7 favorites]

I know the answer is "don't overbook in the first place" but I am curious what choice they had*?

Give the 4 United employees who took those seats a luxury rental car and generous per diem for food and let them drive 5 hours from Chicago to Louisville, which even in the worst case scenario is still cheaper than the $3200 in airfare.
posted by splen at 9:19 AM on April 10, 2017 [44 favorites]

Perhaps the other passengers were thinking that an $800 voucher is useless for an airline that they will NEVER FLY AGAIN.
posted by desuetude at 9:20 AM on April 10, 2017 [201 favorites]

What then? Do they just not fly the plane?

Find other transportation for the United employees who were planning on taking the flight, or offer more money until someone accepts... Or don't allow people to board until this problem is figured out.
posted by drezdn at 9:20 AM on April 10, 2017 [28 favorites]

Sounds like they were trying to get 4 employees to Louisville to work the next morning. A town a 4 hour drive away? And offered $800 x 4 to passengers to volunteer, plus hotel etc. Why not spend that $3200 on hiring a car and driver to get their 4 employees where United needed them, not try to have passengers solve a company problem. Or even book their 4 employees on another airline? Probably still cheaper than the $3200 they were ofdereing to pay. It's like they enjoyed showing the passengers who really holds the power here- corporations with the full power of the law behind them.
posted by Rapunzel1111 at 9:20 AM on April 10, 2017 [31 favorites]

this is so odd. From what i understand from reading, they booted paying passengers for their own employees. That seems like poor planning all the way around. Why did the standby crew need a ride somewhere? How the heck did it escalate to dragging someone off? I am sure he mouthed off, but that's not really shocking - I would be irritated too.

Just a strange event all around. I will say that everyone has somewhere to be - i don't think a doctor is any more important in that situation.
posted by domino at 9:20 AM on April 10, 2017 [9 favorites]

I couldn't tell from the articles, only the "Further information" one seems to have actual information beyond the pull quote, but how do they end up letting more people on the actual plane than they have seats for??

I was surprised by that, too -- why would the system issue more boarding cards than there are seats? Why wouldn't you bump the people who were still standing in the terminal? I thought maybe they were doing it because they had some Super Diamond Gold Extra Elite Platinum Special passengers who needed to not be the ones bumped from the flight, but then I read a link that said they wanted spots on the plane for an air crew to get to another airport so they were trying to get already seated passengers off the plane. Which makes more logistical sense -- they might not have issued boarding passes to flight crew dead heading to another airport.

But it's still ridiculously bad practice. Airlines overbook flights and weirdly schedule their air crews to make more money. The cost of paying off passengers when it doesn't work out in their favour should be part of that equation, even if it's way more money than they'd like it to be in any particular instance. There's a price point at which people would have gotten off the damned plane.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:21 AM on April 10, 2017 [17 favorites]

"We apologize for the overbook situation."

But not for, you know, physically assaulting a passenger.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:21 AM on April 10, 2017 [109 favorites]

They could have offered more than $800 in vouchers. I've gotten $1,200. If you offer enough you can get volunteers.
posted by 0xFCAF at 9:22 AM on April 10, 2017 [37 favorites]

Yeah this is totally a crew management fuckup and had nothing to do with boarding passengers without calling for volunteers.
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:22 AM on April 10, 2017 [9 favorites]

From this Buzzfeed article: Instead they told BuzzFeed News all further questions should be referred to Chicago Police. BuzzFeed News contacted Chicago Police and were told to contact the Chicago Department of Aviation. When BuzzFeed News contacted the Chicago Department of Aviation they were transferred to a TSA message bank. A TSA spokesperson later told BuzzFeed News they were not involved and to contact Chicago Police.

Nobody wants to take responsibility for this.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:23 AM on April 10, 2017 [100 favorites]

I learned a bit reading about this story on a general aviation forum. Despite there being a lot of pro-airline posters in that thread, there seems to be several areas of agreement: first, UA should have increased their offer until they got the volunteers they needed; and second, the flight should never have boarded if there were going to be "involuntary denied boarding" passengers.

I had no idea that an airline could just randomly choose to refuse you your ticketed seat because they needed it for their crew.
posted by gladly at 9:23 AM on April 10, 2017 [22 favorites]

It's like they enjoyed showing the passengers who really holds the power here- corporations with the full power of the law behind them.

See also:

United’s refusal to take responsibility is not surprising. The airline industry is remarkably concentrated, which means that threats of boycotts, not to mention widespread dissatisfaction with awful treatment of passengers in general, matter less than they would in other industries. Canceled and/or delayed flights, overbookings, rotten service, the cattle-car atmosphere of your typical airline experience—all of it is symptomatic of an industry that is dominated by just four airlines.

With basically a captive consumer base, the industry had adopted a model of essentially squeezing every last dollar from its customers—which itself perpetuates making a baseline flight utterly ghastly, what Tim Wu has described as a state of “calculated misery.” Similarly, airlines are often little fiefdoms in the airports that they control, which helps explain why they can use hired goons to remove people from planes and then act as if they bear no responsibility for anything that happens.

The result is the corporatized violence you see on display here.

posted by peeedro at 9:25 AM on April 10, 2017 [47 favorites]

I'm still not sure being violently dragged off a United flight is worse than flying United
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:25 AM on April 10, 2017 [80 favorites]

The Boston Globe says they removed those passengers favor of 4 employees who were flying standby.

Not standby, deadheading. They should have

1. Not seated the 4 passengers, but sorted it at the gate.

2. Increased the amount offered to give up a seat at least to the $1350 they would have been mandated by law for a 2+ hour delay for a forced booting.

3. Booked their crew on another flight

4. Basically anything other than what you saw here. Gobsmacking stupidity on United's part.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:25 AM on April 10, 2017 [91 favorites]

I will always pay more not to fly United, and that's simply because their planes are gross and feel like they're about to fall apart at any moment, their seats are stained and uncomfortable and make me hurt, and they ALWAYS seem to have delays and screw-ups and make my itinerary awful. This policy of mine was BEFORE they started banning little girls for wearing leggings and bodily assaulting passengers. Now I'm not sure there is any amount of money that would make choosing United worth it.
posted by the turtle's teeth at 9:25 AM on April 10, 2017 [25 favorites]

A take-away from this would be for all of us to visualize what we would/will do if we see violence enacted on someone in front of us. It's really, really hard to respond effectively in the moment even if you try to scaffold it in advance.

Especially, I think, because of respect for authority. You don't have to think "it's totally okay to beat someone and drag them off a plane" to have a semi-conscious "but the guy refused when Authoriteh told him to do something, what if that means it's okay, what should I do" response.

We all need to imagine ourselves shouting "what are you doing? Stop!" when authority starts dragging people just like we should be training ourselves to get someone to call 911 by picking a person and saying "you call 911!!"
posted by Frowner at 9:27 AM on April 10, 2017 [105 favorites]

Meanwhile, over at the Delta gates...

Why Delta Air Lines Paid Me $11,000 Not To Fly To Florida This Weekend
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:27 AM on April 10, 2017 [18 favorites]

I wonder if they serve Pepsi in United flights.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 9:29 AM on April 10, 2017 [7 favorites]

all kinds of middle-management f***ups in this scenario.

A. the loading when they knew they were overloaded,
B. or if they didn't, the not knowing they were overloaded
C. the not going higher than $800.00 before "getting physical"
D. the not just calling a cab or whatever and eating the mega fare to Louisville in the name of PR
E. the deciding to "get physical" period

Who's running this joint? Donald Trump?
posted by philip-random at 9:30 AM on April 10, 2017 [25 favorites]

Meanwhile, Spirit Airlines is hurriedly adding a "$35: Dragging you off the airplane" fee to their pricing list in the event this happens on their watch.
posted by splen at 9:30 AM on April 10, 2017 [98 favorites]

I'm still not sure being violently dragged off a United flight is worse than flying United

Yeah, because once the lawsuit settles you'll be able to fly private, forever.
posted by anastasiav at 9:30 AM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

That problem led to a violent confrontation as security forced one passenger off the plane, who said he was a doctor and couldn’t take a later flight because he had patients to see at his hospital in the morning.

Oh, passive voice, this is why my 11th grade English teacher proclaimed you to be evil.

Quiz: In this sentence, to what action does the "violent confrontation" refer? Because in real life, the only violence was committed by the security who violently forced the passenger from the plane, so this sentence is redundant...and thereby insinuates that the passenger may have violently confronted someone.
posted by desuetude at 9:31 AM on April 10, 2017 [47 favorites]

Why did the standby crew need a ride somewhere?

(This is not a defense of United's actions.) Airline crews frequently do not live anywhere near where they are based out of, and such utilize the "free standby" deadheading benefit to commute. Putting crews in a cab for a five hour drive to their destination probably is either a) against the employees' contracts or more likely b) conflicting with the mandatory rest period crews must have between work periods. It really isn't as simple as "put them in a taxi", especially if it means screwing up the next day's flights and potentially causing hundreds of passengers to miss connections because the pilots are legally not allowed to fly until the finish their rest period.
posted by backseatpilot at 9:31 AM on April 10, 2017 [41 favorites]

Usually whenever you read the headline and then the article you realize the headline made the incident sound worse than it is, but this is like... the exact opposite.
Like, you start with: "United physically drags a paying passenger off a flight..."
>because they overbooked
>and only offered $800 in vouchers so no one volunteered
>the passenger ended up bloodied and unconscious
>he's an elderly Asian man
>and a doctor with patients he needs to see the next day
>actually they didn't overbook they just wanted to move their own employees around

Only way it could be worse PR is if there was like a kid involved somehow... huh, was there an incident involving kids and United recently...
posted by perplexion at 9:32 AM on April 10, 2017 [41 favorites]

What would an effective response be?

-Calling 911--the cops are already there, and have made their position clear. 911 would not help you.

-Yelling "shame!" would express your solidarity but probably not change the result. Might be worth doing all the same.

-Volunteering to take his place: that would protect him, might be worth doing. Would not address underlying abuse.

-Posting the video: yes, that is effective, and alerts people to United's abuses. Now it's made the news.

-Telling United you will never fly them again: might work if enough people did it.
posted by emjaybee at 9:33 AM on April 10, 2017 [33 favorites]

Luckily for me I don't need to fly United. Ever. ($SPOUSE and I made that decision after being at their mercy for a 12 hour intercontinental trip about a decade ago and not liking the "service".)

However.

If you are flying on an international carrier in first class and your seat isn't available or you need to change your itinerary, one of the perks—this is what you're paying the big bucks for—is that they will rebook you with a smile on the flight of your choice, and if it's time-critical they will hand you over to a rival airline for carriage, and they will treat you as one of their own first class passengers. (It's a reciprocal facility.)

Is there any reason United can't operate a similar agreement on domestic flights with Delta, Southwest, and the various other domestic US carriers? i.e. arrange that in event of a shit happens situation like this (four extra seats needed to get flight crew to a departing flight at another airport) they can borrow seats on a rival carrier's service?

Or, I dunno, ask for volunteers among the passengers who will accept a seat on a different flight ... with a free upgrade, and a refund of what they paid for the trip they're being moved off? Not just a derisory flight voucher in return for a multi-hour delay?
posted by cstross at 9:34 AM on April 10, 2017 [14 favorites]

United is quite possibly the worst major airline in the world, but this level of awful is still surprising.

Guess which airline is my company's preferred one?
posted by tommasz at 9:35 AM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

shouting "what are you doing? Stop!"

In my experience, this does nothing.
posted by dazed_one at 9:35 AM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

They probably couldve paid for 4 people to take their own individual jet for what this is going to end up United in the lawsuit for braining a doctor plus PR losses.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:37 AM on April 10, 2017 [34 favorites]

Maybe I'm a coward, but I'm not starting shit with police on a a plane in the USA right now. That includes raising my voice.
posted by ODiV at 9:37 AM on April 10, 2017 [51 favorites]

We all need to imagine ourselves shouting "what are you doing? Stop!" when authority starts dragging people

I don't disagree, but when you're on board an airplane you're not really in public anymore. The Captain has full authority and can kick you off any time he wants. By stepping on that plane you're already voluntarily giving up rights you enjoy on the other end of the jetway.

If you as a fellow passenger interfere it's probably grounds for getting kicked off the plane yourself, and if you're okay with that you should just take the $800.

(That in no way excuses United's abhorrent actions).
posted by rocket88 at 9:38 AM on April 10, 2017 [13 favorites]

Soooo... I don't, by any means, wish to defend the violence, but... The guy was in the wrong here. He was chosen at random, and he refused to comply. The fact that he's a doctor is immaterial (and is actually pretty damn entitled). "[T]he man said he was calling his lawyer": OK, what's the lawyer going to do? You have to follow the rules of your ticket. He's not above the rules just because he's affluent enough to have his lawyer on speed dial. You could very easily spin this as "self-righteous richie refuses to play by the same rules as common people". Again, it doesn't excuse violence. Nothing does. But let's not pretend this guy is Gandhi here.
posted by kevinbelt at 9:39 AM on April 10, 2017 [7 favorites]

An airline that can miscalculate this badly probably shouldn't be operating airplanes.
posted by aramaic at 9:39 AM on April 10, 2017 [33 favorites]

Buying a ticket is buying a chance to get a seat on the plane, not buying a seat, now, it seems. It's like the lottery: you can't win if you don't play.
posted by thelonius at 9:40 AM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

Is there any reason United can't operate a similar agreement on domestic flights with Delta, Southwest, and the various other domestic US carriers?

They're big enough they can rebook you themselves cheaper.

The Antitrust Paradox Paradox

I don't, by any means, wish to defend the violence, but

You're going to anyway? Ah, yes, there you are, defending the violence.

Funny how raising the voucher offer falls by the wayside when state backed violence is an option. no true capitalist.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:40 AM on April 10, 2017 [97 favorites]

The guy was in the wrong here.

So the airline that took his money for a seat they didn't have and then smashed his face to get him off the plane is clear of any wrongdoing?
posted by dazed_one at 9:43 AM on April 10, 2017 [164 favorites]

I struggle to grasp your understanding of "right" and "wrong" kevinbelt
posted by stevil at 9:43 AM on April 10, 2017 [67 favorites]

Again, it doesn't excuse violence. Nothing does. But let's not pretend this guy is Gandhi here.

It doesn't excuse violence. Nothing does. "He was no angel" is irrelevant.

If you really need to get the seats passengers have already paid for clear, you keep upping the voucher offer until someone takes it. Someone always will. A few times in my life, it's been me, and I thought of it as a great windfall.
posted by asperity at 9:44 AM on April 10, 2017 [52 favorites]

I suppose hiring a charter flight to transport their four employees would have been out of the question.
posted by notreally at 9:44 AM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

Again, it doesn't excuse violence. Nothing does

Then, I submit that the rest of your post is a non-sequitur unless of course...you are trying to excuse the violence.
posted by vacapinta at 9:44 AM on April 10, 2017 [95 favorites]

In my experience, this does nothing.

On the one hand, I feel you there. Yelling at people abusing authority may not deter their abuse in any way in the moment; they're already in the process of doing a thing that's shitty based on a power dynamic they're on the upside of.

On the other hand, it signals to those around you that saying "no, stop that, that's wrong" is an okay thing to (a) feel and (b) say out loud. And maybe they will join in, or be willing to cross that social boundary next time.
posted by cortex at 9:45 AM on April 10, 2017 [55 favorites]

Making rules up as you go, instead of obeying agreed-upon norms of behavior, is generally wrong.

I don't think it's particularly hard to see that both parties could be in the wrong.
posted by kevinbelt at 9:45 AM on April 10, 2017

So, since corporations are people and all -- who gets charged with violent felony assault here?
And who serves the prison time?
posted by Dashy at 9:46 AM on April 10, 2017 [15 favorites]

Probably the doctor.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:47 AM on April 10, 2017 [19 favorites]

I suppose hiring a charter flight to transport their four employees would have been out of the question.


It was Chicago to Louisville. You could have rented a car and payed your check in clerk overtime to drive them there and come back for under $1,000.
posted by cmfletcher at 9:47 AM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

Just a reminder, in case some people don't know: when an airline asks for volunteers in an oversell situation, they usually offer you a flight credit, not cash. These flight credits often expire in 12 to 24 months, so if you're an infrequent flier, they may be worthless. If you volunteer, you're agreeing to take whatever compenation they're offering, rather than what you could get if they forcibly bumped you.

If you get forcibly bumped from a flight, they have to pay you up to $1350 (check or cash), with the exact amount based on your ticket price and how much later they get you to your destination. They still have to get you to your destination. Even in this case, they probably will try to get you to take a flight credit. Insist on cash or check, unless you really want the flight credit for some reason.
posted by cruelfood at 9:47 AM on April 10, 2017 [122 favorites]

how does not a single person on a largish flight not want to take $800 for a 24-hour delay? Lots of people have jobs or family responsibilities and can't, but still surprising that there was no one.

Someone on reddit claimed that 0.1% of flights are overbooked. In 2010, about 1.73 million people flew each day, which equates to 173,000 overbook scenarios. Each day.

Law of large numbers says that eventually you will get a scenario where no matter how high they go with the offer, no one on the flight wants to take it. Not that $800 is particularly high. United screwed this up big time.
posted by sbutler at 9:47 AM on April 10, 2017 [7 favorites]

Making rules up as you go, instead of obeying agreed-upon norms of behavior, is generally wrong.

That's a very abstract position to take on a very not-abstract event. Like I can see conversationally places to go with that in a null context, but I think it's going to be very difficult to present that argument actually in situ here because it comes off as enormously tone deaf. I'm going to suggest you leave it at Opinion Noted at this point.
posted by cortex at 9:47 AM on April 10, 2017 [26 favorites]

I don't think it's particularly hard to see that both parties could be in the wrong.

Possibly, but in this instance, I think one party is so far in the wrong, and with so many other options to avoid being there, that it excuses any tiny bit of 'wrong' the other party might be.
posted by dazed_one at 9:48 AM on April 10, 2017 [17 favorites]

Guys, look at it this way. They managed to save almost 600 DOLLARS by not raising the dollar amount to compensate people for leaving the plane. 600 dollars is a lot of money! They might have had to shut down all of United Airlines if they didn't save that 600 dollars! And I mean, what.. people are just complaining about United in Twitter and cancelling their tickets and vowing never to fly them again. C'mon. IT WAS 600 DOLLARS! THAT'S LIKE TWO NINTENDO SWITCHES
posted by tittergrrl at 9:48 AM on April 10, 2017 [28 favorites]

He was chosen at random, and he refused to comply

I'm not sure you understand what the point of noncompliance is.

United made several really bad decisions to get here. They overbooked the flight or otherwise didn't set up their operations in such a way that the deadheading crew could get where they were going. They let people board the plane. They offered a modest sum $800 when they are easily capable of offering much more (those 4 seats would have been found quickly at $1,600). They did this because they have the threat of state violence as their last resort. They can save money because they have the ultimate legitimate threat of violence in the situation.

If United thinks using state violence to improve their revenue is worth it, then they think it's worth it, fair enough. But as a human in society, you can make them cash that check at your own discretion. This guy took a stance -- if United thinks that using the threat of being jailed or injured is the best way to improve their bottom line, fine, let's see them actually do it. They did, and showed their true colors.
posted by 0xFCAF at 9:48 AM on April 10, 2017 [164 favorites]

As a poor person, I always fly the cheapest tickets, which makes me ineligible for the vouchers, I suspect the airlines feel that they've already given me a deal, I should be grateful. I wonder how many passengers on this flight were in a similar position?
posted by evilDoug at 9:49 AM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

As a poor person, I always fly the cheapest tickets, which makes me ineligible for the vouchers, I suspect the airlines feel that they've already given me a deal, I should be grateful. I wonder how many passengers on this flight were in a similar position?

Wait, is this a thing? Can you explain this?
posted by corb at 9:51 AM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

Wait, what? How/why/in what nightmare world are cheaptickets passengers ineligible for vouchers?
posted by Don Pepino at 9:52 AM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

The guy was in the wrong here. He was chosen at random, and he refused to comply.

It's amazing how many Americans have been convinced that a reasonable response to noncompliance is violence. Obey the corporation or get your face bashed into an armrest.
posted by Mavri at 9:53 AM on April 10, 2017 [157 favorites]

philip-random: "D. the not just calling a cab or whatever and eating the mega fare to Louisville in the name of PR"

One problem with PR costs is that they are always easy to justify in retrospect, but usually not at the fingertips of line-level managers.
posted by chavenet at 9:54 AM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]

I am not surprised but I am disgusted that after the passenger in question said he was a doctor that no one at that point was willing to volunteer to take his place.

Disgusted? Really? There are lots of doctors doing less than the most critical of critical medical things and there are lots of folks in other occupations doing things that are often of the highest import. This particular perspective is troubling.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:57 AM on April 10, 2017 [35 favorites]

But let's not pretend this guy is Gandhi here.

I mean, Gandhi was also in the wrong by your standard.
posted by aaronetc at 9:58 AM on April 10, 2017 [218 favorites]

Instead they told BuzzFeed News all further questions should be referred to Chicago Police. BuzzFeed News contacted Chicago Police and were told to contact the Chicago Department of Aviation. When BuzzFeed News contacted the Chicago Department of Aviation they were transferred to a TSA message bank. A TSA spokesperson later told BuzzFeed News they were not involved and to contact Chicago Police.

This sounds amazingly like when I try to get a healthcare related problem resolved. Why am I not surprised.
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:00 AM on April 10, 2017 [27 favorites]

Someone on reddit claimed that 0.1% of flights are overbooked. In 2010, about 1.73 million people flew each day, which equates to 173,000 overbook scenarios. Each day.

Flights != fliers, but also 0.1% of 1.73M is 1730.
posted by aaronetc at 10:01 AM on April 10, 2017 [31 favorites]

Regarding United not just getting ground transportation for the crew from Chicago to Louisville, its possible that due to timing of their duty that it wouldn't have been a feasible option while staying compliant with regulations. But United should have contingency plans for situations like this, or when a crew member calls in sick or fatigues, or when an airplane breaks, etc. Things happen every day that prevent a crew member from being in position for a flight. This is the normal course of business. That those contingencies didn't kick in is just absolutely stunning, and is a failure on so many levels.
posted by noneuclidean at 10:04 AM on April 10, 2017 [11 favorites]

He was chosen at random, and he refused to comply.

Why should he comply? Why should it be incumbent upon a customer to make up for a vendor's staffing or supply problems? It's not even that they ran out of something and could no longer supply it -- they had to take the contracted item back from the customer to solve their internal problem. Why should he comply with an unreasonable, arbitrary demand to solve the vendor's own problem?
posted by Capt. Renault at 10:05 AM on April 10, 2017 [106 favorites]

>In my experience, this does nothing.

I agree that saying "stop!" is pointless when it comes to actually stopping the authority, but I still think it's worth doing. If you're in a position where someone is treating you unfairly, just knowing that someone else is acknowledging that it's wrong and is on your side makes SUCH a difference. That one person who's willing to step up and say this is wrong is worth basically about one thousand after-the-fact retweets in my experience. One million if it's for a person from a marginalized background.

I know they'd be risking their seats, but someone should have said something like, "I'll get off the plane for $[reasonable amount greater than 800] and you're despicable for doing this" as soon as they laid a hand on him. Isn't it worth risking your seat to be a decent person?

On the other hand, I'm not sure I would have done the same, but that's because I'm visibly Middle Eastern so I think trying to help might actually make things worse...
posted by perplexion at 10:06 AM on April 10, 2017 [17 favorites]

Someone on reddit claimed that 0.1% of flights are overbooked. In 2010, about 1.73 million people flew each day, which equates to 173,000 overbook scenarios. Each day.

There are about 100,000 commercial flights a day, so 0.1% would be about 100 flights a day with some degree of overbooking if that number is correct, so we're talking about a number in the low hundreds of total passengers involved.
posted by drlith at 10:07 AM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

Not a fan of United to start with, but I will definitely go out of my way to avoid taking them from here on out.

This is despicable and anyone JAQing here should be ashamed of themselves. The man had a valid ticket, and United's shitty behaviour is on them, not him.
posted by Kitteh at 10:10 AM on April 10, 2017 [17 favorites]

This does nothing...

Yeah. You have to stand up and block the aisle. If all 30-40 people upstream of this doctor had stood up and refused to sit down, it would have gotten a lot more interesting for all parties involved.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 10:10 AM on April 10, 2017 [15 favorites]

I agree that saying "stop!" is pointless when it comes to actually stopping the authority, but I still think it's worth doing.

It really, really depends. I do this a lot myself, but I'm also A Veteran, which means I can often get away with things that other people can't, despite my other factors. I will never, ever, forget literally screaming at a particular captain in NYC over something egregious, while he tried to seriously explain that I didn't know who I was protecting (a random protester) and they were a really bad person and deserved the rough stuff.

How the calculus usually works in my head is, while you're talking, they're not beating. So even if it's just inconveniencing them for five minutes while they try to justify themselves, that's five minutes the person isn't encountering violence, and often at the end of that they won't even remember they were being violent anymore.
posted by corb at 10:11 AM on April 10, 2017 [64 favorites]

If all 30-40 people upstream of this doctor had stood up and refused to sit down, it would have gotten a lot more interesting for all parties involved.

This clearly would have ended up with multiple people being shot.
posted by gregvr at 10:12 AM on April 10, 2017 [16 favorites]

Soooo... I don't, by any means, wish to defend the violence, but... The guy was in the wrong here. He was chosen at random, and he refused to comply. The fact that he's a doctor is immaterial (and is actually pretty damn entitled). "[T]he man said he was calling his lawyer": OK, what's the lawyer going to do? You have to follow the rules of your ticket. He's not above the rules just because he's affluent enough to have his lawyer on speed dial. You could very easily spin this as "self-righteous richie refuses to play by the same rules as common people". Again, it doesn't excuse violence. Nothing does. But let's not pretend this guy is Gandhi here.

At the point he refused to get off the flight, I'm pretty sure that becomes trespass, with the caveat that the airline is a 'common carrier' and so bound by additional laws and regs designed to protect passengers*. He's got a contract with the airline, if he thinks it's been violated he has other avenues to pursue

Of course, just because the airline could send in the cops to evict him does not follow that they should. United staff who made this call were colossally stupid on a number of levels.

*e.g. the Cal. Civ. Code §2100 states that "[a] carrier of persons for reward must use the utmost care and diligence for their safe carriage, must provide everything necessary for that purpose, and must exercise to that end a reasonable degree of skill."
posted by leotrotsky at 10:15 AM on April 10, 2017 [6 favorites]

At the point he refused to get off the flight, I'm pretty sure that becomes trespass,

I mean, maybe legally, but you aren't going to find any jury in the world willing to agree with you.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:17 AM on April 10, 2017 [9 favorites]

Having him beaten was surely an exercise of utmost care. Those officers displayed a reasonable degree of skill at knocking him out.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 10:18 AM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

Maybe 0.1% of flights overall are overbooked, but I am sure that number is much higher on Sunday night, and other peak times.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 10:19 AM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

I mean, maybe legally, but you aren't going to find any jury in the world willing to agree with you.

...hence colossally stupid of United. Even if his grounds are slim there's no way in hell the airline would let it get anywhere near a courtroom. Airlines know what the public thinks of them. The only way they could be less popular is if they were owned by Comcast. This is a 'name your settlement' kind of deal.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:19 AM on April 10, 2017 [14 favorites]

The guy was in the wrong here. He was chosen at random, and he refused to comply.

This is some deeply troubling, full-on dystopian shit right here, dude. I'm not going to fault the people on that plane for not standing up for the guy, it's a shocking situation, and some of those people probably had very good reasons not to start shit. There were kids on that plane too, and plenty of people must have been doing the mental math on whether any sort of escalation could be safe in a space like that. But to sit here now and blithely say the almighty faceless corporation has chosen a citizen to be tossed from the plane and of course that citizen's only duty must be to Comply with the almighty Will of the Corporation, a will which is enforced by violence....that is very, very troubling. It's not new, obviously, because Corporations are People and the state has taken care to show us that they are the better class of people with more rights and more force and more capital, but it's troubling still. If you don't find it deeply troubling, if you find yourself siding with the corporation over the actual human person, I worry. I really do. Not about you, specifically, but about us as a society.
posted by yasaman at 10:19 AM on April 10, 2017 [216 favorites]

Flying options preferable to United:

* Gerhardt Cycleplane
* Trebuchet
* Helium balloons tied to folding chair
* Use power of imagination to visit your destination instead of actual physical travel
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:21 AM on April 10, 2017 [62 favorites]

I had almost gotten to where I wasn't completely terrified at TSA checkpoints. Having watched this video, I'm not sure I'm getting on a plane again.
posted by hydropsyche at 10:21 AM on April 10, 2017 [7 favorites]

Does the 0.1% of overbooked flights include cargo, chartered and private flights?
posted by dazed_one at 10:21 AM on April 10, 2017

Bumping people after boarding is terrible, even if they have the right to do it.
posted by smackfu at 10:22 AM on April 10, 2017 [7 favorites]

It's more terrible because they have stolen the right to do it, guys.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 10:24 AM on April 10, 2017 [13 favorites]

This is some deeply troubling, full-on dystopian shit right here, dude.

Welcome to the American version of the conventional wisdom circa 2017.

This fiasco won't hurt United. Almost all flyers are either on business and have status, and so won't switch because they'd lose status, or once-a-decade flyers choosing purely on price.
posted by PMdixon at 10:24 AM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

You don't just say "stop" because you expect to stop the thing in the moment. You say "stop" because it's important for authority to understand that they are seen and people don't like it.

Look, we've just seen that saying "stop" can derail the Trump administration, people who have no reason not to rule with the gun and the jackboot if they think it will work. Creating a culture of "we are unhappy with this and we're getting restive" is not the same as having an armed revolution, but it's not useless either.

Also, when you say "stop", all the other people who are thinking "I am uncomfortable with this and I wish they would stop" start to feel comfortable chiming in.

Also, look, I bet those security guys were badly trained and made a bad in-the-moment decision. I bet there is no formal policy at United that says "when someone won't take the first offer to get off the plane, drag them off". Sometimes, when people are badly trained and acting off their own bat, a consisted response from the crowd can get them to stop, because they're already doing something for which they don't have a plan.

Also, yeah, ok, it doesn't work every time but I've seen police let go of people due to crowd objections.

If someone is doing something violent and wrong you should speak up if you're not unusually vulnerable to retribution or otherwise at risk, because that's how we create or maintain social norms. "It won't do any good so just ignore people getting their faces bashed in" leads to more face-bashing, not less.

You miss 100% of the stops you don't say.
posted by Frowner at 10:25 AM on April 10, 2017 [133 favorites]

In defense of... humans, I guess, other passengers were definitely protesting to some degree. You can hear multiple people shouting "No" and "Oh my god" and one woman says very clearly "This is wrong, look at what you did to him." You can see many people holding out their phones to film the events. His fellow passengers obviously could have intervened more aggressively, but they definitely weren't just sitting there in passive silence.

I have thought about this a lot -- rehearsing what I would do in situations like this. One thing that makes it difficult on planes is that it is often very hard to hear or see what is going on in another row, because seats/heads are in the way and the ambient noise of the plane drowns out any conversation that's conducted quietly -- as offensive remarks said by crew or fellow passengers often are. I'm not sure what would have been the best thing for fellow passengers to do in this situation, beyond what they already did.
posted by the turtle's teeth at 10:25 AM on April 10, 2017 [45 favorites]

But to sit here now and blithely say the almighty faceless corporation has chosen a citizen to be tossed from the plane and of course that citizen's only duty must be to Comply with the almighty Will of the Corporation, a will which is enforced by violence....that is very, very troubling.

Let's say I'm a dentist. I've incorporated under subchapter S to avoid paying some payroll tax, so my business is even a corporation. I'm supposed to give you a filling and I've got you in the chair in my dental office. Suddenly something unavoidable comes up, and I can't get you fit in. I apologize, ask you to reschedule, and offer to pay you some money in exchange for the reschedule. You refuse to leave the chair under any circumstances until you get that filling.

Now, would you say it's unreasonable if eventually I call the cops to get you to leave? Would that constitute "deeply troubling, full-on dystopian shit?"
posted by leotrotsky at 10:25 AM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]

Capt. Renault, because he's occupying space he doesn't own, and United can say he's trespassing and then when he doesn't comply immediately, trump up a claim that he's a health and safety risk to other passengers. If he were asked to drive back to the mall and return a few Furbys because he bought several and the vendor retroactively realized they should've imposed an "x per customer" rule, that would be different. But he was trespassing on a plane he didn't own, so technically if he didn't want to be a lawbreaker he'd have quietly complied. On the other hand, this is a gigantic steamy load of bullshit and had he simply stood up and walked off the plane, United would be getting away with it, so I'm glad he did what he did and I hope more people will peaceably obstruct the next time an airline pulls this crap.

