Incidents like this are why I avoid United Airlines as much as possible.
United overbooked the flight. United decided at the last minute to kick people off the flight to make way for their employees. And then they take out their incompetence on the passenger.
Spirit and Allegiant are reputably sh1tt1er airlines, but at least they achieve horrible service effortlessly. United seems to put a lot of work and thought into treating passengers like crap.
Unfortunately, since I live in Houston, United is one of only two airlines with nonstop flights to cities I need to visit. (Southwest is the other alternative.)
I’ve increasingly used Southwest for trips in both the USA and Mexico. United is the only one I would need to use if I were traveling to Europe – that is, unless I got a foreign carrier to take me.
Regards,
Peter H.
I would say that this incident has firmed my resolve to never fly Un-tied again, but it’s already 30+ years too late for that. I stopped flying them in the mid-80s after boarding a flight and finding my assigned seat already taken and being told “Oh, just find a seat.” Sure, because being stuck in a middle seat because you won’t do your job and move someone from the window seat I had reserved is my fault. It seems quaint in today’s world, but it was a huge marker to me that they just didn’t give a crap. The sad thing is that Continental was my favorite airline, and this behemoth is the end result. It matters little now though, since I haven’t flown commercially in 16 years.
I am so looking forwards to Norwegian Air Shuttle coming to my city. Meanwhile the Pilots’ Associations is lobbying against it because it might cost them “jobs”.
As is always the case with these stories – it’s not going to turn out to be anything like what has so-far been reported. Of note, it was actually the police that dragged the guy off – which means at the very least that he was given direction by them and disregarded it (at least one of the officers has since been suspended). I fly UA every week and have seen plenty of bad decisions by them, but in this case I’d have to say the passenger seems to be somewhat at fault. Standing up and accompanying an officer off the plane would have made things better. IDBs happen for a whole bunch of reasons – no reason to end up battered.
Also – have to concur with RSG above – Continental was by-far the best airline. I miss them everything single time I fly – which is now just under 1.5M miles on CO/UA.
Ugh.
A smile goes a long ways, during the process of flying here & there. Since 9/11, I consider flying to be as tense & as humorous as that Seinfeld episode with the soup Nazi. The only time I’ve dared to be assertive was in ’08 when I took my late cat Mr Booboo Sassypants (a Siamese) with me & a security bozo dared to demand that I take the cat of his carrier. When beset with an impossibility, all that’s needed is to inform them of the inevitable & that they would