So what happened next? Why did he get back on the plane? Did they finally eject him permanently? Where is he, now? Is he okay? Did he make it home at some point?

Flying options preferable to United:

* Gerhardt Cycleplane
* Trebuchet
* Helium balloons tied to folding chair
* Use power of imagination to visit your destination instead of actual physical travel

Flying options not preferable to United:

* Delta
posted by Don Pepino at 10:25 AM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

Not defending United at all here, but flight was operated by Republic Airlines, a subcontracted carrier that operates flights for not only United but also Delta and American. If someone from Republic made the call to physically remove passengers it was just chance that this happened on a United-branded flight versus Delta or American.

But yeah, this make me want to never fly UAL again. I have something like 300k miles banked with United; when I cash them in it's going to be with a partner airline or to buy stuff instead of flights.
posted by nathan_teske at 10:28 AM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

Serious question: how are people able to enforce a "never fly this airline again" personal policy and still actually ever fly anywhere domestically? Spouse and I make good incomes (so can afford higher cost plane tickets), live in Chicago (which has two giant airports), are NOT traveling with small children, don't have points or miles with any airline, and rarely fly anywhere small or rural and rarely have reasonable options or an actual choice (where reasonable options mean 1. no more than 1 stop (that is, a flight/transit time that is not 6 or more hours); 2. leave after 8:00am or before 9:00pm and arrive before 10:00pm; 3) don't cost more than 2/3 of my entire paycheck for two people.

This situation is pretty horrifying in every possible way. Being in the airport is already traumatic for people who get "patted down" (which happens to me often, god knows why--Spouse says it's because I radiate TSA Hatred) and now there's video of an airline passenger being assaulted for refusing to give up his seat when he had a valid boarding pass and had, indeed, already been seated.
posted by crush at 10:29 AM on April 10, 2017 [16 favorites]

A couple of years ago I was on a United flight that left three hours late because the pilot never turned up and nobody knew where he was. I missed my connection and the next flight out wasn't for 24 hours. The plane landed around midnight, and they made every single passenger, all ~200 of them, stand in line at the only open customer service desk in the airport and one by one, individually argue with the agent about why they needed a hotel voucher, which took over two hours. At the time I thought I was just unlucky but now I suspect it may have been because United Is The Worst
posted by theodolite at 10:29 AM on April 10, 2017 [38 favorites]

how are people able to enforce a "never fly this airline again" personal policy and still actually ever fly anywhere domestically?

I have been flying only Southwest for the last 10 years, and i haven't had this kind of problem. (and the last time I few an airline that wasn't Southwest, it was... United. They completely screwed up back then.)
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 10:31 AM on April 10, 2017 [13 favorites]

Leo Trotsky, the same rules don't apply to multibillion dollar corporations as they do to small businesses. Because they have used their wealth to acquire more rights than small-scale businesses, it is reasonable to hold their feet to the fire. A dentist is not a stakeholder in the police through his political connections.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 10:31 AM on April 10, 2017 [31 favorites]

You refuse to leave the chair under any circumstances until you get that filling.

This is a shitty analogy. If the dentist isn't doing the filling, then there's no reason to be in the dentist's office, and yes, you can call the police at some point.

The plane is leaving either way. The question is, who's on it and who's not.

If you want a less shitty analogy, try this: You're tucked in bed at 11 PM in a hotel about to doze off. The manager knocks on the door and says "My brother's in town and I'm gonna give him the room for the night. Pack up your shit and leave because you're trespassing now. I'll refund your money, I guess". Should the police even show up for that call, let alone knock you out so they can drag you out of the room?
posted by 0xFCAF at 10:32 AM on April 10, 2017 [187 favorites]

Let's say I'm a dentist. I've incorporated under subchapter S to avoid paying some payroll tax, so my business is even a corporation. I'm supposed to give you a filling and I've got you in the chair in my dental office. Suddenly something unavoidable comes up, and I can't get you fit in. I apologize, ask you to reschedule, and offer to pay you some money in exchange for the reschedule. You refuse to leave the chair under any circumstances until you get that filling.

Now, would you say it's unreasonable if eventually I call the cops to get you to leave? Would that constitute "deeply troubling, full-on dystopian shit?"

Have I already paid for the service? Have you already administered anesthetic and begun drilling? Then yeah, dystopian shit.
posted by parliboy at 10:33 AM on April 10, 2017 [34 favorites]

> Bumping people after boarding is terrible, even if they have the right to do it.

Delta did this just a few weeks ago with a flight I was on. They got a requisite number of passengers to agree to disembark without any apparent violence, but the plane was stuck at the gate for over a half-hour anyway while cargo crews removed their bags.

In other thoughts, that was a trans-Pacific destination. I was impressed they could find anybody to agree to get bumped, since they just added a 10 hour daytime wait in DTW and a baggage check nightmare to their 13 hour flight.
posted by ardgedee at 10:35 AM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

Suddenly something unavoidable comes up, and I can't get you fit in. I apologize, ask you to reschedule, and offer to pay you some money in exchange for the reschedule. You refuse to leave the chair under any circumstances until you get that filling.

If this is the analogy you want to use, then take it all the way. The patient is in the chair, already having received their numbing shot. The dentist finds out that, whoops, his office manager or nurse tech or whatever has broken their crown! The dentist decides that's more urgent than the patient's filling and says, sorry, come back later, I'll refund you. The patient is reasonably furious and not willing to get out, because they've gotten their numbing shot, they paid for and made this appointment, and now they're getting booted in favor of the dentist's office manager? What the fuck?

Sure, the dentist can call the cops and get the patient kicked out. Doesn't make it right.
posted by yasaman at 10:35 AM on April 10, 2017 [45 favorites]

Let's say I'm a dentist. I've incorporated under subchapter S to avoid paying some payroll tax, so my business is even a corporation. I'm supposed to give you a filling and I've got you in the chair in my dental office. Suddenly something unavoidable comes up, and I can't get you fit in. I apologize, ask you to reschedule, and offer to pay you some money in exchange for the reschedule. You refuse to leave the chair under any circumstances until you get that filling.

Now, would you say it's unreasonable if eventually I call the cops to get you to leave? Would that constitute "deeply troubling, full-on dystopian shit?"

Depends where we are in the process. Let's say you've made all the preparations for the actual putting in of the filling, like possibly administering anaesthetic, maybe drilling out the tooth a little... At what point does it become a problem? And what are you offering me? A voucher for another anaesthetic and the possibility of the work I've paid for in advance being done tomorrow (oh but I'm not free tomorrow so that offer is worthless)?

Like, it isn't as simple as 'the law says this and I can come up with a situation where the law makes sense, ergo that is ALWAYS how it is'.
posted by Dysk at 10:36 AM on April 10, 2017 [9 favorites]

United also overbooked the security officers on my flight. They had to pay me to beat myself.
posted by w0mbat at 10:36 AM on April 10, 2017 [34 favorites]

painful dental procedures, another thing better than flying United
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:39 AM on April 10, 2017 [38 favorites]

I have been flying only Southwest for the last 10 years, and i haven't had this kind of problem. (and the last time I few an airline that wasn't Southwest, it was... United. They completely screwed up back then.)

same. every time I wonder what the other majors are like and fly through, e.g., American, I inevitably regret it. the worst Southwest has ever done to me is delay a connecting flight by ~4 hours and got me in past midnight where (1) they got me where I was going and (2) they were very apologetic and gave everyone $100 vouchers for our trouble.

ironically, I live nowhere near one of the 5 or 6 cities in the US where all the luxury services are concentrated and I'm almost always in their network.
posted by indubitable at 10:41 AM on April 10, 2017 [6 favorites]

2015: 552,000 passengers denied boarding; 46,000 involuntarily.

(Actually less than average for the last couple of decades.)
posted by Huffy Puffy at 10:43 AM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

The guy was in the wrong here. He was chosen at random, and he refused to comply.

Neat. It's 2017 and we're now in full-on Shirley Jackson territory. Good to know.
posted by stet at 10:44 AM on April 10, 2017 [82 favorites]

He was chosen at random, and he refused to comply.

how are we even going to have the Hunger Games if people flout the rules like this
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:45 AM on April 10, 2017 [119 favorites]

Serious question: how are people able to enforce a "never fly this airline again" personal policy and still actually ever fly anywhere domestically?

All of my flying is discretionary, planned well in advance, scheduled more or less completely at my convenience meaning not at holidays, and I'm estranged from my family. As well, destinations are chosen in the context of the "no United, ever!" policy.

So basically by allowing that policy to be the determining factor in whether or not a particular trip takes place.
posted by PMdixon at 10:46 AM on April 10, 2017 [9 favorites]

Soooo... I don't, by any means, wish to defend the violence, but...

Yet you still feel compelled to do so.

I wonder why.

But funny that's an Asian looking guy it happened to.

The guy was in the wrong here. He was chosen at random, and he refused to comply.

Befehl is befehl.
posted by MartinWisse at 10:46 AM on April 10, 2017 [9 favorites]

The guy was in the wrong here. He was chosen at random, and he refused to comply.

As McConnell said of Elizabeth Warren when she tried to read Coretta Scott King: "She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted."
posted by Dalby at 10:46 AM on April 10, 2017 [29 favorites]

"If United thinks that using the threat of being jailed or injured is the best way to improve their bottom line, fine, let's see them actually do it. They did, and showed their true colors."

I've had nothing but horrible experiences on United. But nothing compared to this. This is just so monstrously horrible, I can't imagine they will ever recover from this. And personally, I hope they don't.
posted by sutt at 10:47 AM on April 10, 2017 [6 favorites]

he's occupying space he doesn't own

Sure, but why is he occupying it?

Wiggum: ... once a man is in your home, anything you do to him is nice and legal.
Homer: [nefariously] Is that so? [calls out window] Oh, Flanders! Won't you join me in my kitchen? Heh, heh, heh...
Wiggum: Er, it doesn't work if you invite him.

There's a very long continuum stretching from "trespassers get to squat and there's nothing you can do about it" all the way to "if you change your mind about a guest then they'd better hope they can outrun your hounds", and I'm not sure this incident is closer to the former than to the latter.

How/why/in what nightmare world are cheaptickets passengers ineligible for vouchers?

Not in our world. Nobody has to accept vouchers for being bumped; if you're involuntarily bumped, you're entitled to cash. If your name is being drawn from a hat, they're at the point where nobody is volunteering to give up a seat, so you might as well not accept any offer either, because you can bet it will be worth less than the 2x-4x the cost of your ticket (max $675-$1350) you'll be owed for an involuntary bump.

Where frugal passengers get into trouble is that the airlines are aware of that "cost of your ticket" multiplier as well. If you paid $20 less than the person next to you, then it costs the airline $40 or $80 less to bump you than it would to bump them, so guess which one of you won't have their name put into that hat?
posted by roystgnr at 10:47 AM on April 10, 2017 [15 favorites]

United must be the biggest PR idiots in the world. I was on a Delta flight in Detroit recently that they needed four passengers off of. The flight was already late so they had already brought in carts of free food for everybody at the gate. Then they started the bidding at $600. $1,000 was the magic number. I guess they didn't realize a better way would be to hold the price at $800 and call the cops.
posted by lagomorphius at 10:48 AM on April 10, 2017 [14 favorites]

He was chosen at random

It's not random. It's an algorithm that might be random among the passengers left once a bunch of premier level frequent fliers, and people that paid any kind of premium for their seat, are taken out of the pool.
posted by COD at 10:53 AM on April 10, 2017 [28 favorites]

BEFORE they started banning little girls for wearing leggings

I'm not a fan of United (and think the policy is somewhat archaic), but there are lots of restrictions when you travel on cheap passes available to family members of United employees -- and a strict dress code is one of them.
posted by Slothrup at 10:54 AM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

Yes, exactly. United's Contract of Carriage says:

Boarding Priorities - If a flight is Oversold, no one may be denied boarding against his/her will until UA or other carrier personnel first ask for volunteers who will give up their reservations willingly in exchange for compensation as determined by UA. If there are not enough volunteers, other Passengers may be denied boarding involuntarily in accordance with UA’s boarding priority:
- Passengers who are Qualified Individuals with Disabilities, unaccompanied minors under the age of 18 years, or minors between the ages of 5 to 15 years who use the unaccompanied minor service, will be the last to be involuntarily denied boarding if it is determined by UA that such denial would constitute a hardship.
- The priority of all other confirmed passengers may be determined based on a passenger’s fare class, itinerary, status of frequent flyer program membership, and the time in which the passenger presents him/herself for check-in without advanced seat assignment.

posted by gladly at 10:56 AM on April 10, 2017 [6 favorites]

Source: the person I know at that PR company. I feel like they don't mind, given that it's a reliable fee...

What sort of stuff do they do in exchange for lots of money from United? I hope it doesn't include trying to convince the rest of us that beating some guy down and dragging him off a flight is actually not a big deal.
posted by indubitable at 10:58 AM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

It's not random.

Agreed. They aren't going to randomly pick a parent travelling with a child, member of a tour group, or one person from a couple that purchased together. I'd bet an in-flight margarita the random drawing is among single seat purchasers. So it's business travelers and single people who get this honor.
posted by cmfletcher at 11:01 AM on April 10, 2017 [9 favorites]

This fiasco won't hurt United. Almost all flyers are either on business and have status, and so won't switch because they'd lose status, or once-a-decade flyers choosing purely on price.

I am a business flyer. I have status. I personally choose which flights I take. There are very few routes that don't have more than one carrier servicing them.

You can get reciprocal status on other airlines, you can transfer your miles, or as a last resort liquidate them.

Perhaps you mean white people, who can't imagine this happening to them, won't bother to stop flying United?
posted by danny the boy at 11:03 AM on April 10, 2017 [15 favorites]

there are lots of restrictions when you travel on cheap passes available to family members of United employees -- and a strict dress code is one of them.

i'm not sure how the sexist behavior being policy makes it better
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:06 AM on April 10, 2017 [39 favorites]

I'm not a fan of United (and I'm not trying to defend them) but boy do they have a lot of stupid, short-sighted, incompetent, vindictive, petty, rules-lawyering brutal assholes running their airline. And it seems to me trying to defend them in any way puts a person in the same light. But I'm really not a fan. Nor am I defending them.
posted by valkane at 11:11 AM on April 10, 2017 [10 favorites]

Perhaps you mean white people, who can't imagine this happening to them, won't bother to stop flying United?

Good point, mea culpa.
posted by PMdixon at 11:12 AM on April 10, 2017

Serious question: how are people able to enforce a "never fly this airline again" personal policy and still actually ever fly anywhere domestically?

I live within a 2-day drive of most of the eastern half of the United States. Granted, I'm fortunate that I sometimes have enough time to spare to consider that possibility, and I recognize that not everyone does, but it's something I at least consider for trips within that range. I find a 15-hour drive, split over two days, in my own car, infinitely more pleasant than a 3-hour flight plus a 2-hour layover plus a 2-hour flight on even the best airlines.

It's not always a question of United vs. Delta, sometimes it's a question of United vs. DevilsAdvocate Ground Transport.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:16 AM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]

This Vox post explains that under federal regulations, airlines "can bump a passenger involuntarily if they pay four times the ticket price (up to $1,350)."

However, nothing prevents airlines from offering more that than amount. Except, apparently, stupidity.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:17 AM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

For those of you trying to rules-lawyer this travesty away, there is a very helpful comment over at airliners.net that explains how United was in the wrong, even by their own rules:

It's called Involuntary DENIED BOARDING. He was not denied boarding. He was allowed to board, by all accounts. No one has claimed he rushed the gate agent. When your butt is in a seat, it's yours. With him is his seat, we have left Rule 25 of the CoC and are now in Rule 21: Refusal of Transport. That is the only clause that covers removing a passenger from the aircraft. And not a single enumerated reason in Rule 21 applies to this customer.
posted by zug at 11:18 AM on April 10, 2017 [132 favorites]

Yes, he was removed from the aircraft which is Rule 21 in this Contract of Carriage.

I'm not sure how United's lawyers will argue against that. And it is clear that this guy will get a lawyer.
posted by vacapinta at 11:20 AM on April 10, 2017 [16 favorites]

Chicago PD statement confirms a head injury.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:23 AM on April 10, 2017 [7 favorites]

WaPo article with a few more details: Communicator of the year.
posted by Don Pepino at 11:23 AM on April 10, 2017 [13 favorites]

Good point, mea culpa.

No worries, same conclusion, just sadly a different way of getting there.

To be honest my personal travel patterns aren't going to change... because I was already avoiding United, even though I have most of my miles with them and live in a hub. When I was collecting on United, it was usually a choice of fly with them at greater cost, or a cheaper ticket on one of several other airlines.

In my experience they are domestically more expensive AND their equipment/service is worse. Internationally, I wouldn't fly any US carrier... I honestly don't know why people choose them at all.
posted by danny the boy at 11:24 AM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

I don't, by any means, wish to defend the violence, but... The guy was in the wrong here. He was chosen at random, and he refused to comply.

Agreed. He was asked to volunteer, which anyone knows isn't in fact voluntary. Also, United Airlines has always been at war with Eastasia Airlines.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 11:25 AM on April 10, 2017 [52 favorites]

In my experience they are domestically more expensive AND their equipment/service is worse. Internationally, I wouldn't fly any US carrier... I honestly don't know why people choose them at all.

Because I-80 is a fucking long road.
posted by Talez at 11:26 AM on April 10, 2017 [10 favorites]

I've never had a personal problem with United, they're marginally more convenient for me than Delta (I refuse to fly American). I have points and a rewards card with them.

I'm trying to think if there's anything they can do to keep me from canceling my card and adding them to the 'never' list.

So far I can't think of anything.
posted by Skorgu at 11:28 AM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

But he was trespassing on a plane he didn't own, so technically if he didn't want to be a lawbreaker he'd have quietly complied.

It may be trespass, but it's trespass after having been given a license to enter, which was later revoked -- and not for anything he had done up to the point of the revocation. He did everything he was supposed to do to be given the license to enter, then he was given that license, and then that licence was arbitrarily revoked for reasons outside of his own conduct.

I think that's an important distinction from 'ordinary' trespass. There may be a trespass argument to be made, but given that the situation was vastly more the creation of the airline, I doubt it would, you know, fly.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:30 AM on April 10, 2017 [32 favorites]

i'm not sure how the sexist behavior being policy makes it better

Men wearing shorts and traveling under the same kind of ticket would also be asked to change.
posted by Slothrup at 11:31 AM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

What a shit show. Everyone here is aggressively bad at their jobs - except for the poor doctor they removed.

1) Whomever is doing employee scheduling should have figured this out before deciding the best way to get staff to where they need to go is bumping customers

2) The gate agents running that flight should have figured this out before allowing people to board

3) Whomever was responsible for the payout could easily have found four volunteers given the delta between $800 and the legally capped maximum

4) The cops (or whomever they are) could have, you know, asked some questions before deciding that the only way forward was physical violence

There are accounts saying that after the doctor was pulled off, the cops (?) lost track of him and the gate agents (who are already plainly terrible at their jobs) weren't minding the store - so the dude gets *back* on the plane. At which point they need to disembark everybody and start the whole process over again.
posted by NoRelationToLea at 11:34 AM on April 10, 2017

There may be a trespass argument to be made, but given that the situation was vastly more the creation of the airline, I doubt it would, you know, fly.
Yeah, and I really hope they make it and really hope they get laaaaaaaaffs for days. But, you know, Gorsuch thought that dude should've sat in his truck and frozen to death and Gorsuch is on the supreme court. So.
posted by Don Pepino at 11:34 AM on April 10, 2017 [19 favorites]

There are even more horrifying details in this article from WaPo:

"In another video, the man runs back onto the plane, his clothes still mussed from his forcible ejection, frantically repeating: “I have to go home. I have to go home.”

“He was kind of dazed and confused,” Bridges said. He recalled a group of high school students leaving the plane in disgust at that point, their adult escort explaining to other passengers: “They don’t need to see this anymore.”

The airline eventually cleared everyone from the plane, Bridges said, and did not let them back on until the man was removed a second time — in a stretcher."
posted by the turtle's teeth at 11:41 AM on April 10, 2017 [32 favorites]

Also: "'I’m being selected because I’m Chinese.’”
posted by Don Pepino at 11:43 AM on April 10, 2017 [12 favorites]

Was the doctor traveling with someone? On one of the videos there is a woman in a white sweater with a large bag who runs after the police dragging him down the aisle and out the plane. I've seen no mention of her in any of the stories.
posted by lagomorphius at 11:45 AM on April 10, 2017

Given post 9/11 rules (i.e., that the crew can remove any passenger for any reason including racist panic on the crew's part), I wouldn't be surprised if the legal ruling is that the passenger is in the wrong, contract of carriage or no contract of carriage, but United is clearly in the moral wrong.
posted by tavella at 11:45 AM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

I'm trying to think if there's anything they can do to keep me from canceling my card and adding them to the 'never' list.

If you want a bunch of reasons TO cancel, airline credit cards are generally not the best way to maximize rewards, even if you're only interested in traveling with that carrier.

I've had really nice experiences with Delta, as someone with no status, fwiw.

And it doesn't have to be all or nothing. "Never fly" is fine if you have the ability to do that but it's totally reasonable to look at this and set up your own inverse loyalty program, where your least preferred carrier is now the one that brought in the cops to brutalize a passenger.
posted by danny the boy at 11:50 AM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

Well, FWIW, I highly doubt that they'll have any overbooking problems any time soon, if ever again.
posted by sexyrobot at 11:50 AM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

From the WaPo article:

"Tyler Bridges recalled trouble starting almost as soon as he and his wife boarded.

"An airline supervisor walked onto the plane and brusquely announced: 'We have United employees that need to fly to Louisville tonight. … This flight’s not leaving until four people get off.'

"'That rubbed some people the wrong way,' Bridges said."
posted by Guy Smiley at 11:52 AM on April 10, 2017 [21 favorites]

It's called Involuntary DENIED BOARDING. He was not denied boarding. He was allowed to board, by all accounts. No one has claimed he rushed the gate agent. When your butt is in a seat, it's yours. With him is his seat, we have left Rule 25 of the CoC and are now in Rule 21: Refusal of Transport. That is the only clause that covers removing a passenger from the aircraft. And not a single enumerated reason in Rule 21 applies to this customer.

Yes, he was removed from the aircraft which is Rule 21 in this Contract of Carriage.

Wow. United is even more fucked than I thought.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:54 AM on April 10, 2017 [13 favorites]

Serious question: how are people able to enforce a "never fly this airline again" personal policy and still actually ever fly anywhere domestically?

Here is what I do when boycotting an airline, personally:

If I'm planning to travel on a leisure trip where no one else is affected, I'll keep searching Expedia or various booking websites until I can find another inexpensive fare that doesn't involve the affected airline. I'll see if I can be flexible on dates too.

If I'm travelling on a priority trip, I will take the fare that gets me to the place I need to be, regardless of the carrier.

You don't have to "never fly this airline again" to participate in a boycott. Sometimes "often not flying this airline again" is still enough for them to feel the pinch.
posted by corb at 11:56 AM on April 10, 2017 [13 favorites]

I highly doubt that they'll have any overbooking problems any time soon

Well, all the carriers optimize their routes until they're averaging near-full flights. (Fun Fact: sometimes those "mechanical" delays are to combine two flights into one!)

So, no, this probably won't affect anything much.

The short term is already committed to travel. Most tickets are non-refundable. The ones that are are also the status holder tickets. We'll have to see how many people take their status over to a competitor over this.

The medium term may see UAL having to combine flights more often, leading to frustration in booking useful departure or arrival times compared to competitors.

Long term? Who knows. Routes might just disappear.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 11:57 AM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

I think this event is a natural outcome of a vicious cycle exploitative businesses like United tend to fall into.

When you start mistreating your customers to make a little extra money, you develop contempt for them to justify it to yourself, but the more contempt you have for them the worse you treat them, until it reaches a point that you see nothing wrong with having goons brutalize one of them and drag him off the plane.

And this incident sheds a different light on the refusal to let the two girls who were the children of an employee fly because they were wearing leggings. Leggings are what passengers wear; a business which has contempt for its customers ends up drawing a hard line between employees, who are to be valued, and customers who are disliked and dismissed -- and those two girls made the mistake of crossing that line.

Dragging this guy off the plane without a second thought because an employee needed his seat is yet another demonstration of reflexive privileging of staff over customers in a business which has gone bad.
posted by jamjam at 11:58 AM on April 10, 2017 [32 favorites]

Police said the officers attempted to carry the man off the flight "when he fell."

"His head subsequently struck an armrest causing injuries to his face," police said, adding that the man was taken to a hospital and treated for non-life threatening injuries. An investigation into the incident was still ongoing.


Riiight
posted by driedmango at 12:00 PM on April 10, 2017 [25 favorites]

I can't count the number of times I've fallen my head into an armrest from a seated position while being re-accommodated. Happens all the time.
posted by 0xFCAF at 12:02 PM on April 10, 2017 [71 favorites]

look they were just following orders okay [bleak sarcasm]
posted by entropicamericana at 12:02 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

Oh, his head injuries were because he fell down the stairs? Is this a farce?
posted by I-Write-Essays at 12:10 PM on April 10, 2017 [11 favorites]

Riiight

Wonder how long before we hear that the officers felt threatened.

Twitter is going HAM on United: great fun at their expense with "re-accommodate."

At the conclusion of the lawsuit when he's awarded umpteen million dollars, I hope the passenger turns to United's CEO and says, "Look at me. Look at me. I'm the captain now."
posted by lord_wolf at 12:13 PM on April 10, 2017 [24 favorites]

Police said the officers attempted to carry the man off the flight "when he fell."

I wonder how it feels to live in the late 1990s or something before people could take videos with their phones. It must be nice to still be a cop (or their respective PR / Legal teams) living in that when. Think they can send me some Clearly Canadian carbonated water, I miss that stuff?
posted by RolandOfEld at 12:14 PM on April 10, 2017 [11 favorites]

look they were just following orders okay [bleak sarcasm]

Not even sarcasm. If you read the airliners.net thread, you will find posters who think it would have been just fine if they had killed the guy. "Unlimited consequences."
posted by tavella at 12:14 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

I just checked and, yep, Untied Airlines is still going strong.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 12:14 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

3) Whomever was responsible for the payout could easily have found four volunteers given the delta between $800 and the legally capped maximum

Or they could have gotten a van rental and offered to drive four passengers to Louisville. I bet they'd have had takers for that.
posted by dilettante at 12:16 PM on April 10, 2017 [9 favorites]

It looks like they "randomly" selected two lowest-fare couples over four lowest-fare singletons. Probably usually easier to disappoint people in pairs.

Danny the boy, you must live in a decent-sized city. I hate Delta with the heat of a thousand suns. They screw me EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I wish they would say, "We won't fly these little fuckers 'til they're packed solid and you hayseeds don't keep your promises, so expect a one- to fourdaylong layover in Atlanta." Instead when you arrive in ATL they allow as how you need to race to your gate with all possible speed but when you get there they've cancelled your flight. They then proceed to chivvy you all over the airport from gate to gate chasing a phantom plane that, given how often this happens, they know perfectly well does not exist. I swear this is true, there's a special flightdelaytheater plane in Atlanta that they board you onto when they sense you're tired of the gatechase. They let you sit on that for a while, then, just before they're legally required to give you water, announce "mechanical difficulties" and deplane you just for diversion. Once in my monekyroost of a hometown the plane never got there from Atlanta (they claimed the usual mechanical difficulties but we all know it was that there were too few passengers to justify the jetfuel). So we waited four hours for the next one but while they were deplaning it, somebody's toddler, maddened from having had to sit in ATL for six or eight days without food, water, or diversion other than having gotten on and off the fake plane nine or ten times, pulled the pin on the onplane fire extinguisher. They didn't have any spare fire extinguishers in the plane or at the airport. You know, because, why would they? So they couldn't fly. We all just went out into the parking lot and either got in our cars and drove home or just wandered off into the trackless woods to live on the proverbial nuts and berries.
posted by Don Pepino at 12:17 PM on April 10, 2017 [40 favorites]

Or they could have gotten a van rental and offered to drive four passengers to Louisville.

Never trust an airline that has plans that could concieveably be from an episode if It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I say that because, without a doubt, United would have put the folks that agreed to this sort of thing into a panel van with no seats except for the one that has Danny Devito in the Captain's chair with a kooky smile and a chauffeur's hat oh his head and the other seat, a folding lawn chair (rusty), that is occupied by Charlie, who is whispering "Wild card, bitches".
posted by RolandOfEld at 12:20 PM on April 10, 2017 [16 favorites]

I wonder how it feels to live in the late 1990s or something before people could take videos with their phones.

The videotaping of the Rodney King beating was in 1991. Obviously not with a phone, but that's the earliest major incident I can remember. It feels like it became a thing to film police beatings after that. I reflexively pull out my phone when I see police stopping someone (which happens often on my street; thankfully I haven't seen anything untoward).
posted by AFABulous at 12:26 PM on April 10, 2017 [13 favorites]

As someone who's worked in PR, I've been watching United's awful response play out with frustrated fascination.

First you find out why everyone was boarded before they tried to rebook. Then you find the genius who thought calling cops was a good idea. Then you release a statement SOOOO different from that. You know, expressing even more distress, and stressing the immediate implementation of training for all staff, etc...

As I said elsewhere, in biz, law and PR courses five years from now, the instructors will be saying, Let's turn to the chapter on United and "reaccommodation."


I wonder how it feels to live in the late 1990s or something before people could take videos with their phones.

More and more cell phones will be confiscated for the duration when authorities want to preempt the possibility of negative video?
posted by NorthernLite at 12:27 PM on April 10, 2017 [24 favorites]

Police said the officers attempted to carry the man off the flight "when he fell."

"His head subsequently struck an armrest causing injuries to his face," police said

In one of the videos, you can clearly see the passenger's head strike the armrest of the seat opposite his row because the officers dragged him out of his seat. "Subsequently" is doing a lot of work in that sentence to avoid describing what happened.
posted by gladly at 12:35 PM on April 10, 2017 [36 favorites]

I've been watching the TV show Continuum and, without spoilers (if you can spoil a 3 year old show), I'll just say that this is how the awful corporate future begins. Frowner is right that this is the time to say no.
posted by AFABulous at 12:36 PM on April 10, 2017 [15 favorites]

Did United think the guy was a guitar?
posted by azpenguin at 12:40 PM on April 10, 2017 [23 favorites]

I've been watching the TV show Continuum and, without spoilers (if you can spoil a 3 year old show), I'll just say that this is how the awful corporate future begins. Frowner is right that this is the time to say no.

I have not rewatched Continuum in the last year and now both simultaneously want to and am terrified to.
posted by corb at 12:42 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

Gizmodo is pointing out a new video (caution: shows a rather bloodied face) posted this afternoon. It just gets worse from every angle.

I have to fly United home tomorrow and I'm pretty ashamed.
posted by zachlipton at 12:55 PM on April 10, 2017 [11 favorites]

More and more cell phones will be confiscated for the duration when authorities want to preempt the possibility of negative video?

Maybe in the future with all the government-mandated (and secret) backdoors in tech a protocol will arise for a Public Safety Information Control Order. An officer can initiate one which causes all devices in X radius to have their recording and transmitting capabilities temporarily disabled "for the safety and security of the public and the officers".
posted by Sangermaine at 12:56 PM on April 10, 2017 [6 favorites]

Police said the officers attempted to carry the man off the flight "when he fell."

Look, they were just trying to defuse the situation by making everybody laugh a little with a cool new take on the old "watch your head" trick that always works so well when they stuff someone into the back of a police car. Sheesh, some people just can't take a joke.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 1:00 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yes, jcreigh, times a million, and it doesn't have to be that somebody's doing anything at all bizarre. They come in all aggro, which greatly increases the possibility that somebody will startle, and then they punish autonomic responses to stimuli they dole out. Well, that's kinda dumb because people can't not act reflexively to either defend against or avoid harmful stimuli. That's howcome there are still people. Our ancient ancestors didn't all die from sabertooth bitewounds and being stomped flat by mammoths. Because we have hardwired fight-or-flight responses. Therefore if you want reasonable, civil behavior, you have to act like a fellow reasonable and civil human, and not like a murdermammoth. Maybe don't yell? Don't grab? Hello? This was a 69-year-old man sitting in a chair.
posted by Don Pepino at 1:15 PM on April 10, 2017 [19 favorites]

Why couldn't United book the deadheading employees on another flight on another airline?
posted by bendy at 1:15 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

That dazed and confused reaction lines up perfectly with an abrupt head impact and subsequent concussion.

Yes, a serious concussion. Or, what also occurred to me on a wave of nausea -- the response of a trauma survivor to a new traumatic incident that resembles / sends him back into memories of the previous one.

Either way, what was done to him is sickening. Thank god it was filmed!
posted by mylittlepoppet at 1:17 PM on April 10, 2017 [24 favorites]

Reports state that this man was not mentally ill. That dazed and confused reaction lines up perfectly with an abrupt head impact and subsequent concussion.

And thank goodness he wasn't. I'm mentally ill and also happen to have a brain condition that makes head impacts (let alone concussions) potentially life-threatening. In the few legitimately tense situations I've ever been in, most of the time the adrenalin or whatever has allowed me to deal with the situation on autopilot without OCD, anxiety, or panic setting in (followed by a hard crash). That's only most of the time, though, and when my mental illness has kicked in instead of my crisis mode the situation has tended to get a lot worse.

As a white person with a reasonably nice car, I've only been pulled over a couple of times, and I basically always deserved it. Each time I've managed to keep myself together, but to be honest I'm scared shitless of the cops in a very visceral way and I'm so afraid that some day I'll have a police encounter where I'm unable to maintain total control of my mental state and will be executed for it. And if I'm behaving as irrationally as I have in private situations where my panic has been out of hand, I have no doubt that it would be ruled as justified.

I happen to work across the street from a police station and this is the shit that I spend all day worrying about.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 1:23 PM on April 10, 2017 [20 favorites]

Gizmodo is pointing out a new video (caution: shows a rather bloodied face) posted this afternoon.

For those not clicking through: he appears to be in severe traumatic shock from the head injury, repeating "I have to go home" and "please kill me" over and over in a daze.

As this is going on, someone off-camera (a passenger, I think?) says "you've got to be fucking kidding me" exasperatedly, as if they've been inconvenienced at the post office.

This country and the way it institutionalizes all of this... it really, really wears on me sometimes.
posted by naju at 1:23 PM on April 10, 2017 [18 favorites]

I'm worried about the man and a possible serious concussion after reading of his later behavior. I hope his wife got him seen by medical personnel stat.
posted by NorthernLite at 1:24 PM on April 10, 2017

The incredibly short distance between "didn't comply" and reckless, self-righteous, dehumanizing violence is just one of the things that makes American culture super special
posted by clockzero at 1:30 PM on April 10, 2017 [79 favorites]

As this is going on, someone off-camera (a passenger, I think?) says "you've got to be fucking kidding me" exasperatedly, as if they've been inconvenienced at the post office.

I feel like in my lifetime we have seen the near-complete death of empathy at a societal level.
posted by AFABulous at 1:31 PM on April 10, 2017 [45 favorites]

Might be reading into that from the wrong perspective. I would've said the same damn thing. Do people really need to be told how to treat another human being? I too, would be pissed at being inconvenienced by some dimwits manhandling and beating an elderly man off of a flight.
posted by driedmango at 1:35 PM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

I feel like in my lifetime we have seen the near-complete death of empathy at a societal level.

Reminds me of a comment I came across today in this (rather insightful) twitter thread, about how airports and flying are "like a Stanley Milgram experiment on a giant scale".
posted by naju at 1:41 PM on April 10, 2017 [9 favorites]

"please kill me"

Hard to be certain, but I thought he was saying "Please heal me."
posted by msbrauer at 1:42 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

Why is it the responsibility of any other passenger to correct United's mistake? People have children to go home to, elders they may be responsible for, critical jobs that can't wait - the fuck-up is 100% on United for this one, sorry. And what contempt for their customers. I hope they get sued into oblivion, and I hope the thugs that injured the passenger as they were dragging him out see jail time.

What it really means is that I, as a Chicago resident, will pay for yet more police misconduct. It's becoming the city's core industry.
posted by srboisvert at 1:43 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

The incredibly short distance between "didn't comply" and reckless, self-righteous, dehumanizing violence is just one of the things that makes American culture super special

True. Additionally, I'm disheartened by the number of responses I've seen in various places across the net where, as always, people are claiming that the onus of choosing the most logical and least confrontational course of action is on the frightened, confused, and angry individual not the people with numbers, time, and (presumably) training on their side.
posted by lord_wolf at 1:45 PM on April 10, 2017 [18 favorites]

1)Yes, United's action was a very bad move and most probably could have been avoided in a number of ways as suggested through out this thread.
2)Yes, It is bad PR and terrible customer service. However, United is quite low on the chart of involuntary bumping.
3)It actually happens very infrequently--500,000,000 to 600,000,000 boardings, 400,00-500,000 voluntary bumped: 40,000-50,000 involuntarily bumped and almost always without incident.
4)The process is generally outlined in law,regulations and contract of carriage--about the only people exempt are disabled, minors accompanied and unaccompanied--after that it is up the airline--usual considerations are "true emergencies. fare class . frequent fliers, last checked in etc.
5) It is almost never/ever/rarely a good idea to refuse to comply with a lawful and legal order under any circumstance--United's action however ill considered was clearly compounded by the gentleman's noncompliance. This was not a refusal based on an imminent threat his/others safety nor on a long standing principle of human rights. If you want to challenge a legal order ( yes, it was legal and by appropriate officials) do it later through the courts/lawsuit/arbitration /administrative review etc. Let alone in an airplane. It is irrelevant that he was a physician (apparently feeling victimized/entitles) and it is highly likely that he did have back up coverage( this is a professional responsibility). United fucked up and the gentlemen fucked up. A match made for media.
posted by rmhsinc at 1:46 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

Again, you can be bumped by being denied boarding. Once you've been allowed to board, as this man was, the seat is yours.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:51 PM on April 10, 2017 [69 favorites]

@rmhsinc: Which Rule 21 condition did the gentleman violate? If you say "fail to comply..." by not getting off when they told him, then what's the purpose of having anything besides that single rule in the contract?
posted by hwyengr at 1:55 PM on April 10, 2017 [16 favorites]

rmhsinc: "The process is generally outlined in law,regulations and contract of carriage"

Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish: "Again, you can be bumped by being denied boarding. Once you've been allowed to board, as this man was, the seat is yours."

Another nice comment on airliners regarding the definition of 'boarding' touches on this issue:

1. With regards to the CoC, is the passenger or the airline right? I think the definition of the word 'boarding' may become the linchpin of the case. The carrier will argue that boarding is only complete when the manifest is delivered and the door is closed, but I think a jury will disagree as the average joe likely thinks that having your boarding pass scanned and boarding the aircraft, constitutes boarding

I'd be curious to know more about this. Is there anything out there on the legal status of the definition of 'boarding' in this context? I can see it being a legitimate point of contention in this case. Anecdotally I've never been on or heard of a flight where a passenger was involuntarily removed from their seat in the aircraft due to overbooking (as opposed to being drunk, hostile, etc.), and I don't know how common it is.
posted by crazy with stars at 1:57 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

If a professor and student or employer and employee engage in a sexual relationship, we typically accept that the person in a position of lesser power and information is not capable of consenting because they are implicitly under coercion.

I think that the same principle holds true for relationships between individual citizens and the largest corporations. The power imbalance is so great, it is comical to hear their actions equivocated.

I think in this case, because we're talking about actual physical assault, an analogy to how rape victims are treated is appropriate.

> United fucked up and the gentlemen fucked up

Yes, the woman wouldn't have gotten hurt if she had simply not resisted!
posted by I-Write-Essays at 1:58 PM on April 10, 2017 [42 favorites]

the gentlemen fucked up

Fuck this noise. He bought a ticket. He wanted to use it. Do not defend in any way beating a man because the airline was too incompetent and/or cheap to come up with a better problem solving tactic than bashing a customer's face.
posted by zachlipton at 1:58 PM on April 10, 2017 [104 favorites]

The carrier will argue that boarding is only complete when the manifest is delivered and the door is closed

Now I kind of wonder if that's why the flight attendants always say "boarding has been completed" over the PA during the preflight process. Or am I just using confirmation bias and they don't always say it?
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:05 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

I apologize if this has already been posted in this thread:
Airlines Make More Money Selling Miles Than Seats
The golden goose isn’t your ticket or bag fee—it’s the credit card you use to collect frequent flier miles.
posted by robbyrobs at 2:08 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

Pepsi should send United a box of roses and note saying "Thank you".
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:09 PM on April 10, 2017 [41 favorites]

This was not a refusal based on an imminent threat his/others safety nor on a long standing principle of human rights.

You have no idea whether this is the case or not.

A few years ago, on an inter-European flight, my partner and I got bumped, and promised all sorts of things. As the most important thing we had to do the next day was fetch our ferrets from boarding we went for it. Almost as soon as we'd agreed to it the airline basically declined any knowledge of it and said we'd turned up to the gate late and literally the only reason they gave us what they promised is because my beloved sent a text to the ferret boarding place to ask if it was OK because the airline had said x so we could give them y extra.

I'd never willingly get bumped again and I could quite clearly see why a doctor seeing patients would refuse.
posted by threetwentytwo at 2:10 PM on April 10, 2017 [42 favorites]

I think this event is a natural outcome of a vicious cycle exploitative businesses like United tend to fall into.

When you start mistreating your customers to make a little extra money, you develop contempt for them to justify it to yourself

The cycle has one more member that that. It's management, employees actually on the plane and in the airport who deal with the public, then customers. The people in the middle, that is the public-facing employees, are trapped between two demanding groups and are probably the ones who made wrong choices here.

One question is who is going to be blamed: the flight attendants/pilot/gate crew, or whatever management structure and decisions led to them exercising their limited power in a manner that was .... pretty bad.
posted by amtho at 2:16 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

Whatever the definition of "boarding" ends up being doesn't matter. Even if he hadn't yet been seated, the airline didn't comply with 14 CFR 250.9.

Domestic Transportation

Passengers traveling between points within the United States (including the territories and possessions) who are denied boarding involuntarily from an oversold flight are entitled to: (1) No compensation if the carrier offers alternate transportation that is planned to arrive at the passenger's destination or first stopover not later than one hour after the planned arrival time of the passenger's original flight; (2) 200% of the fare to the passenger's destination or first stopover, with a maximum of $675, if the carrier offers alternate transportation that is planned to arrive at the passenger's destination or first stopover more than one hour but less than two hours after the planned arrival time of the passenger's original flight; and (3) 400% of the fare to the passenger's destination or first stopover, with a maximum of $1,350, if the carrier does not offer alternate transportation that is planned to arrive at the airport of the passenger's destination or first stopover less than two hours after the planned arrival time of the passenger's original flight.

So in regard to this question, at least: "With regards to the CoC, is the passenger or the airline right?", the Code of Federal Regulations is federal statute that controls and governs over the CoC, the airline was in violation of the federal laws regulating involuntary denial of boarding, and the passenger was in the right.
posted by naju at 2:17 PM on April 10, 2017 [6 favorites]

naju: "So in regard to this question, at least: "With regards to the CoC, is the passenger or the airline right?", the Code of Federal Regulations is federal statute that controls and governs over the CoC, the airline was in violation of the federal laws regulating involuntary denial of boarding, and the passenger was in the right."

I'm afraid I don't follow. Can you spell out a little bit more why you think the airline didn't comply with what you've quoted? I would assume United was going to/will pay the man appropriately..
posted by crazy with stars at 2:20 PM on April 10, 2017

The next available flight was 3 PM the next day, well outside the 2 hour maximum delay.
posted by maudlin at 2:23 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

maudlin: "The next available flight was 3 PM the next day, well outside the 2 hour maximum delay."

I don't read the text that way; in my reading:

$0 for a delay < 1 hour
200% fare for a delay between 1 hour and 2 hours
400% fare for a delay greater than 2 hours.

So no maximum delay, just a maximum amount of reimbursement.
posted by crazy with stars at 2:26 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

Ah. So 400% and maybe never, ever getting there with United: take it or leave it. So if his fare was under $200, they played by the shitty rules.
posted by maudlin at 2:30 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

I think part of the problem is the lack of familiarity with local Chicago policing culture. You tip them before service, like a maitre d', not after service, like a waiter. A coupla greenbacks and they might have even decided to haul someone else off the plane entirely.
posted by klangklangston at 2:32 PM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

I, as a Chicago resident, will pay for yet more police misconduct. It's becoming the city's core industry.

They say they're trying to address the problems, but it feels like they're just banging heads against the wall.
posted by roystgnr at 2:32 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

People need to be jailed over this. And fined. And fired.
posted by zardoz at 2:35 PM on April 10, 2017 [14 favorites]

They say they're trying to address the problems, but it feels like they're just banging heads against the wall.

Strip them of qualified immunity and make them carry brutality insurance. Let the hand of the free market guide who can and can't be police officers.
posted by Talez at 2:36 PM on April 10, 2017 [19 favorites]

I just sent the following to United through their customer contact form, and plan on following through. They'll never see any of my money again.

I wanted to let you know why I'm never flying with you again.

My previous experiences on United flights have been bad. Cramped seating, delays, and generally unpleasant customer policies. However, I'm willing to overlook that on occasion when one of your flights is less costly than your competitors.

That will no longer be the case, given your treatment of the customer on the runway at Chicago. What you're saying to me is that the value of your customer's well-being is less than an 800 dollar voucher in your own company's scrip. What you're saying to me is that, due to your own company's poor planning, I too could be bodily dragged off of a flight that I begrudgingly paid for. What you're also saying to me, is that if that happens to me, you'll take every step to either blame me for it or deflect the blame to someone else.

That is to say that even if your tickets were half the price of another airline, I wouldn't even consider purchasing one. I travel frequently for work, but I'm not locked into a specific carrier, so I have the luxury of making sure that your terrible company will never see another dime of mine.

I sincerely hope that you reconsider how you view and treat your customers, or perhaps, simply go out of business. Either is fine with me.

posted by codacorolla at 2:40 PM on April 10, 2017 [90 favorites]

I remember getting bumped by United back in 2001. In this case they did no offering of any money or vouchers. They just called everyone up for boarding, held my two friends and me as=t the gate, saying nothing and just giving us a "just one moment" signal, then closing the doors and informing us that we were bumped. We they booked us a hotel room in Denver and gave us a $40 meal voucher each.

So no, they don't give a shit about whatever they claim their policy is.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:40 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

This is yet again one of those events that really touches the anxieties of the public consciousness (i.e., what's left of it), igniting controversy and debate in the media.

There are psychological elements that have to be talked about. There's the bystander effect. There's the reaction and behavior of the man in the video: that level of distress can lead to psychological trauma.

There are structural issues. The fact that he's Asian American as really an example of how "fair" decisions unfairly impact minorities. And then the classism - problematic ways of thinking about who gets to fly on airplanes, what is your profession, etc. And capitalist exploitation - the Airline exploiting its customers, its staff exploiting and being exploited in both directions, its customers being resentful yet having little political recourse confronting those abusing power, nor established solidarity with fellow citizens.

It's not just about United. There's a pattern, and this event is a reminder of the truth of our society. It's just that nearly always, there are illusions in place so we don't have to think about it.
posted by polymodus at 2:43 PM on April 10, 2017 [28 favorites]

One of the first things I was wondering when I saw this video this morning was what agency/organization were those goons with? They seemed to be dressed rather casually. Specifically, at least two of the main goons were wearing jeans although I think there was a third one in more dressy pants. In my experience, neither regular law enforcement nor out-sourced security guards (e.g.: mall cops, etc...) normally wear jeans at work. Well, from the Chicago PD statement, we now know that they were with the Chicago Department of Aviation which appears to be the organization that administers O'Hare and Midway airports and I guess these are their police although it feels like some people kind of tiptoe around referring to them as an actual police department unlike, say, lots of university campus police departments. According to this CNN article from 2016, these guys are, in fact, certified law enforcement officials (unlike, I think, TSA) but also they're not allowed to carry guns but really, really want to.
posted by mhum at 2:45 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

The doctor wandered back on the plane. The doctor wandered back on the plane after being forcibly removed and sustaining a had injury. Seriously, the doctor wandered back on the plane. The level of malevolent incompetence that had to occur for that to happen is staggering. Its corporate incompetence but its also incompetence shared across a number of people from everyone working the gate to the flight crew to the police.

Jobs should be lost over this. Indeed, United should be sold for scrap and its routes and employees not involved with this incident farmed out to other airlines. The only positive thing that I can say is that the crew, the police and the company were indeed United in their awfulness.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:47 PM on April 10, 2017 [40 favorites]

Can you spell out a little bit more why you think the airline didn't comply with what you've quoted? I would assume United was going to/will pay the man appropriately..

Ah, I see what you're saying.

Another potential wrinkle though... involuntary denial of boarding may happen for "oversold flights", and "oversold" is defined in the CoC as: "more passengers hold confirmed reservations than there are seats available". The airplane crew in this instance were deadheading; they didn't have confirmed reservations. By my reading, the flight was not oversold. It was fully booked, but not overbooked. That airline employees were trying to deadhead on the flight does not change the flight to "oversold", meaning that there are more confirmed, reserved passengers than there are seats available. It means that standby crew are trying to board a flight that is already fully booked.

Can involuntary denial happen when crew are deadheading a fully booked, but not overbooked flight? I've never heard of this happening in practice (but maybe it does happen). According to the letter of the contract I would say no.
posted by naju at 2:49 PM on April 10, 2017 [9 favorites]

more passengers hold confirmed reservations than there are seats available

I presume the airlines would classify deadheading-occupied seats as "not available" since they consider those employees' transport to be mandatory from an operations perspective.
posted by 0xFCAF at 2:52 PM on April 10, 2017

maudlin: Ah. So 400% and maybe never, ever getting there with United: take it or leave it. So if his fare was under $200, they played by the shitty rules.

Actually, they didn't. They just offered, AFAICT, a $800 voucher. The reimbursement rules are for cash, not vouchers, AFAIK.
posted by tittergrrl at 2:55 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

Yes, Joey Michaels, that little data chunk is really all you need to know to get a picture of absolute breakdown of order and total disarray among the people in charge of passenger health and safety on this flight. He was supposedly such a risk that they had to call out three cops to remove him, but then he wanders away from them and back up the gangplank and all the way to the back of the plane? What must have been going on that they just lost sight of him?
posted by Don Pepino at 2:56 PM on April 10, 2017 [11 favorites]

I presume the airlines would classify deadheading-occupied seats as "not available" since they consider those employees' transport to be mandatory from an operations perspective.

Ah, yeah sounds like they can define this however they want: "The number of seats which UA shall make available on a given flight will be determined by UA." Nevermind that, then.
posted by naju at 3:02 PM on April 10, 2017

Hey, so explain to me again how overselling a flight isn't fraud.
posted by ckape at 3:06 PM on April 10, 2017 [22 favorites]

Because it says in the contract of carriage that they have the option to do so. Along with a whole bunch of other words that make it clear that you're not actually buying the unrestricted right to travel on a particular flight when you buy a ticket.
posted by jacquilynne at 3:07 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

Because it says in the contract of carriage that they have the option to do so. Along with a whole bunch of other words that make it clear that you're not actually buying the unrestricted right to travel on a particular flight when you buy a ticket.

And if you don't like it the free market guarantees plenty of competition!
posted by OverlappingElvis at 3:09 PM on April 10, 2017 [9 favorites]

Oh, passive voice, this is why my 11th grade English teacher proclaimed you to be evil.

Not actually passive voice, but definitely a construction that leaves agency ambiguous.
posted by Peach at 3:11 PM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

They could have offered more than $800 in vouchers.

Delta once involuntarily rescheduled my wife and I from a earlier two-leg trip to Chuck DeGaulle to a 45-minute-later non-stop to the same airport that got in earlier than our original flight. For our "inconvenience" they gave us each an $800 voucher. This contrasts somewhat with United's attitude, I'd say.
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:14 PM on April 10, 2017 [7 favorites]

I must fly busy routes or at the wrong times, because every single flight I've taken in the past five-ish years or so was overbooked. Usually people do volunteer but, if not, that's not the problem of the passengers. It may be legal (like so many other shady practices), but they have no business kicking off someone that paid. You sold too many seats? Your problem. Find a bigger plane. I don't care. You don't get to kick someone off who paid for a ticket and doesn't want to give up their seat.
posted by downtohisturtles at 3:14 PM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]

Because it says in the contract of carriage that they have the option to do so.

And from The Atlantic:

Meanwhile, if customers are shocked by the fine print of United’s contract of carriage, what recourse do they have against the company? Very little. In the last decade, class-action lawsuits have become endangered thanks to a series of Supreme Court rulings that have undercut consumer rights. Disputes over fine-print regulation are increasingly likely to be settled in arbitration, without a judge or jury, where the deck is stacked against the individual plaintiff and the decisions are practically impossible to appeal.

posted by peeedro at 3:14 PM on April 10, 2017 [16 favorites]

There is such a black art to selling airline tickets. Over the years, they've tweaked the reservation system algorithm to understand that all routes have a certain percentage of no-shows from either missed connections or for other reasons. The airline doesn't want the plane to leave with any empty seats at all, so they sell more tickets than seats because they have a fair belief that by the time the plane leaves, all the seats will be filled.

Apparently the flights to Vegas are murder for this, because so many people book impulsive trips then back out or just don't show.
posted by hwyengr at 3:15 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

There seems to be a general consensus here that it is better to be right, stand your ground, be righteous, indignant and anti-corporate than doing what i happen to think is pragmatic. OK, then there will be conflict and often on what I feel is the wrong battlefield. I personally do not like to fly United and have the good fortune of not having to rely on them. But I think if the airlines can get 500 to 600 million people place to place as safely and as on time as the they do, they probably are operating at an efficiency / safety factor far greater than almost any other industry/institution or most of us. i still think the passenger fucked up and put his own needs/ego ahead of the convenience of the other passengers. Is an act of inexcusable conduct/planning on the part of the airline grounds for viral denunciation--I think only if acts of generosity/thoughtfulness and technical skill are offered equally passionate praise. This is a first world problem and a problem of very complex systems--inconvenient, probably unnecessary, frustrating, etc. But I think hardly worth "doing the dragging" or "setting yourself up to be dragged"
posted by rmhsinc at 3:17 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

The first rule of United is, you do not talk about United. The second rule of United is, tray tables must be stowed before take-off
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:21 PM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

Third rule: Someone yells stop, goes limp, you keep dragging them off. Fourth rule: only one guy to a seat. Fifth rule: One reservation at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: no shirt, no shoes, no service. Seventh rule: flights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: if this is your first flight on United Club, you have to leave the plane.
posted by hwyengr at 3:33 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

Not trying to excuse anything but just makes sense to keep shocking the subject at higher and higher voltages. The guy in the lab coat says the experiment must continue and who am I to get all righteous and anti-science?
posted by theodolite at 3:38 PM on April 10, 2017 [44 favorites]

This is a first world problem

Likely true, in that airlines in developing countries largely offer superior service to what is on display here.
posted by naju at 3:39 PM on April 10, 2017 [31 favorites]

and I hope the thugs that injured the passenger as they were dragging him out see jail time.
posted by aiglet at 12:16 PM on April 10 [112 favorites +] [!]

Aforesaid thugs were police officers, members of a group which seems to have a pretty good track record in coming up smiling after shooting unarmed people to death on camera. I doubt concussing an airline passenger who did not comply is going to be a big problem in anyone's career.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:40 PM on April 10, 2017 [17 favorites]

He pulls a ticket, you pull a Contract of Carriage. He declines to be volunteered, you put one of his in the morgue. That's the United Chicago way.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 3:40 PM on April 10, 2017 [28 favorites]

This is a first world problem

America's on probation in this respect.
posted by Space Coyote at 3:41 PM on April 10, 2017 [37 favorites]

i still think the passenger fucked up and put his own needs/ego ahead of the convenience of the other passengers.

...said with the confidence of a man who has never been worried a single minute in his entire life about being mistreated by the authorities, because he belongs to the one demographic the authorities are actually in fact serving.
posted by danny the boy at 3:44 PM on April 10, 2017 [82 favorites]

Another potential wrinkle though... involuntary denial of boarding may happen for "oversold flights", and "oversold" is defined in the CoC as: "more passengers hold confirmed reservations than there are seats available".

If this is true, I'd say the good doctor has a big compensatory damage award coming.
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:45 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

I have a friend who used to handle crew scheduling for Continental. At first it seemed superfluous, until realizing how a single weather delay cascades across the entire system. Once you add rules for mandatory downtime between shifts and sobriety well before shifts, I'm not surprised that driving the employees to Louisville was not an option.

I feel the disconnect probably happened because it was a regional airline. This was the last plane going to Louisville for 12 hours. They were only authorized for reimbursement of X dollars and didn't have the time to negotiate a better deal with United. But United made it clear this was a requirement of their partnership contract.

Not that it's acceptable behavior. After landing, I was once stuck on the tarmac for more than 2 hours waiting for a gate to open up. People started getting antsy. One woman asked why we couldn't open the emergency exits to deplane. A few demanded to get updates and insisted on talking to the captain. Eventually the flight attendants told them they would be arrested for causing a commotion in an attempt to stop other people from joining in.

I ended up going up to the officers once we were set free. And it sounds like without a neutral witness, they were going to be arrested for staging a coup.
posted by politikitty at 3:45 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

There seems to be a general consensus here that it is better to be right, stand your ground, be righteous, indignant and anti-corporate than doing what i happen to think is pragmatic.

pragmatism / unquestioning acquiescence to all authority; potato / potahto
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 3:49 PM on April 10, 2017 [24 favorites]

I keep wondering just how United's "random passenger picker" works. Is that an actual thing in their computer system or does the poor doctor just have a funny last name?
posted by Catblack at 3:50 PM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]

Like holy shit would I ever love to be in a position where an old man getting brained by the cops for not obeying a corporation's demands be an inconvenience to my blessed life
posted by danny the boy at 3:51 PM on April 10, 2017 [22 favorites]

Fortunately the stock is getting hamm...what? Traders Appreciate United Airlines' Commitment to Cost Efficiency Targets? Nevermind then.
posted by Skorgu at 3:53 PM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]

"I have a friend who used to handle crew scheduling for Continental. At first it seemed superfluous, until realizing how a single weather delay cascades across the entire system. Once you add rules for mandatory downtime between shifts and sobriety well before shifts, I'm not surprised that driving the employees to Louisville was not an option."

All that tells me is that they're running their operation with too little staff, presumably in order to maximize profits, and that's not much of a justification for booting passengers off planes. Cut executive salaries and hire more people.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 3:59 PM on April 10, 2017 [19 favorites]

If I were one of this doctor's patients, and I missed out on important medical care because he was forcibly removed from a plane after trying to explain that he had patients to see the next day, United would be hearing from my lawyer, not just his. Same if my child were traumatized by what they were forced to witness on that plane.

This was unbelievably stupid on the part of United, from beginning to end. I'm very glad those passengers with cell phones took video and made it public, even though it might mean their next flights are very, very uncomfortable (if they ever fly United again after that).
posted by rpfields at 3:59 PM on April 10, 2017 [17 favorites]

A Chicago airport police officer who helped drag the man from the seat has been put on leave, pending an investigation, the city’s aviation department said.
posted by gingerbeer at 4:00 PM on April 10, 2017 [17 favorites]

If I were one of this doctor's patients, and I missed out on important medical care because he was forcibly removed from a plane after trying to explain that he had patients to see the next day, United would be hearing from my lawyer, not just his.

Out of curiosity, can binding arbitration be required for third parties?
posted by OverlappingElvis at 4:05 PM on April 10, 2017

Hey, so explain to me again how overselling a flight isn't fraud.

Because a certain percentage of airline passengers (and hotel guests and people who have reserved rental cars and every other such thing) do not turn up, or cancel at the last minute. When you cancel one of these things or do not show up, do you imagine your seat goes unfilled, your hotel bed remains empty, or your rental car sits gathering dust? No, another customer uses it. Overbooking by a small percentage is a way that these companies improve their bottom line.

So: overbooking happens and will continue to happen. The time for the airline to deal with it is before the passengers have boarded. I used to travel all the time for work and would hear in airport lounges all over the country a call for passengers on Flight n to wherever who would volunteer to take a later flight. Sometimes I did so: it made no difference to me if I arrived in Vancouver at 8 PM instead of 6 PM and the airline gave me a hefty rebate, a meal voucher, and access to the first class lounge while delayed, an upgrade, or some combination of these.

On the other hand, I was travelling while working for a hotel chain, so naturally I stayed at our facilities free. I was always at pains to avoid travelling somewhere where/when the place was likely to be full, so they were not turning away paying guests to accommodate me. OxFCAF's scenario upthread about a hotel guest being hauled out of bed to make room for a freeloader like myself struck home. Once or twice I did turn up where overbookings had crowded my comp stay out, so I went a block down to The Other Guys and used the company credit card to pay for my stay there.

When I was a hotel front desk guy, I disliked having an overbooked hotel because occasionally the odds would not work in your favour and more people would turn up than there was space for (I mean once in a loooong while: I doubt it happened more than three times in my eight years at front desk). And when it did, we would apologize profusely, refund people fully, and pay for a taxi to get them to our competition where we picked up the bill. That is how you handle it. What was the name of this hotel chain, you might ask? Doesn't matter, because it was better run than United.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:09 PM on April 10, 2017 [34 favorites]

ran across this plea for human decency on twitter

the corporation does not always have to win
posted by subtle_squid at 4:11 PM on April 10, 2017 [22 favorites]

But he was trespassing on a plane he didn't own, so technically if he didn't want to be a lawbreaker he'd have quietly complied.

Comply. Obey. If you don't obey you are a threat. A security threat. A threat the the security of the nation. Obey or be destroyed. Have a great flight, thank you for flying United.
posted by Jimbob at 4:13 PM on April 10, 2017 [36 favorites]

Hi corb, sorry, busy day. Wish I could tell you that there is something written somewhere that specifically states this, for x airlines, however, I'm saying this from experience. Having tried to take advantage of vouchers at various points when a flight was asking for volunteers, I was turned down, multiple times, on multiple flights. One would think I would be the ideal candidate, bumping a cheap seat passenger for a full pay one, but there you are.
posted by evilDoug at 4:13 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

Because a certain percentage of airline passengers (and hotel guests and people who have reserved rental cars and every other such thing) do not turn up, or cancel at the last minute. When you cancel one of these things or do not show up, do you imagine your seat goes unfilled, your hotel bed remains empty, or your rental car sits gathering dust? No, another customer uses it. Overbooking by a small percentage is a way that these companies improve their bottom line.
ricochet biscuit

That doesn't explain how it's not fraud, that just explains why companies do it. Many industries would benefit it they too could commit fraud to cover their problems.

I do also wonder how it's not fraud to knowingly sell more tickets, or rent more rooms or cars, than you know you have. The company has to deal with no-shows, but tough shit: that's their problem, not mine. Why are they allowed to overbook, and why should the burden be shifted to the customers who have paid for what was advertised?
posted by Sangermaine at 4:17 PM on April 10, 2017 [21 favorites]

It looks like they "randomly" selected two lowest-fare couples over four lowest-fare singletons. Probably usually easier to disappoint people in pairs.

I was in the same situation a couple weeks ago in a different city on a different airline and it was four singletons who jumped off the plane for $1,000 and hotel room. They did not care who jumped up but the magic number was four. And this offer was made after the plane boarded. Seriously, all this crap today was over $800 total.

I've been reading the many comments about this story in one of the back home papers which is a bit rural and a bit right wing. Almost 100% pro beat-down, and people wishing it had been ICE agents instead of police, etc. That, sadly enough, may be the real story.
posted by lagomorphius at 4:18 PM on April 10, 2017 [25 favorites]

The company has to deal with no-shows, but tough shit: that's their problem, not mine.

It's not even a problem. Those tickets have been paid for. They still make their money. They just want to make more.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:19 PM on April 10, 2017 [31 favorites]

I mean they are merely being paid money up-front for a service they do not intend to provide.
posted by ckape at 4:21 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

Exactly. I don't understand how I can pay for a specific reservation at a specific time, show up, then be forced off of my flight/hotel room/car rental, be forced to endure whatever delays or problems this may cause me including making miss opportunities I had planned for, then be handed some voucher or compensation for a pittance that doesn't take any of this into account. Oh gee, you've forced me to miss Thanksgiving dinner with my family who I am only able to see once a year but you've given me this voucher for a few hundred dollars. Glad to know it helps you shift the cost of no-shows so you can continue bilking people.

Yet somehow if I showed up at a hotel and told them that I'm going to be taking my room but paying at some point in the future more convenient to me it doesn't work.
posted by Sangermaine at 4:24 PM on April 10, 2017 [23 favorites]

Why are they allowed to overbook, and why should the burden be shifted to the customers who have paid for what was advertised?

That is two questions. The answer to the first is that because you (and I and everyone) continue supporting them (seriously: every airline and every hotel does this if the demand is there); the answer to the second is that when companies are acting professionally, it is not. United's reaction is a textbook example of how not to handle an overbooking problem.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:25 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

To amplify: people do not complain about a free upgrade to a first class seat or a hotel suite: these things are available often as not because someone else did not turn up.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:28 PM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

That doesn't explain how it's not fraud

It's not fraud because it's a practice explicitly allowed by the government and regulated by the Department of Transportation. The goal of government is to ensure the best outcome for the country as a whole, maximizing overall utility, even if some people are disadvantaged, and they set rules mandating they be generously compensated.

As an example, the Department of Transportation could set a worthy goal that "no citizen of the United States should die in a vehicular accident". All cars would be armored tanks with the very best safety systems that cost $500,000 each, the maximum speed limit would be 15mph, and we would save 30,000 lives per year. Great! But is the utility and happiness of society maximized that way? Probably not.

Same thing here: the benefits of allowing airlines to overbook flights outweighs a hypothetical world where no flights are allowed to be overbooked.
posted by xdvesper at 4:30 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

I've been reading the many comments about this story in one of the back home papers which is a bit rural and a bit right wing. Almost 100% pro beat-down, and people wishing it had been ICE agents instead of police, etc. That, sadly enough, may be the real story.

Pretty much. The Trump voter segment of the population really wants to see brown people hurt, and don't care how they get their fix. Now if it had been a white guy in a MAGA hat they'd have been fantasizing about how they'd have had the flight crew arrested, etc.
posted by tavella at 4:31 PM on April 10, 2017 [29 favorites]

The goal of government is to ensure the best outcome for the country as a whole, maximizing overall utility, even if some people are disadvantaged, and they set rules mandating they be generously compensated.

You're assuming a lot here.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 4:32 PM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]

When contacted by The Globe for comment on the United incident, Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick quoted a decision by the Canadian Transportation Agency that reads, in part, “With respect to the matter of overbooking, the Agency notes that this practice is commonplace among air carriers and, in general, works to the advantage of both air carriers and passengers because the carriers are able to operate at maximum capacity, thus resulting in reduced prices for consumers.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:34 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm actually fine with overbooking, with the caveat that it's done the way it usually is. Either not everyone shows and up and it's fine, or more people than expected do show up and then the airline holds and pays for an auction to see who gets the seat. Everyone benefits in some way. I highly doubt there's not a cash number at which four people wouldn't have been willing to give up their seats.

The problem is that federal regulations allow you force a customer off, at a fairly low cost to the company. This ruins the above calculus and shifts the burden onto the customers. The cost for forcing a passenger off should, at the very least, be much higher, if the practice isn't outlawed altogether: that way passengers would be much more willing to leave, decreasing the likelihood that anyone would have to be forced off in the first place, and carriers would be forced to take the much higher cost of forcing a passenger off into consideration when they book flights, decreasing the overall rate of overbooking.
posted by perplexion at 4:35 PM on April 10, 2017 [31 favorites]

The CEO of United has sent an excellent, completely not-tone-deaf (sltwitter) email to employees, which will definitely help their PR situation.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:41 PM on April 10, 2017 [33 favorites]

Make America Re-Accommodated
posted by Kabanos at 4:43 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

The return of the thin white sock--I more often associate pragmatism with the notion of social democracies, loosing to win and considering the welfare of all involved rather than immediate needs--the behavior of a Commonweal--Did the Airline abuse these values --absolutel--but I don't see how his behavior improved things for him and the other passengers. Prhaps this video will cal for an awakening. I will still tick to the old refrain--foolish and unnecessary all the way around.
posted by rmhsinc at 4:43 PM on April 10, 2017

i hardly think being dragged out of your seat for unclear reasons, and then having your head smashed against something, only to not get proper medical care immediately is a "first world problem", but rather a "this should not be happening to people in the first place" sort of problem?

Really more of a "caveman problem," isn't it?
posted by rhizome at 4:46 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

Pepsi should send United a box of roses and note saying "Thank you".
Yes, my favorite quick meme response to this has been a screenshot of the disastrous Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad, then beneath that, a picture of a United airplane with the "hold my beer" caption...

I hope this guy owns United by next year. This was just so stupendously mishandled by the crew on the ground there, to say nothing of the weak PR response that has ensued--everyone from that gate crew involved should be fired immediately, for starters. Look, I've been that person who has been seated on the plane and ONLY THEN given up her seat when the airline got desperate enough to up their paltry offer. And it turns out I was cheap--the airline started at $150, and I leapt at $500 and a flight only a few hours later. Everyone has their price, and you're guaranteed to find a handful of people who will move for far less than the millions, at the very least, this is gonna cost United to settle this matter. Incredible.
posted by TwoStride at 4:51 PM on April 10, 2017 [11 favorites]

The CEO of United has sent an excellent, completely not-tone-deaf (sltwitter) email to employees, which will definitely help their PR situation.

Wow.

Here's the thing; there are completely legitimate reasons to refuse to leave your seat. Even for $1000. If my flight needed to arrive at a place in time for me to be there to care for my children, damn right I wouldn't take the $1000 and would stay right where I was.

After this guy said no, the CEO doesn't seem to give any indication at all that they went and tried someone else. Maybe someone else could have been convinced to take the offer? But no. Obey or we will use violence.
posted by Jimbob at 4:51 PM on April 10, 2017 [23 favorites]

Put it another way - the current vehicle safety standards and speed limits are set to achieve an ideal balance between getting people to where they want to go on time and for a reasonable cost... and the acceptable "price" society pays for that convenience is 30,000 deaths per year.

If 30,000 deaths per year was deemed too high, the DOT would increase the safety requirements of vehicles (making them more expensive), increase road building standards, and reduce speed limits until the number of deaths was acceptable.

In that context, airlines can fly more people and for cheaper under the current rules which allow overbooking, and the "cost" of that is some people get bumped from their flight. If then number of overbooked passengers was too high - too many people were getting inconvenienced - then the federally mandated penalties would be increased.
posted by xdvesper at 4:54 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

Honestly, while corporations might factor in a certain number of no-shows or cancellations, the issue has much more to do with inventory flows. Someone refuses to check out of their room, or leave it in such a mess it can't be rerented. Someone realizes their departing flight is leaving from a different airport and drops off the rental car, while apologizing profusely (this has been me before). A pilot gets food poisoning and you have to find someone who hasn't worked for the last 48 hours and get them to Louisville.

They thought they had 100 seats available, but with business constraints, the final count was only 96 seats. I'm not sure how the better solution is to delay the pilots and essentially cancel an entire plane from Louisville the next day.

United should have to pay for that customer fuck-up. They should pay dearly for letting it escalate to violence before offering additional compensation. But the problem is that they resorted to violence, not that they should have an extra flight crew in every city. Especially since that policy would require the employees to stay in their home city sober on their time off so they would be available on-call.
posted by politikitty at 4:56 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

Then prices for air travel are perhaps too "low". We need a better, more reliable system to exist, and it will cost more. The current pricing model perhaps maximizes profits rather than utility.
posted by amtho at 4:57 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

...I'm not advocating making everyone pay more, just rethinking how this all works.
posted by amtho at 4:58 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

> increase road building standards

How about if we only do that one, and that translates in the analogy space to airlines increasing capacity to accomodate natural flux! I think that would go an acceptable distance to reducing road fatalities, given how completely negligent authorities are in their handling of road maintenance already, for no good reason. Likewise, airline capacity.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 4:59 PM on April 10, 2017

Oh my god that Oscar Munoz email. Jesus christ... like that is some brilliant 9-dimensional chess, assuming he is tired of being the CEO and wants to get removed by the board
posted by danny the boy at 5:00 PM on April 10, 2017 [23 favorites]

If my flight needed to arrive at a place in time for me to be there to care for my children

That sounds rather risky. If you've never been on a flight that's gotten massively delayed or cancelled, you either don't fly very often or you've been absurdly lucky.
posted by effbot at 5:10 PM on April 10, 2017

Oh my god that Oscar Munoz email. Jesus christ... like that is some brilliant 9-dimensional chess, assuming he is like tired of being the CEO and wants to get removed by the board

He's literally stating that beating a customer unconcious and dragging them out by their feet was following United's 'established proceedure'.

That letter is going to be an exhibit in the customer's enormous lawsuit.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:15 PM on April 10, 2017 [41 favorites]

the benefits of allowing airlines to overbook flights outweighs a hypothetical world where no flights are allowed to be overbooked.

When making arguments such as these, they should be counterbalanced by consideration that it enables corporations to licence law enforcement to render senior citizens and visible minorities senseless, panicked and concussed.

Regulations aren't for the best days when everyone behaves well. They're for the worst when corporate management is behaving like a cheap despot and law enforcement is a know it all 20 year old who only knows how to negotiate with their fists.
posted by bonehead at 5:28 PM on April 10, 2017 [19 favorites]

Oh my god that Oscar Munoz email. Jesus christ... like that is some brilliant 9-dimensional chess, assuming he is tired of being the CEO and wants to get removed by the board


Yeah, I think they could get someone cheaper (as hinted above): someone who is experienced with telling people that the third party was warned, was given an explanation, but nevertheless persisted.
posted by bonje at 5:32 PM on April 10, 2017 [6 favorites]

Great! But is the utility and happiness of society maximized that way? Probably not.

Same thing here: the benefits of allowing airlines to overbook flights outweighs a hypothetical world where no flights are allowed to be overbooked.

And what utility and happiness of society is maximized by allowing the mergers of Continental and United, Northwest and Delta, AirTrain and Southwest, and American Airlines and US Airways, leading to four airlines handling near all of the nation's air traffic, making competition nonexistent, in an already massively deregulated airline industry, leading to the suppliers dominating the market and consumers being held hostage in countless ways as profits are maximized and service and customer satisfaction plummit to all-time lows? Do the benefits outweigh the costs?
posted by naju at 5:33 PM on April 10, 2017 [16 favorites]

"But the problem is that they resorted to violence, not that they should have an extra flight crew in every city. Especially since that policy would require the employees to stay in their home city sober on their time off so they would be available on-call."

Paying employees to be on standby is not the same thing as calling them in during their off hours or days.

In any case this is not about having a spare crew on standby in every city. This is simply about having more crews overall. More crews means you have more time to get them where they need to be and a higher probability that you can go with another available crew if there's a logistical problem with your first choice. Having more time also means having more flexibility to find alternative ways of getting them to their destination that don't interfere with other aspects of your business.

So, yes, United is directly responsible for creating this situation in the first place because at some point they decided that squeezing every last penny out of the business is more important than running their business reasonably well with sufficient tolerances built into the system so that there's enough wiggle room to avoid these kinds of problems.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 5:38 PM on April 10, 2017 [14 favorites]

Oscar Munoz, graduate of the Sean Spicer School of Communications.

Pepsi should send United a box of roses and note saying "Thank you"

I joked on twitter "If only the guy who was dragged off had offered them a Pepsi."
posted by NorthernLite at 5:39 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

What kind of 4chan-browsing fuck would you have to be to be one of these "standby" crew, watching a paying passenger get his head kicked in because you've taken his seat, and not just stood up and said "It's fine, it's fine, I'll walk!"?
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:41 PM on April 10, 2017 [11 favorites]

To be less snarky, the CEO's letter read exactly the same way to me as Mitch McConnell dumbass comment, just with more words.

Aside: I wonder when it was that the last time any airline CEOs flew in thr back of the plane?
posted by bonje at 5:42 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

Really we are all just trespassers on God's airplane.
posted by thelonius at 5:44 PM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

What kind of 4chan-browsing fuck would you have to be to be one of these "standby" crew, watching a paying passenger get his head kicked in because you've taken his seat, and not just stood up and said "It's fine, it's fine, I'll walk!"?

One who needs to not get fired for not being on the flight out of Louisville. Regionals aren't unionized.
posted by PMdixon at 5:48 PM on April 10, 2017 [32 favorites]

xdvesper: "It's not fraud because it's a practice explicitly allowed by the government and regulated by the Department of Transportation."

Also, I learned on Twitter this morning that technically one of the reasons why it's not fraud is because of the unanimous decision in Nader v. Alleghany Airlines (1976). And, yes, it's that Nader.
posted by mhum at 5:48 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

because at some point they decided that squeezing every last penny out of the business is more important than running their business reasonably well with sufficient tolerances built into the system so that there's enough wiggle room to avoid these kinds of problems.


Mergers and cost cutting were done in the name of gaining efficiency by eliminating redundancy, and what they also eliminated was resilience.

I learned this when my flight from Miami to New York was delayed because the crew coming from Chicago was delayed due to a plane with a needed part stuck in Salt Lake because of fog there.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 5:54 PM on April 10, 2017 [11 favorites]

And what utility and happiness of society is maximized by allowing the mergers of Continental and United, Northwest and Delta, AirTrain and Southwest, and American Airlines and US Airways, leading to four airlines handling near all of the nation's air traffic, making competition nonexistent, in an already massively deregulated airline industry, leading to the suppliers dominating the market and consumers being held hostage in countless ways as profits are maximized and service and customer satisfaction plummit to all-time lows?

Consumers held hostage? Surely you mean consumers hugged lovingly in the close embrace of our selfless job-creating corporate betters, don't you, citizen?
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 6:03 PM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

Consumers held hostage?

Re-accomodated
posted by thelonius at 6:10 PM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]

Lordy loo do some people love authoritarianism. I never realized how many.
posted by waitingtoderail at 6:14 PM on April 10, 2017 [58 favorites]

Elsewhere on the Internet, for a different perspective, someone claiming to be a correctional officer had this to say about the process for getting the passenger off the plane:

"I'm a corrections officer in a prison. I'm trained to extract prisoners from their cell in certain circumstances. Every single thing you [A previous poster in the forum, who had claimed that there was nothing at all wrong with how the officers conducted themselves] said is wrong and anyone in law enforcement would laugh in your face if they had a chance.

Any time we have to pull an inmate out we have to record it on video and everyone involved fills out pages of paperwork. It also has to be approved by the warden or deputy warden. It is also mandated that a nurse or doctor be at the scene in case something goes wrong. It is also the last step after at least three supervisors have talked to the guy. And warnings are giving repeatedly and everything we are going to do is loudly spoken so the inmate knows what is going to happen.

And that is for a prisoner, not a free citizen.

In this situation they walked up to a guy, told him to leave, he said no, they got frustrated and dragged him out. It's unprofessional and ridiculous. It is not ok."
posted by lord_wolf at 6:16 PM on April 10, 2017 [80 favorites]

Wow, Republic Airlines almost made it a whole month out of Chapter 11 before screwing up royally. (Why were they in Chapter 11? Perennial pilot shortages, for some reason.)
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:17 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

"Man’s body stranded for two days during Delta flight cancellations"

This story got buried today. Delta's no good very bad time with scheduling literally doesn't matter anymore.

Delta is all like "what, us?"
posted by Yowser at 6:18 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

New photo of United ground staff asking for volunteers to deplane

shamelessly stolen from Reddit
posted by killdevil at 6:19 PM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]

"Man’s body stranded for two days during Delta flight cancellations"

This story got buried today.

Which is more than you can say for the body.
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:20 PM on April 10, 2017 [24 favorites]

Next time I have to fly to an American city, I am going to take the Red Coach to Miami, take British Airways to Heathrow, and then get an Air France flight to Chicago or wherever.
posted by Don Pepino at 6:23 PM on April 10, 2017 [7 favorites]

Next time I have to fly to an American city, I am going to take the Red Coach to Miami, take British Airways to Heathrow, and then get an Air France flight to Chicago or wherever.

Well, Air France is codeshare partners with Delta, so I hope "wherever" is Atlanta.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:26 PM on April 10, 2017

Got some United mileage you won't be using (as a result of this or anything else)? For 10K miles, you can purchase a TSA PreCheck fee voucher on the MileagePlus website. Consider liquidating your account by purchasing a few of those and gifting them to trans people, people of color, or anyone else who might benefit from a less invasive TSA experience for the next five years.
posted by zebra at 6:27 PM on April 10, 2017 [48 favorites]

Lordy loo do some people love authoritarianism. I never realized how many.

Yeah --- since some half of my social network lives in the gay bubble, this has been a much more useful incident than Trump for figuring out who will advocate for authority for authority's sake.
posted by PMdixon at 6:32 PM on April 10, 2017 [27 favorites]

An account of the flight from another passenger (if you search his Reddit history he's posted his boarding pass; he's either legit or a very convincing fake):

Before the flight started they were offering 150 bucks in vouchers to anyone who would get bumped but the next flight wasn't until the next day at about 3 in the afternoon.

After we got on the plane, I was zone 3, they raised it to four hundred dollars. About ten minutes later they raised it to 800. At this point the plane was completely boarded. Then the stewardess came on and basically told us this plane was not moving until four people got off, they said they needed it for four United employees (who I later noticed were two stewardesses and two pilots).

About ten minutes later (30 minutes after we should have left) the manager came on with a clipboard and told this gentleman in the video that he payed the lowest and had to get off the flight. He said absolutely not, he wasn't screaming but I could hear him as it was a small flight.

She shuffled around for a bit then talked to him again, this was the point when someone offered her 1600 and she laughed at him, then she told the asian guy that he was going to get physically removed.

She called security, then one guy showed up who didn't look like police to me. He talked to him (much more calmly than the manager) but with no luck. The guy wasn't budging, said he was a doctor and had to go to work early in the morning. The guys backup came, a cop and a plainclothes, and then the video starts. They knock him around and drag him out.

At this point I think everything is over, but about ten minutes later he comes running back in with a bloody mouth saying that he had to get back home over and over, I think he was concussed.

The employees asked us all to get off the plane so they could handle the situation. We went back into the terminal. They somehow get him into a wheelchair and put him in an ambulance. They cleaned the blood out of the plane and put us back on about an hour after we got off. Then they sent us on our way, friendly skies huh

I think it's particularly interesting that there were passengers willing to take the later flight for more money, but United preferred to resort to force instead.
posted by crazy with stars at 6:46 PM on April 10, 2017 [80 favorites]

Was it worth $800, United? You're not exactly Ryan Air.
posted by Yowser at 6:51 PM on April 10, 2017 [7 favorites]

From ricochet biscuit's Globe And Mail link:

“In the U.S., what we’re seeing now are average load factors that we haven’t seen since WWII when U.S. airlines were troop carriers, and that’s worldwide. The airlines have got much, much better at filling every seat. Complex computer algorithms allow them to fill seats better than they ever have before. Load factors are the thing that a lot of people don’t talk about and don’t realize, and they lead to so many other problems: longer boarding processes, fights over overhead bin space, which results in charging for checked bags, and in some cases air rage.”

But with higher load factors come higher profit margins, which makes shareholders happy.

And that same technology lets the airline know just how much you paid for your seat. This guy thought they were discriminating against him because he was Asian, but they were actually discriminating against him because he spent less money than the other passengers.
posted by Kevin Street at 6:59 PM on April 10, 2017 [7 favorites]

but they were actually discriminating against him because he spent less money than the other passengers.

I'm wondering after all this if Priceline should just call it the "Name Your Own Hell" feature, where you can end up on up to 4 connecting flights, any one of which you might be thrown (literally) off of before actually reaching your destination 28 hours later (in the continental US).
posted by blue suede stockings at 7:11 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

Well no, it's not supposed to be morally better. This is just what our society (could be any capitalist country) considers legally acceptable.
posted by Kevin Street at 7:14 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

We're not discriminating against you because you're Asian--we're doing it because you're cheap!

So much better?
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:20 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

Air Canada tried to bump me from an overbooked flight from Montreal to New York the other week, because my surname made me the last passenger on the list. WTF? Bump the last one to check in, maybe, but I'd been there in very good time.

Anyway, I had just had a less-than-satisfactory chat with the CBP and was *not* feeling like being messed around, but luckily some kind lady took the $800 voucher and thus prevented shouting and other very un-British displays.

It was explained that they 'always' have no-shows for this flight so they overbook, but I certainly didn't notice any empty seats by the time we took off...
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 7:34 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

shouting "what are you doing? Stop!"

In my experience, this does nothing.

No, you have to make sure to phrase it correctly: "Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?"
posted by jackbishop at 7:34 PM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]

would he not perhaps consider paying $10, $15, $20 extra to make sure he wasn't the one getting manhandled?

OMG Do Not. The fees some of these airlines are charging are already outrageous. Don't give them any more ideas.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 7:45 PM on April 10, 2017 [29 favorites]

I agree with you that it's not right, in any way. But somehow this is what the airline industry has become. Or society in general, really. Decisions can be made for monetary reasons (or an overall desire for efficiency) that would be considered heinous in other contexts.
posted by Kevin Street at 7:48 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

Are you sure you don't want to purchase Face Integrity Insurance for your trip? Face Integrity Insurance is highly recommended for our Sub-Economy Epsilon-Minus Semi-Moron (formerly Economy) seats.
posted by Behemoth at 7:51 PM on April 10, 2017 [22 favorites]

The pricing structure for air fares is, to be kind, "opaque". How was he supposed to know he got the cheapest seat?


He's not. The airline knows.
posted by AFABulous at 7:55 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

I am 100% out of the loop. Can somebody explain to me what pepsi has to do with all this. Thx
posted by pravit at 7:59 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Pepsi stuff is all here.
posted by mordax at 8:01 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

That more people aren't reacting to United's self-inflicted PR suicide with abject horror at the use of the coercive power of the state to enforce corporate prerogatives worries me far more than their shitty price gouging.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 8:02 PM on April 10, 2017 [39 favorites]

And if he knew that would get him more likely to be bumped, or, worse still, concussed, would he not perhaps consider paying $10, $15, $20 extra to make sure he wasn't the one getting manhandled?

Would you like to upgrade to Don't Tase Me, Bro for an additional $15?
posted by ActingTheGoat at 8:04 PM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]

Airlines have been kicking disabled people off of planes since time immemorial, you know. This happened just a couple of weeks ago.
posted by Soliloquy at 8:12 PM on April 10, 2017 [22 favorites]

A former CEO of Continental was on PBS' Nightly Business Report, doing an impressive bit of victim-blaming, how yelling and screaming is never a good way to respond to the cops, and that the non-active crew was being shuttled to another flight, and if they weren't there, a different planeload of people was going to be inconvenienced. So it's a good news story, really.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:27 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

Basically fuck that guy too.
posted by Joey Michaels at 8:41 PM on April 10, 2017 [12 favorites]

He's literally stating that beating a customer unconcious and dragging them out by their feet was following United's 'established proceedure'.

Nah, he's merely saying the established procedure is to notify law enforcement. What THEY do after THAT, not his problem.
posted by ctmf at 8:43 PM on April 10, 2017

If you notify law enforcement, there's a decent chance some degree of force is going to occur, whether or not you foresee him being bashed into the armrest and bloodied as a foreseeable consequence. A United employee stood there and decided that a problem entirely of their own making that could have easily been remedied with some cash was best resolved with violence.
posted by zachlipton at 8:48 PM on April 10, 2017 [15 favorites]

Right, I'm not saying he's smart to say that, only that he's saying it.

The bumping algorithm should start with passengers whose ticket was paid for by the US Government. When I travel for work, I'm not ALLOWED to voluntarily get bumped even if I want to. But if they pick me involuntarily (and give me proof in writing), I'll take the cash with a smile.

Uh, on the way there, I suppose. On the way home I'd be less amused.
posted by ctmf at 8:58 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

If nothing else, this is a good reminder that police are there to serve and protect corporations. Free from the threat of immediate dismissal, how many people in this would have said no, that's insane? If the pilots and attendants had said no, they'd lose their jobs. If the cops had said no, this is ridiculous, he paid for a service, do your job, they'd have been guilty of dereliction of duty. If the booking agent had said no, fired. The people who won't be fired? The people who write the rules that everyone blindly followed. The managers and board that created a culture so obsessed with scraping every last cent out of every transaction to the point that many here have asked how the fine print in the terms of purchase aren't actually fraud. But the booking agent will probably be fired. The cop is on administrative leave. Obviously, they both should have known better, should have done better. And more than likely, freed from the system that demands their compliance with its I humane rules, they probably wouldn't have done this. The system, though, will continue.

This isn't new, and it will quickly become normal. If there wasn't more reaction, more pushback to a cop with an industrial keg of pepper spray walking down a line of seated, passive students, what makes us think this will do anything? Five years from now, when this happens again, won't it just be the norm? And with Sessions rolling back police oversight, that's almost a goddamn guarantee.

I'm sickened by this. Physically sickened. At what point will we actually say that something is enough? And when we finally do, what do we do then? How does this get stopped?
posted by Ghidorah at 8:59 PM on April 10, 2017 [55 favorites]

From their website:

"We Fly Together - As a united United, we respect every voice, communicate openly and honestly, make decisions with facts and empathy, and celebrate our journey together."

Get the fuck away from me.
posted by storybored at 9:01 PM on April 10, 2017 [8 favorites]

RE: discussion about what constitutes boarding earlier - the airline's definition of "boarded" may be counter-intuitive and fucked in part because they actually only start paying their employees once the doors on the plane close. Seems pretty insane when you realize that doctrine necessarily includes the possibly of roughing up customers and frog-marching them out after they're seated.

Also, Louisville has a surprisingly small airport in terms of passenger traffic, which is usually deserted by 11:00 PM (though we get a huge amount of UPS traffic, which I am currently listening to) so ideas about putting passengers or crew on a later flight, even with another airline, probably weren't possible.
posted by Vulgar Euphemism at 9:03 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

"If you want a vision of the future present, imagine a face being smashed into an airplane armrest—forever."
posted by stargell at 9:08 PM on April 10, 2017 [18 favorites]

the airline's definition of "boarded" may be counter-intuitive and fucked in part because they actually only start paying their employees once the doors on the plane close.

If true, this may have been a standard part of the transport business for more than a century. Famously, White Star Lines stopped paying Titanic crew at 2:20 AM on April 15, 1912.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:21 PM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

James Fallows of the Atlantic has been pointing out that the video has gone viral in China, and United has had nothing to say. Here. They may wake to a major PR problem in one of their largest international markets. Wooops.
posted by suelac at 10:24 PM on April 10, 2017 [17 favorites]

To amplify: people do not complain about a free upgrade to a first class seat or a hotel suite: these things are available often as not because someone else did not turn up.

What would happen to their cost/benefit analysis if people wholesale refused their offer and countered with:

"I'll take a towncar to the hotel, a suite with f&b credit, a towncar back plus first class and lounge access for the remaining legs".

( apologies to Arlo... )

And if three people do it! Can you imagine three people demanding proper compensation for being denied boarding? They may think it's an Organization!

And can you imagine fifty people a day? I said FIFTY people a day . . .
Friends, They may think it's a MOVEMENT, and that's what it is...
posted by mikelieman at 10:31 PM on April 10, 2017 [6 favorites]

James Fallows of the Atlantic has been pointing out that the video has gone viral in China, and United has had nothing to say. Here. They may wake to a major PR problem in one of their largest international markets. Wooops.

It's also in context of the Chinese protests and riots only two weeks ago in Paris, the police shot and killed a Chinese man in his home in Paris. That's been major news, for days, in both Chinese and international Chinese media. Western companies' PR may be clueless, while as Chinese-speaking communities are getting more connected and informed through the internet and overseas Chinese-language media, there's a new household-level awareness of this.
posted by polymodus at 10:49 PM on April 10, 2017 [11 favorites]

MetaFilter: better than flying United
posted by gnidan at 11:00 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

People ask me why I'm a leftist and an intersectional feminist. When I got hurt and traumatized in a protest, everything clicked. Police protect property, not people. Too bad people keep focusing on United and not the police brutality, nor why they chose an elderly Asian man who seemed like he would not defend himself. Ugh. I hate that I am not more shocked by this.
posted by yueliang at 11:04 PM on April 10, 2017 [31 favorites]

ユナイテッド航空 Is trending on twitter. From Bing translates, it looks like it's being
interpreted as a racially motivated attack on the stereotypical "compliant Asian." Not good for sociopathic united airlines CEOs longevity.
posted by Yowser at 11:42 PM on April 10, 2017 [21 favorites]

I was just about to write that it was shocking to read a story about gross incompetence that didn't start with the phrase "white house" or the name "Trump," but then I realized he's largely responsible for creating the atmosphere in the country that normalizes brutalizing a non-white doctor on an airplane, so this is sort of his fault too.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:50 PM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]

It isn't racism, it's capitalism. That's what gets me about what happened to the man. To corporations we're just income streams, and if we don't comply with their demands for ever greater efficiency they will make us comply. This incident is extreme but it really brings that to the surface.
posted by Kevin Street at 11:59 PM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

It isn't racism, it's capitalism.

They aren't mutally exclusive.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 12:03 AM on April 11, 2017 [43 favorites]

It isn't racism, it's capitalism.
You know what? It can be both.
posted by aielen at 12:03 AM on April 11, 2017 [30 favorites]

I'm kinda proud of this man for standing his ground and defying the "compliant Asian model minority" and "meek obedient un-masculine Asian man" stereotype. Just because he's a 69 year old Asian man does not mean he will obey you, does not mean you get to push him around, does not mean he will silently accept whatever you throw at him.
posted by aielen at 12:14 AM on April 11, 2017 [38 favorites]

"Many Chinese social media users accused United of racism, while others called
for a boycott. By Tuesday afternoon, the hashtag “United forcibly removes passenger
from plane” was the most popular topic on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter,
garnering 110 million views and more than 65,000 comments." - nytimes "United video creates furor in China"

Based on this, with the keen awareness that there's a discussion happening at a large scale in Chinese instead of English, I wouldn't be so quick to declare "it's not racism". It's important to consider their perspectives and of course the perspectives of Asian Americans.

I thought that the way the stereotype works is, when a minority person acts to get along in a situation, we are seen as submissive, but when we are assertive we're labeled as aggressive and hostile. We're held to a double standard and that's how racist -- and especially misogynist, which is 2nd-level relevant in the sense of considering how Asian American men in particular are socially emasculated -- marginalization propagates and gets reinforced. Aren't there social scientists that have studied and explained this process, in some detail? I'd Google the papers myself, but don't feel like it right now.
posted by polymodus at 1:27 AM on April 11, 2017 [24 favorites]

Clearly some people here subscribe to a strict utilitarian perspective. "If we didn't have overbooking, general happiness would decrease. And if we have overbooking, sometimes you gotta beat some heads." Overbooking helps reduce prices and increase efficiency, but that doesn't mean that United has no blame here. Delta has only a quarter of the involuntary "denied boardings" that United has, and yet it manages to survive.

Please stop defending United as some kind of mythical utility-maximiser. If that's their goal, they're fucking it up badly. The real way to maximise the utility in this specific situation would have been to keep increasing the offer until someone took it - perhaps to $1000 or $1200 per seat. Instead, not only did they delay a plane-load of passengers and subject one poor man to a serious loss of utility - far in excess of $4800 - but they suffered incredible negative publicity.

Arguably there is a market failure here. There is no reason to think that the regulations governing overbooking are somehow perfect; if the government doubled or tripled the amount of cash compensation due to people involuntarily denied boarding, airlines would suddenly be a lot more willing to up their offers for voluntary denied boardings.

Or maybe we could change them the other way! Perhaps passengers should get no compensation and be subject to a savage beating if they refuse to comply with the airline? That would increase utility, wouldn't it? Perhaps United should charge more for criminals and known troublemakers like this gentleman, if it increased general utility?
posted by adrianhon at 1:37 AM on April 11, 2017 [25 favorites]

I stumbled upon this randomly while searching for past overbooking incidents... seems like this is the treatment you can expect if you're white.

Witness: Man angry about overbooked flight strips naked in airport

Ketchie says the man sounded very angry and was yelling.

"He had his clothes on, at that point, and then he started standing there with his arms crossed and hollering at the lady at the desk," she told WBTV. "He stood there for a moment and then started taking off his clothes. I ain't never seen nothing [like that] in my life."

She says the man didn't say anything as he was taking his clothes off.

"More people started getting back because that's when security started surrounding him, waiting for Charlotte-Mecklenburg police to come in," she said.

"I was not expecting to see nothing like that, I've never seen nothing like that at Charlotte Douglas airport. Never," she said. "And that's when I got out my phone and started taking pictures."

The woman says the man was standing in the concourse naked for about an hour.

US Airways directed questions to the Charlotte airport. Wednesday afternoon, airport officials directed questions to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police.

Police confirmed they responded to a "disturbance call where a male was suffering from a medical issue." They said the man was taken by Medic for treatment and will not be facing charges.

So, yep... yell belligerently at an airline employee and strip naked in front of her and everyone at the airport, security doesn't really do anything for "about an hour", then police finally show up and determine that you have a medical issue, peacefully escort your naked ass to a hospital rather than bash your face in, and press no charges. White privilege must be nice.
posted by naju at 1:39 AM on April 11, 2017 [44 favorites]

I thought that the way the stereotype works is, when a minority person acts to get along in a situation, we are seen as submissive, but when we are assertive we're labeled as aggressive and hostile.

yes, there's definitely more nuance to the stereotype - acting outside the expectation of being submissive is perceived as being "hostile" (and there are news reports that have labeled the man as such - I think a Continental Airlines authority even called him as "immature" - more infantilization of an Asian man...).

At the same time, I'd rather see that man speak up and stand his ground as he did, even if he is labeled as aggressive/hostile. There's generally more of a perception that Asians are submissive rather than aggressive (I think the reverse is true for African-American stereotypes), and if I had to make the unfortunate choice of seeing an Asian man negatively labeled for rightfully defying authority, or negatively labeled for meekly submitting to a bullying authority, I'd hope for the former.
posted by aielen at 1:50 AM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]

A further wrinkle is that he is a doctor. In many ways he seems a model citizen, who seemingly plays by the rules as rewarded by a professional status. That previous status meant nothing and he still got dragged off the plane and injured with a concussion. What this means is that playing by the rules falls to the whim of whoever has a monopoly on violence even if they are not an official organ of law enforcement. Model minority be damned, you are inconvenient, troublesome and deserving of wretched treatment. What you are seeing is the decline of the underpinning beliefs of rule of law. A civil hands do uncivil things.
posted by jadepearl at 2:09 AM on April 11, 2017 [19 favorites]

Some people criticize the man's response as overwrought or undignified.

Think about it - a 69 year old Chinese man gets singled out of a crowd for public humiliation.

He was born in 1959. The Cultural Revolution launched in 1966. Look up struggle session (NSFL).

If he has an irrational response to authoritarian use of force, who are we to criticize?

Maybe he didn't grow up in the Cultural Revolution. Maybe he has been traumatized by something else - directly or as a witness. We don't know. We have not walked even a mile in his shoes. What has he been through?

I don't know what I would have done in his place. I do think it's unfair to expect someone in that horribly unfortunate situation to whip out diplomat-level communication skills.
posted by metaseeker at 2:44 AM on April 11, 2017 [20 favorites]

Mod note: One deleted. Kevin Street, you've registered your opinion that it's not racism several times now; please let it be. Other people can have different opinions.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:50 AM on April 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

Correction - he would have been born in 1948, and age 18 in 1966.
posted by metaseeker at 2:54 AM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

It could have happened in any number of airports in any number of different places, to different people.

No, in much of the rest of the world the police are better trained and would have removed him more efficiently, then beaten the crap out of him in private if they really wanted to. But I'll bet camera awareness training is going to be high on the agenda from now on.

What does surprise me is that these goons seem to have had no idea how to extract a non-compliant passenger from a seat and just behaved like racist toddlers. There must be dozens of ways to make someone stand up without bashing them against the furniture.
posted by epo at 2:56 AM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Comment from elsewhere:

Lawyer here. This myth that passengers don't have rights needs to go away, ASAP. You are dead wrong when saying that United legally kicked him off the plane.

1. First of all, it's airline spin to call this an overbooking. The statutory provision granting them the ability to deny boarding is about "OVERSELLING", which is specifically defined as booking more reserved confirmed seats than there are available. This is not what happened. They did not overbook the flight; they had a fully booked flight, and not only did everyone already have a reserved confirmed seat, they were all sitting in them. The law allowing them to deny boarding in the event of an oversale does not apply.

2. Even if it did apply, the law is unambiguously clear that airlines have to give preference to everyone with reserved confirmed seats when choosing to involuntarily deny boarding. They have to always choose the solution that will affect the least amount of reserved confirmed seats. This rule is straightforward, and United makes very clear in their own contract of carriage that employees of their own or of other carriers may be denied boarding without compensation because they do not have reserved confirmed seats. On its face, it's clear that what they did was illegal-- they gave preference to their employees over people who had reserved confirmed seats, in violation of 14 CFR 250.2a.

3. Furthermore, even if you try and twist this into a legal application of 250.2a and say that United had the right to deny him boarding in the event of an overbooking; they did NOT have the right to kick him off the plane. Their contract of carriage highlights there is a complete difference in rights after you've boarded and sat on the plane, and Rule 21 goes over the specific scenarios where you could get kicked off. NONE of them apply here. He did absolutely nothing wrong and shouldn't have been targeted. He's going to leave with a hefty settlement after this fiasco.

posted by thelonius at 3:03 AM on April 11, 2017 [72 favorites]

Here's something I'll pose as a genuine question I don't know the answer to - could it be possible that this policy for involuntary bumping passengers - booting the "least profitable passengers" from the plane - is on its face race-blind, but in terms of impact, disproportionately effects non-whites, immigrants, and children of immigrants? Owing to such groups being at a systemic economic disadvantage and thus being forced to hold out for and dig for the best deals on flights they can find, or experiencing firsthand or being taught the immigrant ethic of saving every penny you can because you have to work ten times as hard for the smallest scrap, etc.

I searched for racial statistics on involuntarily bumped passengers but none came up. I'd be curious if anyone found any.

When this man claims that he's being targeted for involuntary denial because he's Chinese, it could be entirely possible that this is due to a real-world noticeable negative impact on certain groups like Chinese-Americans over others. The policies you implement might be carried out by a computer that is race-blind, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a significant racial impact nonetheless. And such burdens rarely are distributed equally or randomly.

Capitalism and racist ideology are tightly intertwined, and non-whites often play the role of shock absorbers in and for capitalist business cycles. The airlines may even favor such a disproportionate impact - kick out the noticeable bargain seekers - who might often end up being the sole Chinese-American, Indian-American or African-American person on a flight to Louisville - saving your not-especially-thrifty lily-white customers from inconvenience or the brutality of the police state or the discomfort of sitting next to a black thug or brown terrorist or other scary undesirable. They may historically be the groups that cause the least fuss in an airport too, so you can bootstrap the institutional racism and profiling of airport security theater, and/or the deference that comes with model minority assimilation, to help out here too.
posted by naju at 3:11 AM on April 11, 2017 [17 favorites]

If nothing else, this is a good reminder that police are there to serve and protect corporations. Free from the threat of immediate dismissal, how many people in this would have said no, that's insane? If the pilots and attendants had said no, they'd lose their jobs. If the cops had said no, this is ridiculous, he paid for a service, do your job, they'd have been guilty of dereliction of duty. If the booking agent had said no, fired. The people who won't be fired? The people who write the rules that everyone blindly followed. The managers and board that created a culture so obsessed with scraping every last cent out of every transaction to the point that many here have asked how the fine print in the terms of purchase aren't actually fraud. But the booking agent will probably be fired. The cop is on administrative leave. Obviously, they both should have known better, should have done better. And more than likely, freed from the system that demands their compliance with its I humane rules, they probably wouldn't have done this. The system, though, will continue.

What if being fired were less of a big deal? If there were some kind of, I don't know, "safety net" for people without jobs…
posted by panic at 3:23 AM on April 11, 2017 [13 favorites]

Some additional stuff of possible interest -

Spirit Airlines Accused of Discrimination After 6 Black Passengers Kicked Off Plane (2015) - note this was an overbooking situation as well, and after the passengers had already boarded the plane - a black couple was booted off involuntarily, then a second group complained about their removal and were kicked off as well.

King v. American Airlines (2002) - racial discrimination case, also overbooking, after boarding was at least in progress - "The plaintiffs traveled to Miami as planned, but were informed upon arrival that their flight to Freeport was overbooked.   The Kings refused an offer of monetary compensation to give up their seats.   Nonetheless, after the Kings had been permitted to board the vehicle that was to transport the passengers from the terminal to the aircraft, agents of the defendants confiscated their boarding passes and informed the Kings that they were being “bumped” from the flight involuntarily.   The Kings were the only African Americans with confirmed reservations who had not relinquished their seats voluntarily.   Moreover, all the white passengers, including those who did not have confirmed reservations, were allowed to board Flight 5777."
posted by naju at 3:25 AM on April 11, 2017 [21 favorites]

It's obviously racism, built into the structural working of American capitalism because racism, slavery, and colonialism created the conditions for what we call "capitalism" today. They go together like peanut butter and goddamn jelly.

That poor doctor. I hope he costs United millions. I would have walked right the hell off that plane in protest had I been there to see that.

I already won't fly United, their awful customer service lost me years ago, before the USAIR merger even. And I fly a fair bit.

Travelers with options, let me recommend Alaska Airlines and Virgin America (now merged). I've never been bumped by Alaska in hundreds of flights. They've always been super polite and accommodating. The whole airline gives a refreshing vibe of giving a damn about its customers and protecting its reputation with its loyal regular flyers. Perhaps this is because an airline is a commuter service in Alaska. Everyone flies all the time everywhere. They do screw up but are great about compensation and accommodation.
posted by spitbull at 3:41 AM on April 11, 2017 [9 favorites]

[C]ould it be possible that this policy for involuntary bumping passengers ... is on its face race-blind, but in terms of impact, disproportionately effects non-whites, immigrants, and children of immigrants?

Absolutely.

If airlines were at all concerned with service (which it isn't evident they actually are), they would bump passengers who would be least impacted by being bumped. They know where all the passengers are going and their (and their competitors) flight schedules, it would be very easy to see who could be rebooked with the least amount of delay to arriving in their ultimate destination, with some (truly) random factor for breaking ties.
posted by noneuclidean at 3:50 AM on April 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

Not everyone involved in the operation of O'Hare is cheering and waving the pom-poms for Oscar Munoz and the aviation security officers.
posted by lagomorphius at 4:33 AM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

From lagomorphius's link:

[Chicago Alderman] Zalewski said the aviation officer who is now on a leave of absence had no business getting involved in the incident, let alone boarding the flight from Chicago to Louisville.

It should have been handled by United, O’Hare’s flagship carrier, in the boarding area, before passengers ever boarded the flight, the alderman said. And if the airline needed backup to handle a recalcitrant or unruly passenger, that should have been provided by Chicago Police officers, who were just minutes away when the viral video was taken, Zalewski said.
posted by spitbull at 4:45 AM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

When I travel for work, I'm not ALLOWED to voluntarily get bumped even if I want to. But if they pick me involuntarily (and give me proof in writing), I'll take the cash with a smile.

Uh, on the way there, I suppose. On the way home I'd be less amused.

I'm (weirdly) in a white-collar position where I make overtime. I'm on the clock from the instant I leave my hotel to the moment I step through my door. (As an aside, this makes traffic jams amazingly calming. If we're backed up for an hour, I just think of the fantastic steak dinner I've just earned.)

Which is to say, if you bumped me on my way home and handed me a voucher with meals and a decent hotel, that's around $1000 of overtime for 24 hours of R&R away from home.

I'd take the cash. I couldn't volunteer, though.

If my boss is reading this, I'd be devestated my loss in productivity. I'd be heartbroken that our firewall makes it all but impossible to remote into work. Really, I would rather be in meetings all day than sitting at a hotel catching up on TV shows.)
posted by steady-state strawberry at 4:51 AM on April 11, 2017 [17 favorites]

Now we see the violence inherent in the system.
posted by Segundus at 5:00 AM on April 11, 2017 [13 favorites]

There might be a ton of problematic factors/trends in "who gets picked to get bumped" that we can't see or that aren't readily apparent. But this one is easy: does anyone here really think that, say, a thin, white, 25-year old woman (blonde, of course) who refuses to give up her seat is gonna be dragged out with a bloody mouth? I'm guessing at least some of the onlooking passengers would have actively done something then.
posted by TwoStride at 5:10 AM on April 11, 2017 [22 favorites]

[C]ould it be possible that this policy for involuntary bumping passengers ... is on its face race-blind, but in terms of impact, disproportionately effects non-whites, immigrants, and children of immigrants?

Well, a few things. First off, 'The computer picked ...' is one of those vague statements which lets people put the blame for an unpleasant event on an inanimate object, much like 'It's company policy that ...'. What're you going to do, yell at a computer for kicking you off the plane? Of course there doesn't even have to be a computer involved for this to work.

Secondly, as somebody who used to do a bit of mathematical modeling: even assuming that there was a computer picking who gets kicked off: the computer does what I tell it to do. I translate English into math/computer code, but it starts with an idea, and that idea isn't by definition impartial.

You may be interested in the recent book: Weapons of Math Destruction
posted by Comrade_robot at 5:16 AM on April 11, 2017 [22 favorites]

And: Thanks to United, Is Flying While Asian Something to Fear?
posted by TwoStride at 5:17 AM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Does anyone here really think that, say, a thin, white, 25-year old woman (blonde, of course) who refuses to give up her seat is gonna be dragged out with a bloody mouth? I'm guessing at least some of the onlooking passengers would have actively done something then.

What would they have done? What would you have done if you were there? Gotten into a physical confrontation with armed police officers? Started a riot? The passengers in the video were vocally crying out, screaming, and telling the police to stop; they videotaped it with their phones, and according to articles I read, several of them walked off the plane in protest. What's scary about this video, in my mind, was how it revealed how powerless everyone was once the machinery of authority clicked into motion.
posted by pretentious illiterate at 5:22 AM on April 11, 2017 [24 favorites]

Does anyone here really think that, say, a thin, white, 25-year old woman (blonde, of course) who refuses to give up her seat is gonna be dragged out with a bloody mouth?

I do, if she were from, say, Tonya Harding's neighborhood, and had her accent, and was resisting instead of "being nice". It's not hard to imagine. "Respect" (for each other, for authority, for harmony, for each individual, for self) is a loaded idea, and it's probably time to reflect on when it's needed and exactly what that looks like.
posted by amtho at 5:29 AM on April 11, 2017 [13 favorites]

The real way to maximise the utility in this specific situation would have been to keep increasing the offer until someone took it - perhaps to $1000 or $1200 per seat.

I had thought this was what always happened -- I have seen it a few times (and benefited twice), where they started at $200 but ended up well over $1000. Maybe that is just for overseas flights, though, and the employees don't have that option for domestic short-haul flights?

It's too bad, since I can guarantee that there was a price (and probably not all that high) at which four people would have voluntarily given up their seats. Instead this is going to cost the airline a lot more than that.

Just like with the leggings thing the other week, there is a tone-deafness in United's response that suggests poor management going on. It's hard to imagine a well-run airline responding in that way, even if the incidents were allowed to happen.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:35 AM on April 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

Dip Flash: "It's too bad, since I can guarantee that there was a price (and probably not all that high) at which four people would have voluntarily given up their seats."

And indeed the Reddit eyewitness account (reliability of course a little dubious) says that there were passengers willing to take a later flight for $1600.
posted by crazy with stars at 5:39 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

The "auctioning" of vouchers most certainly happens on domestic flights. I witnessed it on a flight from California to Denver on more than one occasion.
posted by Twain Device at 5:45 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

For those continuing to argue "Oh it's just wrong for people to interpret this incident as anything racist" I have friends who have LINE accounts. I don't, because I didn't particularly feel like giving them every scrap of personal information on my phone, but there are countries in E Asia and SE Asia where EVERYBODY is on LINE. And this thing just exploded from the minute those videos went up. United might just as well have sent everyone on LINE a message like, "Dear Asian People - we hate you. Sincerely, United Airlines."
posted by lagomorphius at 5:53 AM on April 11, 2017 [17 favorites]

Secondly, as somebody who used to do a bit of mathematical modeling: even assuming that there was a computer picking who gets kicked off: the computer does what I tell it to do. I translate English into math/computer code, but it starts with an idea, and that idea isn't by definition impartial.

Oh, I'm fully aware, it's what I do for a living (and in aviation, no less). But right now the algorithm is "pick the lowest paying passenger," which is inherently biased in a massive, massive way. The airlines recognizing this bias and trying to pick a better scoring method is surely a step in the right direction. A model that is truly random is probably the best, and most fair choice, but I don't think it's great from a PR perspective. There will always be suspicion that it really isn't random. A model where they can explain that they looked at everyone's destination, and connections, and all possible ways to get passengers to where they need to be as fast as possible is more understandable by the people it will be affecting.

They should also probably be reworking their model (if one exists) for how much they can offer to get volunteers. In this case, if a crew needs to get to another airport to be able to fly a flight the next day, then they should be offering well over $800 because the costs of them not getting there is going to be huge.
posted by noneuclidean at 5:57 AM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

> A model where they can explain that they looked at everyone's destination, and connections, and all possible ways to get passengers to where they need to be as fast as possible is more understandable by the people it will be affecting.

I bet that would cost more than 800$. Sounds too expensive.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 6:01 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

the whole airport security process even causes me a tremendous amount of anxiety. It usually doesn't die down until I am sitting comfortably in my seat with my belongings in place.

Considering that this is the point where the guy we're talking about got beaten up and literally dragged off the plane for no good reason, perhaps you're getting comfortable a little too soon.
posted by Dysk at 6:13 AM on April 11, 2017 [12 favorites]

So no bus to Louisville. What about a flight to Dayton, followed by a bus to Louisville? Or any other combination of flight + car that might take less than 24 hours?

I kind of understand how someone feels like they have the only solution to this when they're stuck in this situation, but you would think that the company would have other solutions available. If nothing else, if it had taken United another ten minutes to realize they needed to add their crew to the flight, they'd be SOL since the plane would already be in the air.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 6:38 AM on April 11, 2017

Poorly worded thoughts ahead:

I'm coming to the conclusion (as a white person) that culturally white people in general are conditioned to silence and in addition amplify others displays emotions into danger. I see it all the time in responses to how people discuss other grieving people, how people complain about kids in kid friendly restraunts, noise in neighborhoods, displays of emotions outside of sanctioned events for normal lengths of time.

Like this dude... Complained. Said no. Made a phone call. None of that's threatening. It isn't even close. It's disagreement.
posted by AlexiaSky at 6:43 AM on April 11, 2017 [28 favorites]

Even if United was not racist in their selection process, law enforcement has a very long history of structural racism. All racial minorities are perceived as "other" to varying degrees, even by other minorities, who are just "doing their job." Asians are despised by many because they are "model minorities" (which is not true for many, e.g. the Hmong). People will always be jealous of success, especially when it's not their group who is successful
posted by AFABulous at 6:49 AM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Hey, I hate to shake with rage all by myself, so here you go.
posted by Behemoth at 6:50 AM on April 11, 2017

We've now entered the part of the process where we dredge up derogatory information about the doctor's history that have no bearing on this incident. So that's unhelpful.
posted by zachlipton at 6:57 AM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Hey, I hate to shake with rage all by myself, so here you go.

That guy doesn't seem to be much into following his own advice.
posted by lagomorphius at 7:00 AM on April 11, 2017

Behemoth, who is that lil toadfrog? Don't let his mrrpmrrping get to you.

I hope somebody updates soon on where the doctor is and how he's doing.
posted by Don Pepino at 7:04 AM on April 11, 2017

Gotten into a physical confrontation with armed police officers?

A minor point, but the officers involved were not armed, nor currently are they permitted to be.

Good to see the world turn on United. Time to meet force with force.
posted by spitbull at 7:05 AM on April 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

well, we're at the "he was no angel" phase of this type of thing
posted by AFABulous at 7:06 AM on April 11, 2017 [19 favorites]

well, we're at the "he was no angel" phase of this type of thing

Not just for unarmed black men shot by the police in Trump's America.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:09 AM on April 11, 2017 [9 favorites]

#BREAKING United Airlines has troubled past, ties to 9/11 attacks

No angels, those guys.
posted by Behemoth at 7:15 AM on April 11, 2017 [42 favorites]

Glenn Thrush (NYT's) comments on the man's background: Who gives the slightest shit? Why are unrelated past facts about this private citizen's life now newsworthy for digging up and publishing?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:31 AM on April 11, 2017 [9 favorites]

if a crew needs to get to another airport to be able to fly a flight the next day, then they should be offering well over $800 because the costs of them not getting there is going to be huge.

Or, I don't know, actually book and reserve seats for their own crew?
posted by amtho at 7:32 AM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

Wesley Lowery: pretty sure the Chicago PD has a much more troubled past
posted by gladly at 7:34 AM on April 11, 2017 [19 favorites]

I don't fly much but my miles are on United. They haven't inspired much loyalty so I will walk away from them. Just sent an e-mail to their customer center.

After reading about how you tossed a passenger off the plane I'm wondering if there's a reason for me to ever fly United again? Is United's policy going to continue to be that getting your employees to their job is more important than flying me to my job, after I've paid for a ticket? This is the exact opposite of customer service.

(I went on a bit about their CEO's statement too.)

I was on a flight where they had to reduce weight and they solved it, after no passengers volunteered to leave, by taking my bags off and not bothering to tell me. Whatever. Home leg, I'd rather get there myself and get my bags later. But they didn't offer more than a pittance to get volunteers.

If the issue is that they need to get employees to another airport to operate a plane, that is worth tens of thousands of dollars to them at minimum. Their mistake, they should be paying up to make it right. Instead they use force.
posted by mark k at 7:51 AM on April 11, 2017 [12 favorites]

More on China, from NPR (audio only at the moment, transcript coming later today). In short, this is a truly viral message, not one that is being promoted by state media, because there is an underlying fear of racial targeting on a national level, and this was an outlet for that fear (not the best paraphrasing, but that's it in a nutshell). But you can expect that the National media will jump on board, in part because United is a major carrier in China, and competes with state-owned airlines.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:55 AM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

Glenn Thrush (NYT's) comments on the man's background

That's Glenn Greenwald.
posted by indubitable at 7:59 AM on April 11, 2017

That's Glenn Greenwald.

Eeeek, I'm sorry about that. Stopped clock.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:01 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

well, we're at the "he was no angel" phase of this type of thing

God bless those highly paid PR folks, planting news stories overtime for United. It's hard work to shill for capital.
posted by indubitable at 8:02 AM on April 11, 2017 [9 favorites]

PR? They need to call the motherfuckin' PR Wolf
posted by thelonius at 8:03 AM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Behemoth, I didn't realise the guy from the Hamlet cigar adverts had a second career in racism.
posted by tinkletown at 8:06 AM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

The goal of government is to ensure the best outcome for the country as a whole, maximizing overall utility, even if some people are disadvantaged, and they set rules mandating they be generously compensated.

I am looking at the compensation available for overbooking, and let me tell you, that is not anywhere near my definition of generous. Adequate, maybe.
posted by jeather at 8:09 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's really too bad about the Courier-Journal. When it was owned by the Bingham family, it was half-way decent; but that was back when newspapers made a lot of money and some of that money went back into newsrooms fully-stocked with award-winning journalists. Ever since Gannett took over, it's been a steady slide right down the shitter.
posted by valkane at 8:16 AM on April 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

United shares slide as PR nightmare catches up with investors: Shares of United Continental fell by more than 4 percent Tuesday as outrage over a passenger being dragged off an overbooked flight finally caught up to the stock. The shares were the worst performer in the S&P 500.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:30 AM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]

An astonishing thing is that the stock was up yesterday as this was breaking. Maybe the markets woke up to the amount of play this is getting in Asia and realized this was really going to be a thing.
posted by zachlipton at 8:36 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

What I keep having an internal record-scratch about was the doctor wandering concussed back onto the plane.

So basically CorpSeCorps smashed his face in, presumably then threw him in a crumpled heap at the gate, and then everyone involved fucked off to the airport bar for drinks and left the gate unattended? It's really a shining incompetence cherry on top of the whole fecal sundae.
posted by Drastic at 8:40 AM on April 11, 2017 [32 favorites]

So basically CorpSeCorps smashed his face in, presumably then threw him in a crumpled heap at the gate, and then everyone involved fucked off to the airport bar for drinks and left the gate unattended?

I'm guessing that, somewhere in the middle of beating, dragging, and screaming, someone had an epiphany that this might become a problem later, and called off the thugs, but didn't actually know what to do afterwards.
posted by Behemoth at 8:46 AM on April 11, 2017 [6 favorites]

Who gives the slightest shit? Why are unrelated past facts about this private citizen's life now newsworthy for digging up and publishing?

Prospective patients among the readers of his hometown paper, for one.

What struck me was that he was found guilty of 98 felony drug counts and yet did not go to jail. And that Kentucky, I guess because of a doctor famine, saw fit to given him back his license. That strikes me as a story in its own right. Lot of prescription drug abuse in Kentucky, and has been for some time.

I doubt it will do much to cleanse United, though.

An astonishing thing is that the stock was up yesterday as this was breaking.

Short sellers need to borrow a stock before they can short it. Perhaps the story sparked a short term wave of quick short term purchases. (Short sellers cover airline stocks more than most.) I'm guess, I'm not a trader. Anyone?
posted by IndigoJones at 8:51 AM on April 11, 2017

Yeah, I don't think they hit the bar. I think they dragged him out and got a look at his face and then everybody called their immediate supervisor to get the buckpassing wheel rolling while inside the plane everybody wildly uploaded Act I to facebook. And that's why we don't have the beginning of Act II on video. IOW, nobody was looking because every single person was on the phone. Okay, it's possible a few of the airline personnel or the cops may have been huddled together at the gate whispering, "fuckfuckfuckfuck, what've we wrought?!"
posted by Don Pepino at 8:51 AM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]

I once accepted a bumping offer from United that turned out to be 4 $200 coupons, not exactly worth the $800 they promised. I did get to stay an extra day in and Paris come home business class, so it was fine, but I've had other crummy experiences with United, so I avoid them if I can. It would be worth their while to change the horrible customer service approach that pervades the entire company, but I won't hold my breath.
posted by theora55 at 8:55 AM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

They bring an in-flight magazine, you smash their head into an armrest. THAT'S THE CHIGAGO WAY.
posted by Enemy of Joy at 8:55 AM on April 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

United Airlines certainly does have a troubled past.
posted by spitbull at 8:56 AM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Jeebus, that Courier-Journal article actually has a picture of his fucking house.
posted by Cookiebastard at 9:10 AM on April 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

In response to the "he's no angel" article, Callie Miller, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist, writes: "Bc of my background I'm often asked to "inspire" students of color about journalism. They always tell me they hate the media and this is why"
posted by zachlipton at 9:11 AM on April 11, 2017 [29 favorites]

@DougHaller on Twitter: Attendant on my Southwest flight tells passengers: "We're going to need four passengers ... just kidding."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:17 AM on April 11, 2017 [26 favorites]

Also from the Japanese side of things, I've seen a couple posts from friends on Facebook sharing articles with comments like "I'm really starting to hear a lot of people say 'I don't want to go to America anymore.'"

So, yeah, good job (to United, and Trump, and the shitshow America has become I recent months/years) on alienating and terrifying a nation of people who tend to spend a solid chunk of their disposable income on travel and tourism. Surely that won't have any long lasting effects on the American economy. Surely the booming economy will allow all the folks waiting for the coal mines to open or the wall building jobs to start up will be wealthy enough to make up for all of the foreign tourists that are going elsewhere. Then again, international tourists probably all go to areas like Hawaii, or the coasts, and I doubt Trump or the GOP give two shits about the real damage being done to the Blue areas that are being hit by massive drops in tourism. In other words, not a lot of foreigners go to Branson, so who cares?
posted by Ghidorah at 9:21 AM on April 11, 2017 [18 favorites]

Yeah, one of the (many) things bugging me about the way everyone's talking about this story is that the standing offer was $800 IN VOUCHERS, not $800. And if (as theora55 described above) they were, say, 4 different $200 vouchers with any limitation in how many can be used at once, or if they have expiration dates, or they are non-transferrable to friends/family... well that suddenly makes them a lot less valuable. I don't know the fine print of what they're offering over the PA, and it's too late once they've got me and my luggage off the plane to turn it down if I don't like the terms. To say nothing of how useless vouchers are if, say, I am not someone with a need or the free $/time to fly again any time soon, or if I typically do not fly that particular airline.

If you want me off a plane in order to help YOUR business, cold hard cash or GTFO. Vouchers are bullshit, and among the many important issues to discuss here, we should be clear about the real value of what they were offering for volunteers.
posted by misskaz at 9:22 AM on April 11, 2017 [33 favorites]

Someone I know is flying United right now and they also announced that they need four volunteers, only it wasn't a joke. I told him to start filming now.
posted by zachlipton at 9:23 AM on April 11, 2017 [27 favorites]

From the NYT:

“In the United States, Asians are often discriminated against,” one Weibo user wrote. “If it were a Muslim or black person, they wouldn’t have acted this way.”

I'd like to think Chinese people (and many 1st gen Chinese-American immigrants) are going to take something from this incident about how other minority groups fare in the US, but I'm not optimistic.
posted by airmail at 9:30 AM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]

We've now entered the part of the process where we dredge up derogatory information about the doctor's history that have no bearing on this incident. So that's unhelpful.

Someone ordered a smear?

David Dao, passenger removed from United flight, a doctor with troubled past
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:37 AM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm surprised Trump hasn't posted a dumb-as-shit defense of United and the CPD yet.
posted by dirigibleman at 9:46 AM on April 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

airmail: " I'd like to think Chinese people (and many 1st gen Chinese-American immigrants) are going to take something from this incident about how other minority groups fare in the US, but I'm not optimistic."

Uhhhh, yeah. Judging from some members of my own frickin' family and the FB postings of some of the people I grew up with... my optimism is also not super-high.
posted by mhum at 9:55 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

United Airlines shares fall 4% as Chinese react to passenger dragged off plane

Shares in United Continential Holdings, the airline's parent company, fell by almost four per cent to $68.72 US in New York on Tuesday. That's the equivalent of about $1 billion worth of the company's market value, gone.
posted by piyushnz at 9:56 AM on April 11, 2017 [12 favorites]

VSB is on it: The Chinese Doctor Dragged Off A United Airlines Flight Is The Blackest Thing That Ever Happened This Week.
Comments are really picking up on the outrageousness of the "no angel" treatment in particular.
posted by TwoStride at 10:05 AM on April 11, 2017 [10 favorites]

I know United is in the toilet and I know what that paper with the crappy logo says about the beaten passenger's years-ago legal problems. TMZ has even stepped in helpfully to fill me in on the guy's success in championship poker. Google how I may, however, I cannot determine what I really want to know, which is where the abused-on-camera person is currently and how he's doing. His very recent past was much more acutely troubled than his more distant and unrelated past, and it's his present condition I'm most interested in learning. I keep refreshing WaPo et al. to no avail. They don't seem to realize that the current health status of the person is more interesting news than the current health status of the corporation or the past legal status of the person.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:07 AM on April 11, 2017 [29 favorites]

For those asking whether we have a choice of travel - this morning I needed to book a flight from the UK to San Francisco for the end of May. This is for business and we usually have a price window within which there are lots of routes and carriers to choose from.

There are many United flights serving this route and I intentionally chose to go KLM this time - even though I have to go through Amsterdam. I even stayed away from Lufthansa since many of those flights are basically United codeshares.
posted by vacapinta at 10:07 AM on April 11, 2017 [13 favorites]

“In the United States, Asians are often discriminated against,” one Weibo user wrote. “If it were a Muslim or black person, they wouldn’t have acted this way.”

Having trouble expressing how I feel about the NYT using this quote. I think I saw one single Japanese person on Twitter say "if this had been a black person there would be riots" but most of them are just saying this is despicable. And yet they went with the quote from the looney tunes rando posting on Weibo. I'm not delusional enough to think that there aren't tons of Asian and Asian American people out there with this crap attitude toward other minorities, but I also resist being aggressively characterized that way when there are ALSO tons of us who stand in solidarity with other POC, and even your average non-woke Japanese person posting hot takes on Twitter is not saying this shit. Like I don't want a cookie or anything, I just feel like the immediate response from the establishment is all "shit, shit, they're on to us, quick, how can we get them to turn against each other?" and I just hope we don't all fall for it.
posted by sunset in snow country at 10:09 AM on April 11, 2017 [27 favorites]

Does anyone here really think that, say, a thin, white, 25-year old woman (blonde, of course) who refuses to give up her seat is gonna be dragged out with a bloody mouth?

I do, if she were from, say, Tonya Harding's neighborhood, and had her accent, and was resisting instead of "being nice". It's not hard to imagine. .

Dylann Roof will forever suggest otherwise.
posted by TwoStride at 10:14 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

Looks like United is now engaging in a full-on smear campaign on multiple fronts.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:17 AM on April 11, 2017 [6 favorites]

My reaction to that quote in particular is... complicated. I assume that weibo user is mainland Chinese, which already means they are perhaps not the best spokesperson for how Asians in America are treated.

And I know what that quote looks like it's saying (and probably is). But on the other hand there is some truth to it--that the racism that Asian Americans experience doesn't "count" in the broader cultural consciousness. That if this happened to a black or Muslim person, society would at least immediately recognize it as racism. But when all the bullshit that AA's endure happens... it's not. Racism towards Asians, pre-Trump, was already basically the one kind of racism that was totally ok, even among "progressives"-- c.f. Jimmy Kimmel's Asian name joke at the Oscars.
posted by danny the boy at 10:18 AM on April 11, 2017 [10 favorites]

Regarding the doctor having a checkered past, Oscar Munoz is only United CEO because Jeff Smisek had to resign for his shady dealings with Chris Christie's pal David Samson at Port Authority.

So yeah, United has its own troubled past.
posted by chris24 at 10:20 AM on April 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

Delta seems more effective at bumping, using asymmetric information to its advantage:

When passengers on overbooked flights check in online or at the check-in kiosk, they’re asked what the dollar value of the travel voucher they would accept as compensation for volunteering their seats. They give you a hint, too — “Delta accepts lower bids first.” By the time you reach the gate, the gate attendants already have a list of passengers to call up to confirm they’ll fly standby. If your bid is low enough, you’ll be on that list....

So how do you win Delta’s bidding war? The trick is not to undercut yourself. You need to figure out how much your time is worth (there’s an app for that). Then set your bid just above that — no one wants to get delayed just to break even. If you bid below what your time is worth and win, you’re losing out. Conversely, if you bid too much higher and lose, you’ve left a perfectly good voucher on the table. The only way to win is barely.

posted by maudlin at 10:26 AM on April 11, 2017 [8 favorites]

...does anyone here really think that, say, a thin, white, 25-year old woman (blonde, of course) who refuses to give up her seat is gonna be dragged out with a bloody mouth?

Not on an airplane, but does this count?
posted by zakur at 10:27 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

Can we refrain from trying to argue who has it worst when it comes to police brutality?

I actually think it's a salient point to the discussion though. A number of my Asian friends have found the "trickle down police violence" to be the primary cause of what happened.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:35 AM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

That's a pretty clever strategy by Delta. Though I don't think it would have helped here, since the initial issue was apparently a flight crew rolling up at the last minute and informing the staff that they were going to have to kick people off their non-overbooked, already boarded flight to make room for them.
posted by tavella at 10:42 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

Suggested alternate headlines if you're thinking of writing about how that doctor had a "troubled past" and was "no angel":

Minorities, Historically And Currently Subject To Racial Oppression By Whites, Have Troubled Past And Present

Doctor, Who Was Brutalized By A Police State For No Good Reason, Sang "I'm No Angel" by Dido, Off The Album "No Angel"
posted by naju at 10:43 AM on April 11, 2017 [12 favorites]

I once accepted a bumping offer from United that turned out to be 4 $200 coupons, not exactly worth the $800 they promised.

This. If they were waving hundred dollar bills at the front of the plane, PLUS hotel and meal vouchers, you know people would have gone for it.
posted by corb at 10:43 AM on April 11, 2017 [6 favorites]

But on the other hand there is some truth to it--that the racism that Asian Americans experience doesn't "count" in the broader cultural consciousness. That if this happened to a black or Muslim person, society would at least immediately recognize it as racism. But when all the bullshit that AA's endure happens... it's not.

You're absolutely right (and I think that's what the Japanese person I quoted was trying to say, if not the weibo user), but I think that's 100% the result of the white establishment's efforts to turn us into a buffer zone against black rage. Give us just enough to keep us happy, make sure we know our place with constant low-level stuff like the Oscars joke, throw us under the bus only when push comes to shove, and then immediately remind us that the real enemy is other POC. I suppose now I've answered my own question about why they didn't go for a quote from a woke Asian American.
posted by sunset in snow country at 10:45 AM on April 11, 2017 [6 favorites]

That's a pretty clever strategy by Delta. Though I don't think it would have helped here, since the initial issue was apparently a flight crew rolling up at the last minute and informing the staff that they were going to have to kick people off their non-overbooked, already boarded flight to make room for them.

I fly Delta pretty much exclusively, and in my experience, they ask that as a matter of course upon checking in, just so they have a ready-to-go list of standbys in case the need arises.
posted by anderjen at 10:45 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

I heard yesterday that, if you are involuntarily not seated, you are entitled to a check. But, you have to insist on it: they will first offer vouchers, and it's on you to refuse them and insist on money. Anyone know if that is right?
posted by thelonius at 10:46 AM on April 11, 2017

Yep, that's right - from federal law: "The air carrier may offer free or discounted transportation in place of the cash payment. In that event, the carrier must disclose all material restrictions on the use of the free or discounted transportation before the passenger decides whether to accept the transportation in lieu of a cash or check payment. The passenger may insist on the cash/check payment or refuse all compensation and bring private legal action."
posted by naju at 10:49 AM on April 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

thelonius, see naju's comment above for the text of the reg.
posted by bonehead at 10:49 AM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Also, here is an update on Dr. Dao's whereabouts and condition for those who were asking. (He's in the hospital in Chicago, in case you can't click through.)
posted by palomar at 11:10 AM on April 11, 2017 [8 favorites]

He's a doctor who lost consciousness and is almost 70.

He did not work.

More practically, he also missed his fucking flight.
posted by AlexiaSky at 11:13 AM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

I've seen some buzz on Twitter that the doctor whom the police state abused on behalf of United Airlines is David Thanh Duc Dao, but the doctor with trouble in Kentucky is David Anh Duy Dao. If this is true, there's another clear moment of old fashioned institutional USA racism - not being about to tell the difference between "Thanh Duc" and "Anh Duy" because they're both Chinese names.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:22 AM on April 11, 2017 [21 favorites]

Mod note: Several comments deleted; let's skip the whole weird speculation about the passenger wanting to get home for criminal reasons, doesn't seem like there's any reason to go in that direction and plenty of reason not to.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:26 AM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]

Vietnamese names, not Chinese.

You are, of course, correct. Sincere apologies. Mods, I missed the window - could you fix that for me?
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:28 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

If that's the case, I hope the fucking "journalists" peddling the no angel counter-story are fired in the harshest manner possible... This is like the Olympics of "wait, hold me beer".
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 11:29 AM on April 11, 2017 [10 favorites]

I'm guilty of the same thing I accuse the media of.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:29 AM on April 11, 2017

Uh yea - you can have a Vietnamese name and be Chinese. Case in point, me.
posted by driedmango at 11:32 AM on April 11, 2017 [10 favorites]

Also from the Japanese side of things, I've seen a couple posts from friends on Facebook sharing articles with comments like "I'm really starting to hear a lot of people say 'I don't want to go to America anymore.'"

That kind of thing more or less explains this quote from the Sun-Times story I posted earlier.

"[Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans] could not be reached for comment. Sources said the commissioner is so livid about the damage done to O’Hare Airport’s reputation as a travel hub, aviation security police may well be hard-pressed to hold on to their jobs."
posted by lagomorphius at 11:33 AM on April 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

It's blowing my mind that there are still both people on twitter and actual newspaper articles carrying water for United on this issue. The garbage "he's no angel" story. And the truth that even if United had the right to remove him from the plane (which they probably didn't) that this was the result of gate agents making a string of bad decisions along the way. I've taken plenty of flights (and many on United) and bumping people never happens like this. It's just so much garbage. The state has a legitimate right to use force to enforce laws but not for a fucking overbooked plane.

That there is anyone taking United's side in this fuckup is the most appalling thing of all.
posted by GuyZero at 11:37 AM on April 11, 2017 [22 favorites]

If he had been black or Muslim, then a) no-one would have believed that he was a doctor but more importantly b) they would have either evacuated the plane or handcuffed him in his seat before attempting to remove him, because he'd be considered more threatening. They also probably would have used some more aggressively choice language. And fewer passengers would have called out in alarm about his treatment.

It would all be stemming from the exact same type of societal racism, though, so it's moot.
posted by desuetude at 11:43 AM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

On the "troubled past"/"no angel" front: I've been thinking that in all of these law enforcement encounters, the person whose background should be interrogated and investigated the most (and yet happens the least) is the actual law enforcement officer doing the beating and/or killing. Of course, there are lots of reasons why this is almost never the case:

1) The police departments control the flow of information so you might not even get a name on the officer until days or weeks later. Do we even have a name on the CDA officer(s) involved here? We know he was put on leave but I don't think we have a name and no one seems to find that weird. Meanwhile, we have pictures of the victim's house up in his local newspaper. Great.
2) Police disciplinary records and citizen complaint records are often difficult if not impossible to get, either by stonewalling or by statute.
3) The blue wall of silence, 'nuff said.
4) Culturally, journalists (and, I guess, white society in general) rarely examine the motives of police officers. They are either merely neutral instruments of the state or, even better, heroic defenders of truth, justice, and The American Way[tm]. Either way, they must never, ever be questioned.

Meanwhile you have instances like Tim Loehmann, the officer who shot Tamir Rice (bonus points if you remembered that without needing to google it like I did) who was found too emotionally unstable and incompetent to be an officer in the Cleveland suburb of Independence but Cleveland PD found to be just peachy (and, as it turns out, still currently employed by them even after learning about how he got bounced out of his last job and, yeah, murdering a 12-year-old). I swear I read somewhere that in some large fraction of the cases of publicized police misconduct/brutality, there was a long paper trail of citizen complaints and/or internal disciplinary actions, sometimes even things like domestic violence and/or restraining orders. Like, I've said before, whenever you see an instance of a police officer's misconduct caught on tape, you should think to yourself "Boy, how unlucky. The one and only time in this officer's otherwise pristine career that he messes up and it's caught on tape. What are the odds?" and then laugh and laugh and laugh sarcastically.
posted by mhum at 11:47 AM on April 11, 2017 [27 favorites]

Next up Newsweek will be trying to pin bitcoin on this guy.
posted by valkane at 11:55 AM on April 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

United's CEO has written a new letter. Now he's "disturbed" and wants to "deeply apologize" to the customer. Given the victim-blaming email he sent out to his employees last night, before his stock price started tanking, I don't know why anybody would believe him now.
posted by zachlipton at 12:06 PM on April 11, 2017 [32 favorites]

Late to the party but I'm interested if the CEO's "Summary of Flight 3411" moots the argument about how "boarding" may be defined by the industry, considering that he describes the incident as having occurred "...after United Express Flight 3411 was fully boarded...."
posted by SpaceBass at 12:06 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

So basically United's timeline on this is:

1. Fuck you and get off the plane
2. Fuck you I'm not giving you $1,500
3. Fuck you with a beating
4. Fuck you and you deserved it
5. Fuck you for real
6. We're deeply sorry
posted by 0xFCAF at 12:13 PM on April 11, 2017 [81 favorites]

Joey Michaels: "I've seen some buzz on Twitter that the doctor whom the police state abused on behalf of United Airlines is David Thanh Duc Dao, but the doctor with trouble in Kentucky is David Anh Duy Dao."

Hang on. According to a search of Kentucky physician licensing search thingy, there is only one David Dao listed (as David A. D. Dao) with an original year of licensing of 1983. On the other hand, there is a David Thanh Doc Dao listed in the Louisiana medical licensing search thingy but it shows as "Internship/Residency - Training Purposes Only" and was issued in 2015. I think I'm inclined to call out this Twitter speculation as likely to be inaccurate.
posted by mhum at 12:26 PM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

United's CEO has written a new letter. Now he's "disturbed" and wants to "deeply apologize" to the customer. Given the victim-blaming email he sent out to his employees last night, before his stock price started tanking, I don't know why anybody would believe him now.

This after United stock drops a billion dollars. I'll bet he's "disturbed."
posted by lagomorphius at 12:26 PM on April 11, 2017 [9 favorites]

You also have to remember that Munoz came from CSX. He's used to being able to use prods when the livestock cargo acts up.
posted by hwyengr at 12:29 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Was just asked if I wanted to volunteer to give up my seat on an overbooked United flight. I, in fact, do not.
posted by zachlipton at 12:29 PM on April 11, 2017 [12 favorites]

Why they didn't call in the PR people at the first inkling of this is a mystery, but someone with sense should have kept it away from this CEO until they did have the ad men in the room. Most of these Highly Effective People seem to need an empathy surrogate to do this part of the job.

"Wait, I don't see why... What? What's supposed to be wrong with this?

Oh, okay, right, I see it, now. Theresa, take a letter.

'Capital D Dear United Airlines family colon linespace I am deeply sorry the capital A Asian shouted and made us re-accommodate passengers period linespace love comma your boss three exclamation points.'

Okay, read that back, Theresa... Boo-yaaaaw! Lookin' good, that's a wrap, hit 'send!'"
posted by Don Pepino at 12:30 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Well, 5.5 is, "oh shit, this is starting to look bad, let's go ask our PR firm what we should do"

5.25 was "Fuck, we lost half a billion in market cap".
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:34 PM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

This might be the Jack in the Box moment for United. That went down in 1993 and the brand hasn't really ever recovered.
posted by metaseeker at 12:35 PM on April 11, 2017

Late to the party but I'm interested if the CEO's "Summary of Flight 3411" moots the argument about how "boarding" may be defined by the industry, considering that he describes the incident as having occurred "...after United Express Flight 3411 was fully boarded...."

This also speaks to the overbooked vs. fully booked question I had upthread, though I'm not clear on what the legal or PR implications are:

"United spokesman Jonathan Guerin said Tuesday that all 70 seats on United Express Flight 3411 were filled, but the plane was not overbooked as the airline previously reported. Instead, United and regional affiliate Republic Airlines, which operated the flight, selected four passengers at random to be removed to accommodate crew members needed in Louisville the next day."
posted by naju at 12:36 PM on April 11, 2017

5.375 being "Double fuck, now it's a billion."
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:36 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

I think this is a good time to introduce this incredibly important scholarly article which discusses how Asian Americans are caught between white supremacy and racism against black and brown folk, and how our 'model minority' stereotype and identity is both used to praise and contain us.

The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans
posted by yueliang at 12:42 PM on April 11, 2017 [22 favorites]

This might be the Jack in the Box moment for United. That went down in 1993 and the brand hasn't really ever recovered.

I mean, Jack in the Box's stock price is currently over $100 per share, but okay.
posted by palomar at 12:42 PM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

From Munoz's statement: "It's never too late to do the right thing."

That phrase is insidious bullshit. If you see it, call it out.
posted by infinitewindow at 12:47 PM on April 11, 2017 [9 favorites]

"It's never too late to do the right thing."

Tell that to Stalin, dude.
posted by valkane at 12:54 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

I honestly have nothing productive to add except one more voice to the "fuck united" chorus. This was disgusting.

I keep thinking about what I could have done, were it me being asked to deplane, or me in a nearby seat watching it happen...I'm just glad he said no. I'm glad that his injuries are blowing up and infuriating the country and the world. I hope this inspires more people to stand up to pointless violence and to know their rights and to get in the face of authority.

I can't think of anything else to say. Air travel sucks. Thank god I live somewhere well served by trains.
posted by saysthis at 1:00 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

Bad timing on your app update, @United!
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 1:02 PM on April 11, 2017 [6 favorites]

United's CEO has written a new letter. Now he's "disturbed" and wants to "deeply apologize"

He's disturbed that this was caught on video, and deeply apologizes to the shareholders.
posted by Sangermaine at 1:02 PM on April 11, 2017 [15 favorites]

That 'app update' description is fake. It may seem obvious to many, but not to everyone.
posted by adrianhon at 1:04 PM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

(yes the app update text is fake, still thought it was hilarious, apologies for the ambiguity #fake)
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 1:05 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

A good opinion piece in the NYTimes about how this is, among other things, a symptom of the rise in economic and social inequality.
posted by vacapinta at 1:14 PM on April 11, 2017 [8 favorites]

My non-expert's field guide to the tactics of denial and counterattack :

1. It was his fault, he chose this outcome, he might not be normal
2. They were within their rights, it actually is perfectly legal
3. After they called the cops, it was out of their hands
4. They were just following orders; all this was standard operating procedure
5. This happens all the time, no big deal
6. He's no angel, look what we dug up on him
7. Nine out of ten airline pilots agree that this was normal and ok
8. We had no choice
9. Mistakes were made
posted by metaseeker at 1:25 PM on April 11, 2017 [16 favorites]

10. We were just pursuing efficiency, gotta keep planes filled.
11. It was for the greater good
12. It doesn't happen all that much, don't worry
13. It wasn't actually us, it was an affiliate, they acted on their own
posted by metaseeker at 1:45 PM on April 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

14. Can you believe how much her made suing us? We need tort reform in the USA.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:52 PM on April 11, 2017 [14 favorites]

I don't know if this is appropriate to comment in the thread with this, but this just made me laugh so hard because I'm so pissed!

Satire: United Airlines confirms that beatings will continue until volunteering improves

"Speaking over footage of a passenger screaming as he was punched in the face for asking for the service he’d paid for, a spokesman for United confirmed that the airline would shortly be rebranding as an adventure destination for danger-seekers."
posted by yueliang at 1:55 PM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]

wrt to Dao's past: it doesn't matter if the guy had been previously convicted of lobbing firebombs at police. The officers who dragged him off the plane did not know of his crimes. Did they really run his record before assaulting him?
posted by AFABulous at 2:38 PM on April 11, 2017 [23 favorites]

So apparently if you're a rich white guy who has paid $1000 for a seat in first class, United will merely threaten to put you in handcuffs, not actually do it.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:44 PM on April 11, 2017 [13 favorites]

I'm not sure, reading some of the local stories about this, that the "transportation security officers" involved even have the power to arrest people or do much of anything. They don't carry guns, but oddly enough, they pull down hefty salaries... Despite the idea that patronage doesn't exist anymore in Chicago, O'Hare is known to be packed with patronage. "Yeah, Uncle Vinnie knows somebody who got Cousin Ricky's kid a nice job at the airport." So they may have not have much training and generally not much to do other than stand around most of the day. It's been pointed out that CPD was there at the airport, and CPD should have been called if there was a real problem. I get the idea these guys were asked by the United gate staff to get the doctor off the plane, so they dragged him out of the plane and let him go. Because that's all they were asked to do. They might not even be union. The Aviation Commissioner is considering firing all of them, not just the three on the video.
posted by lagomorphius at 2:54 PM on April 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

Alexandra Petri: United’s new pre-flight checklist

This comment posted from United flight 1170.
posted by zachlipton at 3:07 PM on April 11, 2017 [17 favorites]

The Aviation Commissioner is considering firing all of them, not just the three on the video.

Good.
posted by GuyZero at 3:21 PM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]

United will defend themselves with:

Passengers whose conduct is disorderly, offensive, abusive, or violent;

Passengers who fail to comply with or interfere with the duties of the members of the flight crew, federal regulations, or security directives;

from 21 H of the CoC.

Guy was picked, guy refused, swore at cabin crew, Airport police, assault.

Have seen others accused of swearing at airport staff in the past escalated to Airport police, who weren't interested in other passengers vouching that the person did not swear at the unhelpful jobs worth.

Bad PR yes, within their legal rights, yes.
posted by fistynuts at 3:22 PM on April 11, 2017

wrt to Dao's past: it doesn't matter if the guy had been previously convicted of lobbing firebombs at police. The officers who dragged him off the plane did not know of his crimes. Did they really run his record before assaulting him?

And even if they did know and even if he'd been convicted and escaped punishment, getting assaulted by police is not an ethical or legal punishment for any current crime.

"Its ok that we assaulted him because he was guilty" is not a legal or ethical defense. Arguing that his past makes the criminal actions of the air cops ok is arguing that those cops should have a judge/jury/executioner set of rights that they don't now have (no matter what they think) and should never have.

These "no angel" smears on victims of police brutality drive me berserk because they're a disingenuous attempt to make us forget that a crime was committed. When we have to expend time and energy explaining that a person's past history has no bearing on whether a crime was committed on their person today they get a little closer to weaseling out of any accountability.

It shouldn't matter who Dr. Dao is, what he has or has not done in his life, what his beliefs are, etc. He was criminally assaulted by state agents on behalf of a corporation. That would be illegal and unethical no matter who the victim might be.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:29 PM on April 11, 2017 [45 favorites]

Bad PR yes, within their legal rights, yes.

The end result of several prior failures on United's part that had nothing to do with the passenger, yes.

The guy is a scapegoat. How about they not blame random passengers for problems they made themselves?
posted by GuyZero at 3:38 PM on April 11, 2017 [10 favorites]

@ fistynuts: if you read the Contract of Carriage a bit more carefully, I think you might agree that Section 21 H does not apply. Note that this entire section doesn't just single out (e.g.) failure to comply with instructions of the flight crew -- the bad behavior also has to create safety concerns. I would think it's a stretch to argue that replacing a paying passenger with a United employee has anything to do with safety concerns at all.
posted by Mr. Justice at 3:41 PM on April 11, 2017 [6 favorites]

So the argument would go that the crew's negligent planning and demands created a safety situation, and when the man refuses to be removed, that is the justification for having him removed.

I don't think it's valid to claim that refusing to be removed without justification creates the justification for having him removed. That's the kind of logic people use to justify domestic abuse.

If that clause can be interpreted that way, it can be used to justify removing a person for any reason whatsoever, and I sure hope there's an established legal principle disallowing such over-broad interpretations. Refusing to obey an illegal order does not constitute failure to comply with authority, as the person does not have the authority to make that order.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:53 PM on April 11, 2017 [10 favorites]

@fistynuts:

1) What Mr. Justice said.

2) The CoC is a tricky thing, and it's easy to confuse section 25 (denied boarding compensation) with section 21 (refusal of transport).

3) United can only argue from section 21 because they already called it "deboarding", which means he had already boarded. So section 25 doesn't apply. They can't actually claim they picked him without walking back on their own language. You can't deny boarding to someone who already boarded. That also means that they can't pick him. They only people they can pick are their own people.

4) So what United basically has to do then is say that they breached the contract by invoking 25, and then when he refused, they claim that is a separate contract breach against 21. That's going to be a hell of a claim if that ever sees a jury, because if one United staff member said to security that he was being deboarded and they needed to remove him, then they acted under false pretenses, and they get to eat all of his damages. That includes any damages caused by police, since they get to claim qualified immunity. (And if the cops were incorrectly informed, then they should.)
posted by parliboy at 3:55 PM on April 11, 2017 [10 favorites]

Arguing that his past makes the criminal actions of the air cops ok is arguing that those cops should have a judge/jury/executioner set of rights that they don't now have (no matter what they think) and should never have.

That's not what I'm arguing at all. I am saying that if he'd had convictions for violent behavior towards law enforcement, they might be justified in viewing Dao as a safety risk when he started to become angry. They would still have been completely and utterly incompetent at removing him from the flight.

It's a moot point since he didn't actually have a violent past - I used a hyperbolic hypothetical to make the point that the officers' actions were unjustified because they had no way of knowing his past.
posted by AFABulous at 4:03 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

Removing someone from the plane for refusing to leave the plane is the CoC version of arresting someone solely for resisting arrest, i.e. authoritarian bullshit.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 4:27 PM on April 11, 2017 [32 favorites]

Next time I'd like to see other passengers block the aisle.
posted by rhizome at 4:34 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Next time I'd like to see other passengers block the aisle.

I have social justice fantasies like everyone but honestly I'm not sure I'd speak up in this situation if I was a fellow passenger. At the time I don't think anyone knew what was going on or why this guy was being deplaned. For all the other passengers know there was an arrest warrant out for him or something. And most of the people on that plane just want to get to their destination. Blocking the aisle ain't going to improve that even if that guy gets screwed over.

Which is why it's even more important for United to not just fuck stuff up and make things up as they go along and to actually plan how to deal with an overbooking. Yanking off seated passengers is nothing but an abject failure on United's part to do one of the most basic parts of its business.
posted by GuyZero at 4:42 PM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

honestly I'm not sure I'd speak up in this situation if I was a fellow passenger

I believe that's called being buffaloed.
posted by rhizome at 4:49 PM on April 11, 2017

Emirates is making hay while the sun shines, Fly the friendly skies with a real airline.
posted by peeedro at 5:34 PM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

You can't deny boarding to someone who already boarded.

This is backed up by the usage of "denied boarding" vs. "removed from the flight" elsewhere in the document, for instance:

"A Service Animal will be denied boarding or removed from the flight by UA if the animal cannot be contained by the passenger or otherwise exhibits behavior that poses a threat to the health or safety of other passengers or a significant threat of disruption."

If "denied boarding" and "removed from the flight" were interchangeable, synonymous terms in the document, such that denying boarding can be construed as removing someone from a flight, then interpretatively there wouldn't be the need to have separate provisions and separate callouts for them. It's clear from context and the full scope of the document that "denied boarding" applies prior to boarding, and "removed from the flight" applies after boarding.

An interpretation will be rejected if it leaves portions of the contract language useless, inexplicable, inoperative, meaningless, or superfluous. Ball State Univ. v. United States, 488 F.2d 1014 (Ct. Cl. 1973).
posted by naju at 5:35 PM on April 11, 2017 [15 favorites]

If the concern is doubt about if the passenger is a suspect (which, really, is that a doubt or more an unchecked assumption, cf. Althusserian interpellation), then even there the normal thing a citizen should do, even out of their own self interest, is to articulate the question: "What's going on? Because I am in this cabin too and I and others would like to know."

It's formulating the question, asking, creating the space for information and mutual clarification. And that's not acting out social justice fantasies, it's simply being a reasonable, educated citizen.
posted by polymodus at 5:37 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

I need to remember, if I ever find myself witnessing something like this fascist farce: those of us with the most privilege (white, male, etc, etc.) somewhat counter-intuitively have the least to loose by getting involved; therefore we should be first into the breech, as it were.
posted by maxwelton at 5:53 PM on April 11, 2017 [13 favorites]

I agree, maxwelton. As a white, professional, middle class, cis-passing, straight-passing guy, I don't fear getting beaten by the police. I'm definitely not physically capable of stopping an officer, but I hope I would do something. Are they going to start beating all the white guys too? Are we all that terrified and cowardly?

I'm reminded of this tweet:

If you're promoting changes to women's behaviour to "prevent" rape, you're really saying "make sure he rapes the other girl".

If the ones with the least to lose don't stand up, we're saying "it's ok if you beat the other guy."
posted by AFABulous at 6:18 PM on April 11, 2017 [18 favorites]

those of us with the most privilege (white, male, etc, etc.) somewhat counter-intuitively have the least to lose by getting involved; therefore we should be first into the breach, as it were.

Probably controversial, but - considering how friendly the police reaction to the Women's March was, I'm tempted to include white women too. It's certainly scary to face down a power-mad cop in mid-freakout, but think of the international optics and outrage if they actually made the mistake of laying into a peaceful white woman with a dozen cameras filming. I can't think of a much quicker route to congressional action, short of punching a baby (I'm sure airport security punching a crying baby on a flight will be the big news story of 2018. "The baby had it coming," Americans agree in new Rasmussen poll.)
posted by naju at 6:21 PM on April 11, 2017 [6 favorites]

without sarcasm I can speculate that 25% of passengers on a transoceanic flight would punch a crying baby themselves
posted by AFABulous at 6:49 PM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

At the time I don't think anyone knew what was going on or why this guy was being deplaned. For all the other passengers know there was an arrest warrant out for him or something.

Is this accurate in any way? Every account I've seen has made it seem like the reason they were removing a customer was pretty clear to everyone aboard.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 6:54 PM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]

I'm a frequent business traveler and I see people get bumped all the time. It's pretty awful. But, never like this. Never forcibly removed. I was already boycotting United because ever since they merged with Continental they've just sucked but now I hope I never have to fly them ever again. This is all just so terrible and I hate that some people seem ok with letting huge companies just do whatever they want. The other worst airline is American Airlines. I've had so many bad experiences with them I've lost count. One flight, 11 people were kicked off because they switched planes. The next flight wasn't until 24 hours later. The people they bumped were the last 11 people to check in, which basically turned out to be all the older folks who checked in the old fashioned way when they got to the airport instead of doing it 24 hours ahead of time through an app or the internet the way I do. It was pretty heartbreaking.

I agree with what someone said above though - Alaska Airlines has been very good to me thus far. Flying with them is usually a way nicer experience than any other carrier I've flown.
posted by FireFountain at 7:16 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

"Welcome to Southwest, where we beat our competitors…not our customers."
posted by anderjen at 7:29 PM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

At the time I don't think anyone knew what was going on or why this guy was being deplaned.

According to an eyewitness account in a screenshot in a tweet that I can't find right now, they announced it beforehand.
posted by rhizome at 8:02 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm not going to link to it, but it's now floating out there: the video with Dao bleeding from his mouth, disoriented, and back on the plane is up online. It's even more horrifying. Apart from what they must have done to him once they thought they were out of the eye of the cameras, what does it say about security theater if they can't stop a severely weakened man that they had in custody from getting back onto the plane they just removed him from. Seriously, what the fuck? This needs to move beyond economic punishment and losing jobs. This needs to be a public trial where these people are nationally embarrassed and go to prison.
posted by codacorolla at 8:24 PM on April 11, 2017 [16 favorites]

> their contract of carriage highlights there is a complete difference in rights after you've boarded and sat on the plane

I usually check my baggage and bring only a small bag on the plane, and so I wait until late in the process to board -- I'd rather spend those 10 minutes stretching my legs than sitting in my seat. But does this mean I'm more at risk of being bumped?
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:32 PM on April 11, 2017

So apparently if you're a rich white guy who has paid $1000 for a seat in first class, United will merely threaten to put you in handcuffs, not actually do it.

In case you weren't sure if it was still 2017, I'd like to highlight something from that article:

A United employee, responding to Fearns’ complaint that he shouldn’t have to miss the flight, compromised by downgrading him to economy class and placing him in the middle seat between a married couple who were in the midst of a nasty fight and refused to be seated next to each other.

“They argued the whole way back,” Fearns recalled. “Nearly six hours. It was a lot of fun.”

posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 9:23 PM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

I won't say the legality argument is irrelevant--I hope it is illegal per parliboy's reading and United gets crucified--but I hope it doesn't imply that it makes it one iota better if it is legal.

We might need laws to give flight crews significant powers to protect the safety of passengers. Maybe they need to be broad. Taking advantage of them to deal with your mundane middle management planning issues is *not* OK. I say this as a middle manager, albeit one who is not allowed to get police to beat up people who stand between me and delivering barely adequate levels of service.

That came out too glib, BTW. It's not capturing the level of outrage I'm feeling. United did exactly what I said: violence as a way to avoid consequences for their own stupid planning. In the old Gilded Age you'd get the state to beat up your striking employees, today I guess we're experiment with having them beat up your paying customers.

They could have offered more to get him off the plane, they could have eaten their mistake, they could have done whatever. But they got the guy hurt and then the CEO had the fucking nerve to announce that he supported his employees doing it, encouraging them to value 'procedure', a few bucks and escalation to violence over showing any glimmer of creative problem solving and human decency in their job. For me it's the initial CEO statement that moves this from Bad Thing to Irredeemable.

I've flown United 20+ years. I'm flying one more round trip. Unfortunately. I already paid for my tickets. I briefly thought of eating the loss but it wouldn't hurt United any and I'm traveling with friends so it'd be a big pain to them. But after this never again. It's not a huge sacrifice for me and I wouldn't have the guts to have stood up for the guy when it happened, but I honestly want them to go under for this crap. I'll lobby my friends not to use them again. Some are big business travelers. United is completely broken.
posted by mark k at 9:36 PM on April 11, 2017 [17 favorites]

Royal Jordanian Airlines trolls United.
posted by peeedro at 9:37 PM on April 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

According to an eyewitness account in a screenshot in a tweet that I can't find right now, they announced it beforehand.

Found it
posted by rhizome at 9:53 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

A United employee, responding to Fearns’ complaint that he shouldn’t have to miss the flight, compromised by downgrading him to economy class and placing him in the middle seat between a married couple who were in the midst of a nasty fight and refused to be seated next to each other.

Vegetable Lasagna!
posted by dirigibleman at 10:07 PM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

Oscar Munoz's attitude in all this made me think of Jon Ronson's book The Psychopath Test. In it he says there are as many psychopaths at the top of corporations as there are in prison, or something like that. Empathy certainly didn't come naturally to Munoz - he had to be told to pretend to feel bad for Dao by his PR company.
posted by hazyjane at 10:24 PM on April 11, 2017 [12 favorites]

From Munoz's statement: "It's never too late to do the right thing."

That phrase is insidious bullshit. If you see it, call it out.

No kidding.

I've been thinking a lot about why that phrase bothers me so much in this incident.

Here are some things that United's fuck-ups caused:

1. Dr. Dao was injured so badly he needed to be hospitalized. And because his assault went viral, and because United described him as belligerent and disruptive, he's also getting smeared in the press while recovering from his injuries.
2. His patients are, at best, having the continuity of their medical care disrupted (if someone is covering all his appointments) or worse, are having their care delayed (if there isn't enough coverage for all of his appointments).
3. The other passengers, including some children, had to witness the assault and the aftermath, which was deeply disturbing to many of them.

United can't undo the damage it caused by belatedly committing to doing the right thing.

And if United truly believes in doing the right thing, why did it take a highly-publicized assault on their customer to nudge them in the direction of improving their policies? What was stopping them from trying to improve the customer experience before this week?

Ugh. I am lucky to live in an Alaska Airlines hub, because this is a "never again" kind of thing for me. I keep seeing Dr. Dao's face and thinking that could have been my father or my grandfather or my brother. The sheer callousness and indifference by United, from top to bottom, is just something I can't stomach.
posted by creepygirl at 10:28 PM on April 11, 2017 [31 favorites]

United Breaks Humans. Just thought of that and had to throw it in.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:12 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

There are rumors flying around that Twitter is deleting tweets critical of United -- and also tweets talking about those deletions.
posted by jamjam at 12:06 AM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

From law professor John Banzhaf, this is sound analysis (and a good object lesson in rules of contract interpretation):

United Airlines Cites Wrong Rule For Illegally De-Boarding Passenger
posted by naju at 2:16 AM on April 12, 2017 [18 favorites]

From naju's link

Finally, it appears that United is seeking to blame the passenger, claiming that when asked to give up his seat, he acted belligerently – and citing a rule which requires that passengers obey the orders of the flight crew. But, such a requirement applies only to orders which are lawful.

If, for example, the flight crew had ordered two passengers to fight each other for the amusement of the other passengers, or to take off all their clothing, the passengers would not be required to comply, and their forceful removal could not be based upon refusing to follow unlawful orders.
posted by vacapinta at 2:22 AM on April 12, 2017 [21 favorites]

Doctor Dao is said to have hired a lawyer.
posted by epo at 2:43 AM on April 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

OK matey, are you coming quietly or do I have to give you club class?
posted by Segundus at 2:56 AM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Mr Justice, Parliboy, naju

I agree the escalation from an interpretation s25 to s21 is all on United, but was highlighting that the moment you disagree with anyone at an airport, you are in a police state.

How the law sees provocation is a pretty grey area in my understanding.

Those sections were exactly how United defended their actions, how it plays in US court I defer to naju's link.
posted by fistynuts at 3:16 AM on April 12, 2017

Can this be used as a means to destroy any "golden parachute" the United CEO may have in place?
posted by Goofyy at 4:15 AM on April 12, 2017

Hmm. Now Naked Capitalism is drawing the connections with this 2015 Guardian article on patterns of abuse in the Chicago police force and the crossover in personnel with the Chicago Department of Aviation:

Richard Zuley, an interrogator at Guantanamo Bay as well as a 30 year member of the Chicago Police Department, had been homicide officer involved with a series of wrongful convictions. A 2015 Guardian story discussed at length his aggressive techniques, which included allegations of torture. He had then left the CPD and was working as a security officer at the Chicago Department of Aviation. Is this just an isolated example or have other Chicago cops with dodgy records found a second career at the Chicago airport?

posted by Sonny Jim at 4:23 AM on April 12, 2017 [14 favorites]

So you're saying Chicago cops aren't angels either?
posted by spitbull at 4:30 AM on April 12, 2017 [17 favorites]

Because I've heard CPD has a troubled past.
posted by spitbull at 4:31 AM on April 12, 2017 [21 favorites]

Difference being that abuses of police power in similar situations in the past is very relevant to abuses of police power now in a way that possible previous drug convictions aren't to giving up your seat on an airplane. That and the whole asymmetry of power makes the interrogation of the habits of the authorities legit in way that it simply isn't for the public. Kinda like how we make police wear body cams some places, and dash cams, etc, but don't have rose same requirements of the general public.
posted by Dysk at 4:38 AM on April 12, 2017 [6 favorites]

Back in 2014 United promised regulators that all ticketed passengers are garanteed seats.
posted by rdr at 5:51 AM on April 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

Can this be used as a means to destroy any "golden parachute" the United CEO may have in place?

No? Why would it?
posted by PMdixon at 5:54 AM on April 12, 2017

> "It's never too late to do the right thing."

So, if it's never too late to do the right thing, at any particular time there is no urgency to do the right thing. If you can't do the right thing, don't feel bad, you'll get another chance to do the right thing. BUT it'll be too late to be efficient for the sake of the business if you don't drop everything and focus on TOP PRIORITY! It's too early to do the right thing, you'll get another chance. You better not do the right thing, cause we clearly see you have no practical imperative to do so. Do the right thing later, when it's more convenient.

It's always too early to do the right thing.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 6:13 AM on April 12, 2017 [7 favorites]

Back in 2014 United promised regulators that all ticketed passengers are guaranteed seats.

This is a real stretch and a non-story. Those comments were about assigning a seat to a passenger once she purchases a ticket, without her being forced to pay any additional seat assignment surcharges. They're not about guaranteeing that the passenger will be able to board and fly, at all. Sure, United used the words "every ticket... guarantees a passenger a seat on the plane", but this is referring to assigning a seat like 21E or 21F, which is often still done at the gate. They're just saying you don't need to purchase any additional services to receive a seat assignment.
posted by naju at 6:16 AM on April 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

Some practical advice* (auto-playing video) on what to do if your find yourself in the doctor's situation.

*Including hamburger.
posted by bonehead at 6:39 AM on April 12, 2017 [10 favorites]

Some practical advice* (auto-playing video) on what to do if your find yourself in the doctor's situation.

I assume without clicking that the autoplaying video is of Negasonic Teenage Warhead doing her rage-explosion thing?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:26 AM on April 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

There are rumors flying around that Twitter is deleting tweets critical of United -- and also tweets talking about those deletions.

This is a consequence of one (money losing) corporation owning the main way many people communicate online.
posted by indubitable at 7:39 AM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

I assume, with clicking, that bonehead wants to be shot by a Chicago policeman.
posted by biffa at 7:40 AM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

hard to shoot someone when you're not getting any oxygen to your brain and your blood pressure to the brain has dropped to 0/0
posted by some loser at 7:42 AM on April 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

also, "hamburger" denotes sarcasm I believe
posted by some loser at 7:44 AM on April 12, 2017

The airport security don't have guns anyway. It'll be the guy you're not choking out that'll shoot you after it becomes a terrorism situation.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:45 AM on April 12, 2017

rage-explosion thing

That's not air-frame safe or FAA approved, I'd imagine. However, I can't see that they'd have a problem with the recommended connect, rotate, double-up-on-the-tornado-spin, inverted-helo, pop the leg and out, (for use in business class aisles), let alone the more minimal helicopter arm-bar for narrower economy-class aisles.
posted by bonehead at 7:53 AM on April 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

some loser: Ah, got it.
posted by biffa at 7:54 AM on April 12, 2017

I'm curious - anyone have a link or a good writeup of how to extract cash compensation from the airline if they are trying to bump you? I.e., I wouldn't take vouchers because I know they'll try to make them unusable and I don't fly enough. But if I say "I'll take $800 cash to leave", can I get them to actually cut a check there, or at least give me documentation? Because I've heard plenty of stories about people sending in for their supposed compensation and being informed with a shrug that they have no such record, too bad! Obviously you can sue, but that's almost surely going to cost you more in time and effort than you'll get.
posted by tavella at 8:11 AM on April 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

if I say "I'll take $800 cash to leave", can I get them to actually cut a check there

If they don't have actual cash on the barrel-head, then they're not meeting your terms. Pass on the offer.
posted by mikelieman at 8:24 AM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Realistically, I wonder if this is going to mean gate managers need to start carrying a few tens of thousands cash to payout potential bumpees?
posted by bonehead at 9:02 AM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

I know that this sentiment may not be universally popular on this board, but I tend to think that screaming at the cops to back off and recording their conduct via smartphone is probably all that we could reasonably expect or ask other passengers to do. Visibility on the plane is limited; knowledge of Dr. Dao's circumstances is limited; the ability of many passengers (probably including me) to stand up in an aisle and do anything besides being beaten up is limited; hindsight is 20/20. Fantasies about blocking or assaulting the cops are not likely to turn out well in the real world. I think just speaking up is pretty important.

And of course I believe United's actions w/r/t this flight descended to a realm of lunacy and horror.
posted by Mr. Justice at 9:07 AM on April 12, 2017 [12 favorites]

Unless you're willing to lose your flight, possibly get banned from the airline and/or put on some TSA list, and then possibly face up to jail time, physically messing with the actual police, even the airport "cops" isn't the best idea. Regardless of what social privilege you might have. There are all kinds of company policies (interference with employees or the authorities is covered in United's code) let alone laws in the wake of the 9/11 legal panics.
posted by bonehead at 9:14 AM on April 12, 2017

Mod note: One deleted. Maybe let's forego the ever-more-elaborate scenarios of violence/killing/etc here; it's not necessary to make the point.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:53 AM on April 12, 2017

If only you could pass that message along to police as well, LM.
posted by ODiV at 10:05 AM on April 12, 2017

I'm curious - anyone have a link or a good writeup of how to extract cash compensation from the airline if they are trying to bump you? I.e., I wouldn't take vouchers because I know they'll try to make them unusable and I don't fly enough. But if I say "I'll take $800 cash to leave", can I get them to actually cut a check there, or at least give me documentation? Because I've heard plenty of stories about people sending in for their supposed compensation and being informed with a shrug that they have no such record, too bad! Obviously you can sue, but that's almost surely going to cost you more in time and effort than you'll get.

That maybe explains something. I was actually one of the people who jumped off the plane for a voucher in the Delta story I told a couple hundred posts ago. The gate agent did a curious thing. He asked us all to take pictures of the paper vouchers after he printed them out for us. I wanted to know why and he said something along the lines of "This proves I actually issued them to you, and you will absolutely need all the numbers on that paper when you go to use them so you need to make a copy." I haven't tried to redeem this thing yet.
posted by lagomorphius at 10:20 AM on April 12, 2017

He asked us all to take pictures of the paper vouchers after he printed them out for us. I wanted to know why and he said something along the lines of "This proves I actually issued them to you, and you will absolutely need all the numbers on that paper when you go to use them so you need to make a copy."

Same, actually. I thought it was strange but you do need all those numbers to redeem the voucher, so it's helpful if you misplace that weird little printout (recently redeemed a United bump voucher for some flights next month, wish me luck).
posted by everybody had matching towels at 10:28 AM on April 12, 2017

My friends got voluntarily and happily bumped from a British Airways flight last year, and they were given Visa debit cards with the $800 on them. (Plus they got comped hotel rooms and food vouchers.)

They went straight to an ATM and pulled the cash out.

So, maybe don't ask for cash -- ask for a debit card?
posted by vickyverky at 10:39 AM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Alexandra Petri: Crucified man had prior run-in with authorities
posted by zachlipton at 11:35 AM on April 12, 2017 [26 favorites]

If you are bumped against your will, they will either give you a check or a debit card, depending on the airline. If you agree to the bump for compensation, they will usually refuse to give you anything but a voucher, good for future travel. You can usually get them to put you in first class on the next flight, if they have such a thing. Cash for a voluntary bump on American Airlines is extraordinarily unlikely.

On an unrelated side note, I've played poker with the doctor and found him to be relatively quiet and reasonably skillful. I wonder if the press is investigating the background of the transit cops with the same enthusiasm as the doctor?
posted by Lame_username at 11:38 AM on April 12, 2017 [22 favorites]

If you get bumped and accept the voucher/debit card/cash do you get your ticket cost refunded on top or does the bump compensation include that?
posted by epo at 12:27 PM on April 12, 2017

Alexandra Petri captures how I feel.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:34 PM on April 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

> If you get bumped and accept the voucher/debit card/cash do you get your ticket cost refunded on top or does the bump compensation include that?

Usually they re-book you on the next available flight, so that you eventually get where you're going. (If you have checked luggage, good luck!)
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:45 PM on April 12, 2017

(If you have checked luggage, good luck!)

I thought your checked bags had to travel with you these days.

[One time, long before 9/11, I traveled at the tail end of a massive snowstorm. I'd already changed my flight once due to cancelled flights, but when I got to the airport 3 hours early, the lines were so long that I missed my original flight and another one (I suspect they weren't too anxious to get me onto my scheduled flight as they could put someone who'd missed an earlier flight). My bags, however, got on an interim flight and were waiting for me patiently at my final destination when I arrived.]
posted by Preserver at 1:05 PM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

United's CEO has written a new letter. Now he's "disturbed" and wants to "deeply apologize" to the customer. Given the victim-blaming email he sent out to his employees last night, before his stock price started tanking, I don't know why anybody would believe him now.

In a just world, he would be fired.
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:26 PM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

In a just world, he would be fired.

In a just world, a group of passengers would call the police, and he'd be dragged from his office, kicking and screaming.

Then he'd be fired.
posted by Gorgik at 1:36 PM on April 12, 2017 [17 favorites]

I thought your checked bags had to travel with you these days.

They pull your bags off of the flight you were supposed to be on, that's for sure, but whatever happens after that is a mess. I volunteered once for an Iberia flight, got re-booked onto a BA flight, and my bags made it 4 days later. But, in addition to the volunteering bonus (which ended up being paid in Euro back when the rate was about 1.40 per), BA paid for the clothes I bought while waiting for my bags.
posted by hwyengr at 1:40 PM on April 12, 2017

I think the cash compensation for lost bags is defined in a treaty somewhere. I had bags delayed a few days on the way to Easter Island and LAN gave us a couple hundred in nice crisp cash money. Which is why I have a lot of cheesy EI clothing, because it was the only thing we had to wear.

Ah yes, Montreal Convention.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 1:54 PM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Kendall Jenner helps smooth ruffled feathers with a refreshing beverage (animated GIF)
posted by porn in the woods at 2:04 PM on April 12, 2017

Yo, Adrian!
posted by dirigibleman at 2:24 PM on April 12, 2017

Dao Petition to United to not destroy evidence.
posted by Yowser at 2:27 PM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Alexandra Petri captures how I feel.

This is pretty much a universally applicable statement.
posted by PMdixon at 2:35 PM on April 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Nice analysis from Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism. Bonus pictures of baby snow leopards.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:20 PM on April 12, 2017 [7 favorites]

No, I've read elsewhere when you are bumped, your bags continue on your original flight. Something to consider if you volunteer for a voucher and a hotel room and the next flight is the next day.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 3:31 PM on April 12, 2017

Unless you're willing to lose your flight, possibly get banned from the airline and/or put on some TSA list, and then possibly face up to jail time, physically messing with the actual police, even the airport "cops" isn't the best idea.

Until people are willing to take some risks, nothing is going to change. Authority has no motivation to change because they know they have nothing to lose. You don't need to assault the police and I am not suggesting that. Just physically stand your ground. Yes, they'll drag you too. They are not going to physically drag every single white person off the flight. So if you're white and able-bodied, stand the fuck up and prevent this shit from happening.

"Oh, it's easy for you to say from behind your keyboard, you don't know what you'd do"

No, I have not been physically present in a situation where police abuse occurred. But. I have broken up fights between drunk guys, I intervened when a man was yelling at his girlfriend/wife in a parking lot and slamming his fist on her car, I intervened several times when men were making unwanted advances on women, I intervened when my trans friend was physically prevented from using the correct bathroom, I intervened in junior high when my gay friend was assaulted.

All of these were risky things to do. I am 5 feet tall, optimistically 110 lbs, and until last year I presented as female. All of the aggressors above were men who outweighed me by 50-100 lbs (except the jr high kids). I'm lucky; no one did anything worse than try to intimidate me. It may not go as well with police. But I know I am capable of standing up when it's needed, and it is needed a lot these days.
posted by AFABulous at 4:02 PM on April 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

Apparently there is a sizable online community of people who self-identify as "pilot wives" and you'll never guess how they feel about the United incident and subsequent backlash.
posted by shotgunbooty at 4:43 PM on April 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

I haven't seen a single report about how the pilot handled this. Totally AWOL.
posted by achrise at 5:01 PM on April 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'd be surprised if the pilot hasn't been fired yet.
posted by Yowser at 5:04 PM on April 12, 2017

I'd be surprised if the pilot hasn't been fired yet.

United's pilots are unionized through the Air Line Pilots Association. I'm pretty sure there's no way United even could fire the pilot over this, much less fire them in the past 24 hours without it having been made public.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 5:20 PM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

"9 figure settlement"
posted by Yowser at 5:20 PM on April 12, 2017

Fair enough, I stand corrected about the pilot.
posted by Yowser at 5:21 PM on April 12, 2017

Wait, that's a United Airlines/pilots collective agreement. The flight wasn't actually United.
posted by Yowser at 5:23 PM on April 12, 2017

If the pilot was actually a Republic Airways employee, they're represented by the Teamsters. Either way: unionized, and unlikely to have been secretly fired in the past 24 hours.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 5:40 PM on April 12, 2017

That flight was Republic, subcontracted to United as most of their secondary flights from hubs are. The pilots make less and have a different contract entirely. One of my brothers flies for a different subcontractor. I talked to him about this when it first came to light and he was amazed that boarding passes were handed out before they knew they had four dead head crew. From what I understood, this wasn't an issue he encountered on his routes. He is very disturbed by this, for the obvious reason that this is a very disturbing thing to happen, but also how it will effect his work life and how passengers engage with crew after this. There's also his livelihood, his airline just signed a multiyear contract with United after spending the last two years with another carrier.

Also he told me a few weeks ago that there is a pilot shortage, so much so that the retirement age was moved from 60 to 65. He generally enjoys his work but it is also a very stressful job. The crew in Chicago and especially the airport cops in Chicago have created issues that will have repercussions for years.

But to note the Republic subcontractor had no authorization to go above the $800 in vouchers which was a key decision point. I've heard other amounts mentioned but I think too little, too late.
posted by readery at 5:40 PM on April 12, 2017 [6 favorites]

I don't imagine this will solve their PR debacle. Glad they are committing to not using police to drag people off planes in the future but the mind boggles that any business would need to promise that.
posted by leslies at 7:05 PM on April 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

It'll help to solve their PR debacle if the (current) goal is to try and affix more liability to the cops. "Remember when the cops beat that guy down? We're not going to let them do that to anybody in the future. UNITED: STILL KEEPING YOU SAFE"
posted by rhizome at 7:34 PM on April 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Those tickets will probably come with strings attached. I hope the good doctor has a press conference tomorrow to get the message out to other passengers not to take the bait. Class action.
posted by Yowser at 7:59 PM on April 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Ticket price * (which these jackasses will probably give in company scrip)
posted by Yowser at 8:00 PM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also, show me the "random passenger" selector option in your software, United

I'm surprised the software wasn't listed in the preservation order Yowser posted. It would be nice to see United have to admit there is no software.
posted by hazyjane at 8:04 PM on April 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

I'd be curious to see if a non-disclosure agreement is attached to those refunds.
posted by zachlipton at 8:41 PM on April 12, 2017 [6 favorites]

@hazyjane: item 4f "protocol in effect" seems to partly cover that.

If software does exist then surely United will produce it to show how impartial they were (although enquiring minds might be curious exactly when this software was created), its non-production would be ... telling.
posted by epo at 5:17 AM on April 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Embattled United chief accepts responsibility for treatment of passenger, saying he felt ‘shame’ watching video.

...My initial words fell short of truly expressing what I was feeling,” he said. “That is something that I’ve learned from...

That's quite a bit of movement from his initial statements. I wonder what motivated him to be so receptive to change.
posted by rdr at 5:28 AM on April 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

A billion plus loss on your stock and the loss of the Asia market could have something to do about it. I mean we, the passengers, mean nothing unless it is a metric impacting his bonus. You know, MBA schools teach all about the invisible hand, it makes them blind to the more visible hand of oppression. I wonder if it is due to business school folks assuming that they would be the controlling brains. Oh well, back to parent teacher conferences.
posted by jadepearl at 6:39 AM on April 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

"Your seat bottom cushion can be used as a flotation device riot shield. Pull the cushion from the seat, slip your arms into the straps, and hug the cushion to your chest."
posted by AFABulous at 7:33 AM on April 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Here's a blog post by a "pilot wife" and pretty much everything posted there has been refuted in this thread already. (Except for, ok, the four employees that the passengers got bumped for probably had no idea any of this was going on and probably don't deserve the vitriol the post claims was aimed at them.)
posted by Karmakaze at 7:42 AM on April 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

From Munoz's letter to employees:

Our employees followed established procedures for dealing with situations like this. While I deeply regret this situation arose, I also emphatically stand behind all of you, and I want to commend you for continuing to go above and beyond to ensure we fly right.

The part about flying right sure sounds like a internal training doctrine.

Bla, bla, bla, keep up your numbers, fly right!
The customer is always wrong. We make the rules, we follow the rules, fly right!
Customers are ranked based on our internal criteria, and treated accordingly. Fly right!

I would love to see an ex-employee describe some of the the management metrics and tools that are used to make sure they fly right, OR ELSE
posted by metaseeker at 7:52 AM on April 13, 2017

That Pilot's Wife thing is really.....something.

If a federal law enforcement officer asks me to exit a plane, no matter how royally pissed off I am, I’m going to do it and then seek other means of legal reimbursement. True story.

Knowing what I know about airport security, I’m certainly not going to run back into a secured, federally restricted area at an airport flailing my arms and screaming like a banshee…because, you know, that just happens to be breaking a major federal Homeland Security law.

But that’s just me. Obviously.

It does not get better from there.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 8:20 AM on April 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

#PilotsWivesLivesMatter
posted by AFABulous at 8:23 AM on April 13, 2017 [14 favorites]

Mr Munoz said the company would no longer use law enforcement officers to remove passengers from overbooked flights.

How often have they done this? Have they been using scary tactics to bully people into giving up seats all this time, and it just hasn't gotten bloody enough until now?
posted by metaseeker at 8:40 AM on April 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

I mean, come on, I once actually had to remove my infant son’s socks because they mimicked little baby sneakers. These guys mean business. I didn’t like it. I thought it was just plain stupid, honestly. But instead of pitching a massive fit, refusing to comply, and bolting through the TSA checkpoint like an out-of-control toddler, I did the big girl thing–sucked it up, removed the offensive socks, and went on with my happy life, sans being tackled and dragged through the airport in handcuffs by a bunch of big men with guns.

I know you’re all out there screaming that the ‘rules’ are unfair, but I am a pilot wife. I remember 9/11. Do you?

I can't believe this piece isn't satire.
posted by naju at 9:14 AM on April 13, 2017 [19 favorites]

What the hell is a "pilot wife"? The first episode of a wife, put out to see how people react? A wife that guides the other wives to safe harbor?
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:14 AM on April 13, 2017 [24 favorites]

Pilot Wives are the people I resisted the urge to rake over the coals yesterday.
posted by Yowser at 9:18 AM on April 13, 2017

This could have been any airline. In fact, it happens all the time. Most people just don’t wrestle the feds in the aisle.

Maybe instead of watching the video we all watched, she accidentally saw a scene from Air Force One.
posted by naju at 9:21 AM on April 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

This fall on VH1: Real Pilot Wives of Concourse D
posted by AFABulous at 9:35 AM on April 13, 2017 [8 favorites]

In my experience there are 2 types who reflexively just follow authoritarian orders:

1. the ones who are least likely to be negatively affected by making a fuss (I will bet my 401k that baby sock lady is white)
2. the ones who are most likely to be negatively affected by making a fuss (people of color, trans people, Muslims)

Both groups are following orders for self-interested reasons, but only one has the power to change anything. I've only seen Group 1 change their tune when they're directly affected by unjust authoritarian actions. That means things will have to get worse for everyone. TSA pre-check is a horrible thing because it exempts Group 1 from the abuses the rest of us go through and renders them invisible. More invasive pat-downs are bad on an individual level, but the more Group 1 is exposed to them*, the more potential for change.

*Caveat: not being Canadian, I don't know if The Star is a reputable source or not.
posted by AFABulous at 9:51 AM on April 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Oh, here's a WaPo link to the same column. If it's paywalled for you, it's about a 65 year old white retiree who was subjected to an invasive pat-down in Baltimore because she had a panty liner on. Apparently inorganic materials in one's underwear can trigger a search.
posted by AFABulous at 9:55 AM on April 13, 2017

The Toronto Star is a reputable source, yes. It's hardly perfect, but it's reputable.
posted by GuyZero at 9:59 AM on April 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

anem0ne: "The aviation cops seem to be security guards on steroids (that wanted guns)."

No, they're apparently a real law enforcement organization and they're definitely separate from CPD. Also, lots of non-metro police organizations are not unionized under police-specific unions. E.g.: it looks like the Cook County Sherriff's Dept. and Cook County Corrections Officers are are unionized under Teamsters Local 700. I would classify these guys in the same realm as, say, university campus police -- people who actually are legally police even though they seem like they should really be more like security guards.
posted by mhum at 10:01 AM on April 13, 2017

I wonder how Pilot Husbands feel. For that matter, I wonder if any of the Pilot Wives are married to women who are pilots. Sorry, it's the 21st century, and I am freaked out by women who still identify themselves by their spouse's occupation.
posted by hydropsyche at 10:01 AM on April 13, 2017 [22 favorites]

The Star is/has recently been modelling itself on The Guardian. They miss sometimes, but I think they're on the mark more often than not. They've certainly raised the bar on reporting in Canada in the past two-three years.
posted by bonehead at 10:16 AM on April 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Dao's attorney speaks:

Dao suffered “a significant concussion as a result of disembarking that plane,” attorney Thomas Demetrio said in a news conference in Chicago. Dao also lost two front teeth, has a broken nose and incurred injuries to his sinuses, and will be “undergoing reconstructive surgery in that regard,” Demetrio said.
posted by Comrade_robot at 10:18 AM on April 13, 2017 [7 favorites]

Except for, ok, the four employees that the passengers got bumped for probably had no idea any of this was going on and probably don't deserve the vitriol the post claims was aimed at them.

They aren't entirely without blame. This fiasco happened because four employees showed up at the gate just before they were ready to close the doors to the plane and demanding four seats.

Why were they so late getting to the airport? They should have been there before boarding time and avoided pulling someone out of their seat. (Hung over from last night? Hey, as Peggy Noonen says, it would be irresponsible not to speculate.) And if they knew they were running late, why didn't they call ahead and make sure four seats were held before boarding time? Surely airline crews are aware that flights are routinely booked to capacity and they should have known that arriving at the last second would cause inconvenience.
posted by JackFlash at 10:36 AM on April 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

They may well have been late because the plane they arrived on was late. I think that's actually the most likely explanation since it was a group of four and not just one or two who could credibly just have been hung over, etc. They could easily have been completely without blame and may not have been able to refuse to take that flight for fear of losing their jobs.
posted by hazyjane at 11:03 AM on April 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

There is no excuse for not calling ahead letting the gate agents know they were running late no matter the excuse they were running late. You don't just show up just before door closing and say "Give us four seats."
posted by JackFlash at 11:18 AM on April 13, 2017

You don't just show up just before door closing and say "Give us four seats."

You do if you risk being fired for not being there for your shift but there's no penalty for bumping passengers. I suspect that overall United's system of penalties and incentives directs employees to do exactly that.
posted by GuyZero at 11:23 AM on April 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

Scorpion Bites Man On United Flight
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:42 AM on April 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

Well, really. He should have known that it was in its nature.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:45 AM on April 13, 2017 [16 favorites]

Why was he antagonizing the scorpion by being in a place where scorpions could conceivably fall on people from overhead bins? Also, was he an angel or no angel?
posted by naju at 11:57 AM on April 13, 2017 [13 favorites]

As a scorpion wife, I remember 9/11. Do you?
posted by Drastic at 12:09 PM on April 13, 2017 [37 favorites]

Regarding the question of how often United uses intimidation, another Story About the guy in first class in a flight from Hawaii who was threatened with handcuffs if he didn't give up his seat. This story includes the tidbit that the man's seat mate warned him to cooperate, because United could be "pretty nasty" in these kinds of disputes.

(Sorry about weird formatting and capitalization, I'm on my phone.)
posted by creepygirl at 12:10 PM on April 13, 2017

> Scorpion Bites Man On United Flight [...] The company said the man's injuries were non-life threatening.

Worrisome. This is not a company totally reliable at reporting about their passengers' health.
posted by ardgedee at 12:39 PM on April 13, 2017

Seen on my Facebook wall regarding the Scorpion incident:

"...unfortunately there were no medical personnel on board, since they had recently been dragged off"
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:09 PM on April 13, 2017 [13 favorites]

From the "pilot wife" blog post:

I know you’re all out there screaming that the ‘rules’ are unfair, but I am a pilot wife. I remember 9/11. Do you? I want my husband, the father of my children, to come home.

Obviously anyone who thinks United is in the wrong here doesn't know what 9/11 is.
posted by shotgunbooty at 2:25 PM on April 13, 2017 [12 favorites]

Well it's come up a few times in thread but Alaska/Virgin America just won this years Airline Quality Rating award. Virgin America (pre-acquisition by Alaska) won last year. Surprisingly, Delta placed second ahead of Jet Blue and Hawaiian, a ranking that accords with my own experiences on all four carriers (five?), where I have to admit Delta has not let me down in several years. But nothing else gets close to Alaska/Virgin and I do recommend flyers look into using them in place of United. With VA now in the mix they have a ton of coast to coast flights and connections, so far a really smart merger in terms of route expansion. I have never ever once experienced rudeness from an Alaska Airlines CSR or crew member in many dozens of flights on the airline over the last decade. Not once.

And they have by far the best mileage plan. Nothing else comes close, at least if their routes work for you.
posted by spitbull at 2:31 PM on April 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

If the pilot wife goes out in your oven, you'll need to use a matchwick to reignite it.
posted by 0xFCAF at 3:33 PM on April 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

This apparently happened last month:

Woman Says Man Groped Her On United Flight And Attendants Kept Bringing Him Whiskeys
The airline responded to her sexual assault complaint with four travel vouchers.

posted by Lexica at 4:08 PM on April 13, 2017 [7 favorites]

You don't just show up just before door closing and say "Give us four seats."

They were a crew who were repositioning: they were assigned to deadhead on that flight by Republic crew rostering, and the crew rostering team were the people responsible for getting them on the flight. They were flying to reposition as part of their job schedule, not commuting to start a shift. So it was totally their employer, Republic Airline, who should've worked with United ground staff to get their employees on this Republic Airline flight.
posted by ambrosen at 4:32 PM on April 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh, I understand all that. The primary blame belongs with the employer. It's just that employees that know they are running late and that their showing up late is going to cause grief to customers, should have had the courtesy to call ahead and let them know they needed four seats before everyone was given passes and boarded.

Yeah, the company management is terrible, but the employees could have helped mitigate the problems. Perhaps there was no mechanism for notification. Perhaps they thought they had reservations. Perhaps they have a good excuse for being late. It would be interesting to know.
posted by JackFlash at 4:42 PM on April 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Well the refund for passengers is only available with an agreement not to sue. Still curious about whether there's an NDA attached.
posted by zachlipton at 7:24 PM on April 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

United is saying that the agreement not to sue is standard language in their vouchers, but they will waive it in this case.
posted by creepygirl at 7:51 PM on April 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Do they still expire in one year?
posted by rhizome at 7:59 PM on April 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

They actually did it.

Vouchers. Then muzzling potential lawsuits (albeit with a walk back)

United is incapable of doing anything right. The lawyers were right, the culture at United needs to go.

I wonder if the shareholders are considering wiping out the entire board of directors at this point. It must have crossed their mind.
posted by Yowser at 8:53 PM on April 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

A few more tidbits of new-to-me info gleaned from obsessively checking Google News:

According to a California aviation attorney, Oscar Munoz's statement to employees that they "followed established procedures" may haunt United if the case ever comes to court, because it suggests that United's CEO
backed the employees' behavior in this case.

A United passenger says that one of the cops laughed as they dragged Dr. Dao down the aisle. Also, Dr. Dao was polite, and the United supervisor who handled the overbooking situation was "belligerent." And one brave passenger, a man who was consoling his eight year old daughter during the ordeal, told one of the officers, "you ought be ashamed of yourself."

Two more aviation police officers involved in the incident have been put on administrative leave. One reason we haven't heard much about their background is that The Chicago Department of Aviation claims that the employees' collective bargaining agreement prohibits the CDA from releasing their names.

I wonder if a FOIA request would work, or if the collective bargaining agreement supersedes a FOIA request.
posted by creepygirl at 9:16 PM on April 13, 2017 [11 favorites]

Chicago aldermen question whether aviation police had authority to act
posted by rhizome at 10:26 PM on April 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

I am assuming that the pilot, gate staff and onboard decision makers were all Republic employees. So under US law, if Republic were agents for United, is United then fully liable for their actions? I'm guessing they must be.

Of course the real annoyance for United would be if the 4 deadheading staffers were also Republic employees so that no United staff were directly involved in this incident.
posted by epo at 3:02 AM on April 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

A visitor at work who flew a few days back on United mentioned the attendant's talk (before boarding? as part of a safety message? I'm not sure) included an explicit section about how "these are your rights as United passengers."

It feels icky to play the blame and shame game about an aspect of the incident that we don't really know much about.

An aspect of the incident we don't know much about because none of the four employees have chosen to talk about it. I guarantee you, any one of them would be guaranteed a spot at any network they'd like. If any of them were speaking, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt, but they're not.

I get that the late arriving employees weren't directly responsible for the conduct of their cohort, but, if I saw a bleeding passenger pulled out of an airplane, I'd be renting a car and driving to Louisville. (Or, you know, booking one of the dozen other flights that get into Louisville via another airline. Chicago is a hub. This shouldn't be even remotely difficult.)

Unexplained silence is consent.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 3:44 AM on April 14, 2017

under US law, if Republic were agents for United, is United then fully liable for their actions? I'm guessing they must be.

Hell yeah.

United would like you and regulators and unions to believe "Republic" is a standalone airline that just flies for United under contract.

The reason the airline industry is structured this way is primarily to bust and prevent unionization of less senior pilots and crew.

United Continental Holdings owns Republic. Munoz is CEO of UCH. It's his people, his plane, and his company on the line here. "Republic" doesn't really exist except as a Potemkin company. This arrangement itself is a big part of why air travel sucks in the US (and all the major legacy carriers do it because they were too unionized, they claimed, to compete after deregulation). Probably protects the parent company from litigation if there should be an accident as well. But the main reason is so they can pay crews less to fly. The pilots for some of these sub-carriers make less than many an Uber driver, by the way. They are often working at a loss early in their careers just to accumulate hours so they can move up.

There really is no "Republic" Airlines. There is just non-union United under an alias. I bet most passengers never even notice anything but "United" as a brand.
posted by spitbull at 3:55 AM on April 14, 2017 [15 favorites]

Actually, correction... United is happy for you, the passenger, to be unaware of the contract carrier arrangement so you'll believe the pilot of your Embraer regional jet to a spoke destination is as experienced and well paid as the pilots of your 777 that brought you to the hub. In reality that Embraer pilot is rooming with friends to save money and making 35k a year working the worst deaadheaded shifts and has a fraction of the experience of the person flying your 777.
posted by spitbull at 4:03 AM on April 14, 2017 [6 favorites]

spitbull: "United Continental Holdings owns Republic. Munoz is CEO of UCH. It's his people, his plane, and his company on the line here."

Umm, are you sure this is true? I certainly don't disagree with your larger point that these sub-carriers are a vehicle to bust unions and drive down wages and working conditions, but I am not so sure about the 1-to-1 link between United and Republic.

At the very least Republic's wikipedia page says they are owned by Republic Airways Holdings, which is an independently traded stock. So not owned by the United holding company, as far as I can tell. And according to Republic Airways' web page they fly flights for not just United, but also Delta and American.
posted by crazy with stars at 5:58 AM on April 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

I'm not sure that this has been shared yet, statement from United's Pilots's Union. They want the separation between them & Republic, and the CDA made clearly.
posted by librarianamy at 6:36 AM on April 14, 2017

From another story about the Chicago city council meeting:

Burke cross-examined Deputy Commissioner of Security Jeffrey Redding on whether the officers were trained in the use of force. Redding told Burke he'd need to check.

OMFG. How could someone in his position at the Chicago Aviation Department not already know the answer to that question? Or not be able to anticipate that the question would be asked? The incompetence starts from the top in this department.
posted by creepygirl at 7:14 AM on April 14, 2017

crazy with stars, you're correct, my error. Republic went through a strategic bankruptcy last year in fact.
posted by spitbull at 7:19 AM on April 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure that this has been shared yet, statement from United's Pilots's Union. They want the separation between them & Republic, and the CDA made clearly.

They are sure carrying water for their corporate overlords. No criticism of Munoz, no statement that it was wrong to try and remove someone after they'd boarded for corporate convenience, no suggestion that they wouldn't do the same things.

Just lots of finger pointing. "Get mad at Republic! Get mad at the Chicago Aviation Department. Hey, Munoz apologized. It's all OK now."

Bastards.
posted by mark k at 8:04 AM on April 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

From the Pilots Union statement:

After repeatedly asking the fourth passenger to give up his seat to no avail, the gate agent requested the assistance of law enforcement.

Interesting -- so it was a gate agent, not the flight crew.

Also interesting -- they do not come out and say that the captain was NOT consulted. What was the involvement of the captain and crew?

If the instruction came from a gate agent, with or without approval of crew, then as far as he knew he was being barked at by a random airline employee, not the actual flight crew. This would mean his refusal falls outside the rule that "passengers must follow directions of the flight crew".
posted by metaseeker at 9:55 AM on April 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

Interesting -- so it was a gate agent, not the flight crew.

Crew doesn't really have responsibility for seating, as it relates to the business objectives of maximizing load. They might help you exchange seats with another passenger for some reason, but beyond that, they have no knowledge of ticketing, status, etc. In my experience, a gate agent is almost always on the plane at some point during boarding, even just to do a visual check of the seats. The agent, at most, might mention to a flight attendant that they're sorting out some empty seats or whatever, but the crew isn't necessarily consulted for the purpose of problem solving.
posted by bonje at 11:04 AM on April 14, 2017

Also from the Pilots Union statement:

Although four passengers would have to be removed from this flight to accommodate the Republic crew, the goal was to get the other 70 passengers on their way to SDF and ensure a flight crew needed the next day would also be in place.

It doesn't make it any less wrong. It does reflect well on the Pilot's Union that they present this false dichotomy and utilitarian calculus. If it's a little bit excusable to punch a passenger to get 70 other passengers to their destinations, what else do they consider OK? Also see: Hunger Games, Shirley Jackson's Lottery, Trolley Problem.
posted by metaseeker at 1:43 PM on April 14, 2017

New addition to pre-flight announcement: "We will need a volunteer who agrees to be punched in the face before we can take off. If no one volunteers, we will be forced to reschedule the flight."
posted by AFABulous at 3:01 PM on April 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

I am assuming that the pilot, gate staff and onboard decision makers were all Republic employees. So under US law, if Republic were agents for United, is United then fully liable for their actions? I'm guessing they must be.

Yes, absolutely. The Republic crew were subcontracted agents of United; had express and implied actual authority to carry out everything they did on behalf of United; held themselves out to third parties as if they were authorized to act on behalf of United; acted within the scope of authority granted to them by United; and at no point did United, United's CEO, or the United pilot union say that Republic were acting outside of United's guidelines and policies.

So, despite some (desperate?) attempts by the pilot union and others to separate out Republic from United, legally speaking there is no question. United is fully liable for all actions of the Republic crew, as if they were United employees. And from a PR standpoint, no one should get it twisted - unless there is good solid evidence to believe otherwise (which no one has provided yet) this is how United employees would operate according to United policies and procedures, and United is fully to blame for those policies and procedures.
posted by naju at 5:09 PM on April 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

"It doesn't make it any less wrong. It does reflect well on the Pilot's Union that they present this false dichotomy and utilitarian calculus. If it's a little bit excusable to punch a passenger to get 70 other passengers to their destinations, what else do they consider OK? Also see: Hunger Games, Shirley Jackson's Lottery, Trolley Problem."

what

Did you read the whole thing?

It goes, paraphrased: THIS WAS WRONG AND BAD. This is why they did it. IT WAS WRONG AND BAD. UNITED PILOTS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

Complaining that they present the reasoning while condemning the effects is either ignoring that the union describes their pilots as "infuriated" about the incident or an inability to distinguish between descriptive and normative language.

I'm gonna assume that you commented after skimming, because otherwise your comment is just baffling, even assuming that you mean't "doesn't" where you said "does."
posted by klangklangston at 6:08 PM on April 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

Steve Randy Waldman: Quick thoughts about airline economics

It’s a cliché that the government builds “bridges to nowhere” that the private sector never would build. That’s true. And it’s a credit to the public sector. Bridges to nowhere are what turn nowheres into somewheres. We need many, many more bridges to nowhere.

[...]

There are two things wrong with this line that air travel is awful because consumers’ true revealed preference is that it should be awful and cheap. First, there is the fact that air travel managed by the main domestic carriers in the United States is uniquely awful, and there is no evidence that US travelers are any more price conscious than consumers in other countries. No frills, discount air travel is popular in Europe as well, and it is sometimes awful, but it is on the whole much cheaper than “discount” air travel within the US. Mainstream carriers almost everywhere else in the developed world are notably less awful than the big American carriers, and often just as cheap.

Second, this line of reasoning reflects a very basic misinterpretation of economics. Aggregate outcomes are not in general or even usually interpretable as an aggregation of individual preferences. When we learn about the Prisoners’ Dilemma, we don’t interpret the fact that both players rat as evidence that, really, they both just wanted to go to jail for a long time. After all, that is their revealed preference, right? No. We understand that the arrangement that would obtain if they could cooperatively regulate one another’s behavior is in fact the outcome that they would prefer. As isolated individuals, they simply have no capacity to express this preference.

[...]

Competitive races to places you don’t want to go are in fact a very common phenomenon. Most of us don’t, for example, claim that if workers who compete for jobs find they must accept unsafe workplaces, that merely reflects individuals’ preferences about trade-offs between pay and safety. We understand that there is a competitive dynamic that can leave workers with little choice but to accept crappy jobs, and employers with little choice but to scrimp on safety (however personally virtuous an individual business owner may mean to be). The solution to this problem isn’t to talk about how we are all terrible people and we bring this on ourselves. Instead, we invent OSHA, which is a means by which business owners coordinate to ensure that behaving decently is consistent with business survival in the context of continuing competitive dynamics.

posted by tonycpsu at 10:52 PM on April 15, 2017 [13 favorites]

...this event was an anomaly and is not how United or the police are expected to treat passengers when there is no security threat.

United pilots have always been the true leaders of this company, and our fellow employees count on us to continue to do what we do best—deliver a world class product and safely transport our passengers around the world.

The pilots don't get to claim moral authority in statement B ("we are the true leaders of the airline...") and then condescendingly disavow their co-workers in statement A ("this...is not how United... are expected").

Are they actually in charge on a plane or not? Are they, like the captain of a ship, ultimately the capstone of what happens on a plane? They'd clearly like us to think so. But if they're really as impotently angry about this as anyone else, then they shouldn't be, can't be, asserting leadership here.

This whole place this letter comes from seems some to be grand fantasy notion to me: the instigator here, and the person who should be held morally culpable is the gate agent. The pilots have shown themselves by their actions what they really are, bus drivers. They are not protectors of the passengers. Nor should there be any expectation that a non-union kid making less than 30k on a grinding schedule be responsible for anything like that. This final third is a tissue of idiocy.
posted by bonehead at 11:49 PM on April 15, 2017 [6 favorites]

The pilots have shown themselves by their actions what they really are, bus drivers. They are not protectors of the passengers. Nor should there be any expectation that a non-union kid making less than 30k on a grinding schedule be responsible for anything like that. This final third is a tissue of idiocy.

I don't remember --- was this weird lionization of pilots as guardians of our safety a Thing before 9/11, or was it just another one of the jobs that's kinda cool and you get to wear a uniform?
posted by PMdixon at 8:35 AM on April 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

> I don't remember --- was this weird lionization of pilots as guardians of our safety a Thing before 9/11, or was it just another one of the jobs that's kinda cool and you get to wear a uniform

Thanks to Fred Clark, I know that it shows up in the Left Behind novels. So, pre-9/11, for some people at least.
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:18 PM on April 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

The pilots' statement at no point:
1) Expresses sympathy for Dr. Dao.
2) Apologizes to him or other passengers on behalf of United personnel.
3) Criticizes anyone at United.
4) Criticize the initial nonpology from Munoz.
5) Criticize anyone at Republic.
6) Criticize any policy or practice at United or Republic that uses law enforcement to handle their own internal logistical issues.
7) Demand, or even hint at support for, any change United policies to minimize the chance of this repeating.

What it does do is:
1) Make a big point that this was Republic, not United.
2) Make a big point that even it was Republic, it was actually the Chicago aviation department. Criticize them on twitter, not us. (They really say you should properly direct your "social media ire" at them. Seriously.)
3) Remind us that responsible pillar of the community Munoz already apologized. (Geez, people, move on already.)
4) Remind us of all the flights where they don't beat people up.
5) Call this a "distraction."
6) And engage in implicit victim blaming (as in, the other three passengers left voluntarily and Dao was asked repeatedly "to no avail.")

They also complain about the media, but no, they are not referring to the tarring of Dao.

It's a horrible statement. The outrage is sincere but all the evidence is that it's outrage at the harm done to the United brand by others. It's completely in line with the attitude Munoz had in his first statement, supporting employees and saying procedures were followed and indifferent to customers. Clearly it's a company problem.

Here's the statement again if anyone thinks I'm being unfair.
posted by mark k at 8:49 PM on April 16, 2017 [15 favorites]

A WSJ article with the bait-and-switch headline Behind United Airlines' Fateful Decision to Call Police.

Alas, it is not an investigative report into whether United has a pattern of using law enforcement to handle customer service issues. It's mostly about United's rules-oriented culture, but no one cites the precise rules about when United directs its employees to call law enforcement.

I did find this quote particularly telling:

In hindsight, the gate agent should have said, "Folks, we're not leaving until someone gets off. If someone doesn't take the $800, we're going to cancel the flight," said the United pilot, who wasn't involved in the incident.

This United pilot's go-to solution was to get antagonistic with their customers, and basically bully them into accepting "voluntary" bumping (for less compensation than an involuntary bumping might give them). And if the passengers called their bluff, United would be forced to compensate 70 passengers, and United would be forced to find alternate transportation for the four United crew members or they wouldn't arrive at their destination on time. It's mind-bogglingly stupid and hostile.

Apparently he couldn't imagine the customer-friendly solutions that everyone else has, like offering more compensation for being bumped. Or chartering a jet for the four employees (which according to Motley Fool, would cost about $6000, or only slightly more than the maximum compensation for involuntarily bumped passengers).

If this is typical of the critical thinking and problem-solving skills of United employees, no wonder this company is in trouble.
posted by creepygirl at 11:02 PM on April 17, 2017 [12 favorites]

It seems like none of the United people have absorbed one of the very basic lessons of economics, which is that people value things more when they're asked to give them up, as compared to when they're offered a chance to buy the identical item. Everyone on that plane had committed to flying that day. Asking them to get off the plane was going to require far more compensation than it would have even twenty minutes before.

Also, threatening to cancel a flight if four people don't get off the plane is perhaps the most ridiculous approach I have heard of. There's no reason for me to inconvenience myself to save a set of complete strangers, particularly when the people I am helping are the people who are threatening to cancel my flight.

United doesn't seem to even know who to blame here. The ultimate problem is that no one realized they needed the additional crew to board until after everyone had gotten on the plane. Had anyone been able to communicate in their company, they would have made the seats available in advance.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 6:32 AM on April 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

I think it's unrealistic and unproductive to focus too much on what person or people are the most blameworthy. This is a system and a way of solving problems that worked for a while but doesn't work well at all now. It needs to be changed -- and I don't mean just United's management structure and rules.
posted by amtho at 8:14 AM on April 18, 2017

...That's not to say that people who hurt other people shouldn't be held accountable, just that actually preventing further incidents like this can't realistically center only on screening out "bad people".
posted by amtho at 8:30 AM on April 18, 2017

Flying the next day is not, for many travellers, the same as flying that day. Time has value, beyond even that which can be easily counted as direct costs. What's the psychological cost of staying another night away from home? What's the cost to his clinic to rearranging his patient schedule? What the cost to his patients (and/or a hospital if he was due for rounds, etc...)?

Direct costing is all that people who cause damage want included in their liability: one $200 ticket is the same as any other. But for humans who have to live with travelling stress, commitments at home, and the emotional labour costs imposed by the airplane company in changing all of those, those are not counted in a simple-minded calculus. So instead, everyone else, the passenger, his family, his pets, his co-workers, his patients, they all get to pay in thousands of big and small ways.
posted by bonehead at 8:57 AM on April 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

I am not blaming the people involved per se, but my point is that United seems to be starting from the assumption that the dilemma started when the crew showed up after the flight was boarded.

That's not where the system failed, though. The system failed *because* the crew was able to show up after the passengers had boarded. This is something that should never have happened, and it leads to related questions -- most notably, what if the crew had been another ten minutes late? If the doors were closed and the plane was taxiing, or even in air, they would have to have come up with another solution. If that solution doesn't exist, they need to improve their communication system, because they would have had to cancel the flight the next day.. If the solution DOES exist, they could have used that here.

Either way, "how do I force my crew on board?" is a question that should never have been asked, because there should either be a backup plan or a 100% effective communication system or both.

Also, if I were the extra crew that needed to board the flight, I would probably have just walked off my job immediately.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 4:55 PM on April 18, 2017

United has some competition: American Airlines suspends worker after altercation seen on video
posted by zakur at 8:40 AM on April 22, 2017

For your poorly-articulated lukewarm-take needs today:

Pilot: Stop Blaming United
posted by rhizome at 10:11 AM on April 22, 2017

Police reports blame passenger in dragging

Text of the reports here

"... The subject responded repeatedly in an aggresive [sic] manner, 'I'm not getting off'. OFC. Long attempted to assist the subject off his seat with two hands, but the subject started swinging his arms up and down fast and violently. OFC. Long was able to grab hold of the subject and pull himf rom the seat twoards the aisle. The subject then started flailing his arms and started to fight with OFC. Long. Due to this incident, the subject was able to knock OFC Long's right hand off the subject's arm causing OFC Long to lose control of Mr. Dao. Consequentially, the subject fell and hit his mouth on the armrest across from him which caused an injury to his mouth ... "

Which includes the odd phrase:

This statement is not being given voluntary [sic], but under duress. I am only giving this statement at this time because I know that I could lose my job if I refuse the direct order being giving [sic] to me
posted by Comrade_robot at 5:07 AM on April 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

This statement is not being given voluntary [sic], but under duress. I am only giving this statement at this time because I know that I could lose my job if I refuse the direct order being giving [sic] to me

Sounds like standard police union policy:

See Also: Freddie Gray

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/freddie-gray/bs-md-ci-gray-separate-trial-motions-20150717-story.html

"Because the defendants subjectively felt that any refusal to cooperate in the investigation would result in their termination, and such belief was objectively reasonable, and because they were asked to waive their Fifth Amendment rights, their statements" should be suppressed, attorneys for Rice and Porter argued in a motion.
posted by mikelieman at 5:16 AM on April 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Which are big lies, right? Because you can't lose your job for asserting your Constitutional rights. By my understanding, it's common for the union to withhold providing for the officer's defense (lawyer, etc.) if a cop refuses to participate in the internal investigation. Which is different.
posted by rhizome at 11:11 AM on April 25, 2017

"attempted to assist the subject off his seat with two hands"

What... artful phrasing. I was totally assisting him when I yanked him headfirst into the aisle!
posted by tavella at 12:00 PM on April 25, 2017 [4 favorites]

Note how that speech asserting his rights ("I'm not getting off") is described as aggressive, and the reaction to the officer's violent "assistance" becomes justification *for* the initial violence. It's the same old story every assaulting and murdering cop gives. And of course, if you check the headlines, pretty much every outlet frames it as desired.
posted by tavella at 12:08 PM on April 25, 2017 [12 favorites]

and the reaction to the officer's violent "assistance" becomes justification *for* the initial violence.

"STOP RESISTING!"
posted by mikelieman at 12:53 PM on April 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Because you can't lose your job for asserting your Constitutional rights.

You absolutely, absolutely can, and many do. Otherwise you couldn't lose your job for exercising the First Amendment through unpopular speech, and that happens all the time.
posted by corb at 3:55 PM on April 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

Sorry, but we're talking about cops, which involves Garrity rights. This is about the limit of my depth on the topic, but it does relate to the officers' notations on their statements.

I have a bad habit of using the royal "you," sorry about that.
posted by rhizome at 5:39 PM on April 25, 2017

You can be fired from your job for refusing to freeze to death.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 5:45 PM on April 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Just to cut off this particular spur of a derail, public employees are different.
posted by rhizome at 5:58 PM on April 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

New York Times article
The department also released audio of the original call in which the airline asked for help.

"Two passengers are refusing to get off the aircraft when instructed by the agent and also the supervisor," an airline employee tells the police dispatcher. He could not give a description of the passengers.

"Any information on were they drinking, were they doing anything like that?" the dispatcher asks a little later in the recording.

"No, it's something with an oversold and didn't volunteer or something like that," the United employee responds.

In fact, the flight was not oversold. United was attempting to make seats available for a flgiht crew that needed to be in Kentucky for flights the next morning.
posted by Comrade_robot at 6:45 AM on April 26, 2017 [3 favorites]

United Review Action Report

United Failures Related to United Express Flight 3411

Calling on law enforcement to assist with policy enforcement when a security or safety issue didn't exist. United's policies and procedures in non-safety or security situations did not adequately address instances in which customers refused to comply with requests.
Rebooking crew at the last minute. The crew was booked and arrived at flight 3411 during the boarding process. Our policies did not prohibit this.
Offering insufficient compensation and not providing transportation/destination options to entice more customers to give up their seats willingly. Agents did not have the authority to act independently and authorize higher levels of compensation or provide other modes of transportation and/or the right destination options.
Providing insufficient employee training and empowerment to handle a situation like this. United does not provide regular training to prepare its team for denied boarding situations and individual interactions with customers during these potentially difficult situations.

United Policy Changes Made or Forthcoming


1. United will limit use of law enforcement to safety and security issues only.

United will not ask law enforcement officers to remove customers from flights unless it is a matter of safety and security. United implemented this policy on April 12.

2. United will not require customers already seated on the plane to give up their seat involuntarily unless safety or security is at risk.

United implemented this policy on April 27.

3. United will increase customer compensation incentives for voluntary denied boarding up to $10,000.

United's policy will be revised to increase the compensation levels up to $10,000 for customers willing to volunteer to take a later flight. This will go into effect on April 28.

4. United will establish a customer solutions team to provide agents with creative solutions.

United will create a team to proactively identify and provide gate agents with creative solutions such as using nearby airports, other airlines or ground transportation to get customers and crews to their final destinations. Separately, the team also will work to provide solutions to help get crews to their final destinations. United expects the team to be operational by June. Examples include:

Suggest flights to close-by airports and then provide transportation to the customer's preferred destination.
If a customer's travel includes a connecting flight, provide options that would eliminate the connection and still get the customer to the destination.
Offer ground transportation where practical.

5. United will ensure crews are booked onto a flight at least 60 minutes prior to departure.

Unless there are open seats, all crew members traveling for work on our aircraft must be booked at least 60 minutes before departure. This policy was implemented on April 14.

6. United will provide agents with additional annual training.

United will provide annual training for frontline employees to enhance their skills on an ongoing basis that will equip them to handle the most difficult of situations. This training will begin in August.

7. United will create an automated system for soliciting volunteers to change travel plans.

Later this year, United will introduce a new automated check-in process, both at the airport and via the United app, that will gauge a customer's interest in giving up his or her seat on overbooked flights in exchange for compensation. If selected, that customer will receive their requested compensation and be booked on a later United flight.

8. United will reduce its amount of overbooking.

United has evaluated its overbooking policy. As a result, adjustments have been made to reduce overbookings on flights that historically have experienced lower volunteer rates, particularly flights on smaller aircraft and the last flights of the day to a particular destination.

9. United will empower employees to resolve customer service issues in the moment.

Rolling out later this year, United will launch a new "in the moment" app for our employees to handle customer issues. This will enable flight attendants (by July) and gate agents (later this year) to compensate customers proactively (with mileage, credit for future flights or other forms of compensation) when a disservice occurs.

10. United will eliminate the red tape on lost bags.

United will adopt a new no-questions-asked policy on permanently lost bags. In these instances, United will pay a customer $1,500 for the value of the bag and its contents. For claims or reimbursement over $1,500, additional documentation may be required. This process is expected to be in place in June.
posted by Comrade_robot at 7:20 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

A couple of details from a WaPo article about the policy changes:

The $10,000 amount is in "travel certificates." I don't know if that's the same as vouchers, but if they have the same restrictions on when and on what flights they can be used, I'm not sure that "$10,000" is worth more than "$800" in terms of practical benefits to most customers. I find it deeply annoying that most of the reporting just lists dollar amounts as if the voucher/certificates were the same as cash.

Also,

Chicago Department of Aviation officers, who the report noted, “historically been effective in getting customers to voluntarily comply” then arrived on the scene.

I believe that's corporate-speak for "we have historically used the Chicago DoA officers to intimidate passengers into 'voluntarily' giving up their seats." I mean, I seriously doubt that the DoA officers were extolling the virtues of United travel vouchers to reluctant passengers.
posted by creepygirl at 8:15 AM on April 27, 2017 [9 favorites]

The CEO was definitely on-message on the radio this morning. It was one of the better apologies for asshat CEO commentary in recent memory--Travis Kalanick could learn something. Or he could hire the PR consultant that United's using, whatever.
posted by asperity at 8:27 AM on April 27, 2017

United Airlines reaches settlement with Dr. David Dao
posted by Comrade_robot at 12:25 PM on April 27, 2017

There's another PR crisis for United Airlines today, and this one involves a fatality: a rare giant rabbit.

pun-based bonus: it was flying into O'Hare Airport.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:48 PM on April 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

Or he could hire the PR consultant that United's using,

Indeed, that statement is really well done from the admission of fault and sincere-seeming apology to the causal analysis and corrective actions. The causes seem likely to be the real causes, not just plausible chaff. They didn't call "The crew was booked and arrived at flight 3411 during the boarding process" the cause, they went deep enough to "Our policies did not prohibit this" and also identify "Agents did not have the authority to act independently." The action taken aligns with the causes. I give it an A-minus.

Points off for "later this year" in actions 7 and 9 (commit to a due date), and for action 10 (has nothing to do with the incident or causes 1-5, just trying to take credit for something)

Bonus points for the "when a customer... was forcibly removed from our aircraft." construction in the intro. Normally that would be weaselly, but the alternative active form would have been "Officers from the Chicago Department of Aviation removed..." which sounds like finger-pointing at someone else. In this case, the important thing is it was their plane, so their responsibility.

[Not a United flack, I just review a lot of after-action critiques like this for work, and it's clear to me someone "gets it"]
posted by ctmf at 6:08 PM on April 27, 2017 [4 favorites]

I can also imagine that, behind the scenes, the company's initial response is getting the rectal boroscope treatment. Problem: CEO is an asshat. Problem: someone let him speak in public. Cause: ???
posted by ctmf at 6:32 PM on April 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

I just got an email "from" Munoz. (I'm an involuntary frequent flyer with the govt.) Subj: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

This is interesting because 1. They didn't wait for me to go to their website if I cared or hope I forgot, they risked reminding me of it to proactively try to fix the bad impression from the incident. Gutsy. 2. It's really sincere sounding. I actually believe whoever wrote it means it. Hopefully that PR person can make the company that paid for it believe it too.

Excerpts:

It happened because our corporate policies were placed ahead of our shared values. Our procedures got in the way of our employees doing what they know is right.

...

While these actions are important, I have found myself reflecting more broadly on the role we play and the responsibilities we have to you and the communities we serve.

I believe we must go further in redefining what United's corporate citizenship looks like in our society. You can and ought to expect more from us, and we intend to live up to those higher expectations in the way we embody social responsibility and civic leadership everywhere we operate. I hope you will see that pledge express itself in our actions going forward, of which these initial, though important, changes are merely a first step.

Who IS this PR consultant?
posted by ctmf at 8:56 PM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

[Not a United flack, I just review a lot of after-action critiques like this for work, and it's clear to me someone "gets it"]

So I wrote a nasty (as in critical, but not rude) e-mail that I mentioned up thread. I got a response about a week ago that pointed to some of this stuff (like no more having law enforcement remove customers). I was amazed how plain the response was in terms of saying it was wrong and saying they'd make concrete changes. This is clearly the official public details.

I agree, after the initial horrible response and the broken internal attitudes illustrated by the pilots' statement this is pretty good. If they had responded with an unequivocal apology and followed up with this I might actually have come out of this thinking decent things about the company. At this point I'm more wondering what loophole I've missed and if I'm getting played for a sucker. So, still a brand issue perhaps . . . .

Unrelated, but I'm also reasonably impressed with the settlement, in which United accepts blame. I don't know if that's all because of Dr. Dao, or partly United, but it's good to see. Also props to Dao for not suing the City of Chicago. Not because I don't think they deserved it but because I think it's good PR for the rest of us.

I can also imagine that, behind the scenes, the company's initial response is getting the rectal boroscope treatment. Problem: CEO is an asshat. Problem: someone let him speak in public. Cause: ???

Heh. I read the statement, was amazed that they didn't piss me off, then saw Munoz' name at the end and then I thought "CEO is still an asshole, though."
posted by mark k at 10:21 PM on April 27, 2017

then I thought "CEO is still an asshole, though."

Yes, but no longer slated to be Chairman of the Board.

At least for now.
posted by jamjam at 10:35 PM on April 27, 2017

Per the Chicago Tribune, the city of Chicago fired the head of security at O'Hare and Midway airports Thursday for what City Hall sources said was his failure to disclose critical details of his prior employment at the Illinois Tollway, after a confidential memo obtained by the Tribune revealed numerous allegations of sexual harassment against him.

The article also notes that Dao's attorneys say that the settlement with United also releases the City of Chicago from liability for the incident. I guess that means that United decided that it was worth it to throw more cash at Dao to avoid the possibility of continuing bad publicity if/when a lawsuit against the City of Chicago got underway, so the City of Chicago gets a freebie.

In other Chicago Department of Aviation news, the union for the officers filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the Illinois Labor Relations Board over the removal of the word "police" from cars, and other proposed changes to identify officers as security rather than as police.

The union contended the city is moving "to strip the aviation officers of their authority as special police officers" and asked the board to order the city not to make any changes to the officers' "duties or symbols of authority" until it gives the union notice and "a full opportunity to bargain over proposed changes."

Between these two stories, I get the feeling that there is some kind of power struggle going on here that's about more than just the Dao incident, but since I don't normally follow Chicago politics, I'm not sure what it is.
posted by creepygirl at 1:45 PM on April 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

Agents did not have the authority to act independently and authorize higher levels of compensation

How on earth are heads not rolling over this, at every level of the company? They were legally obligated to offer higher levels of compensation - someone was committing a crime here, and if the company are out-and-out saying that the gate agents were just following policy, then the book clearly needs throwing at whichever higher-up wrote the policy requiring his employees to break the law.
posted by Dysk at 3:33 PM on April 28, 2017 [4 favorites]

Oscar Munoz and reps of other airlines trying to avoid more regulations by testifying to a House hearing today.

With this administration, I bet they'll get away with it too.
posted by Yowser at 8:31 AM on May 2, 2017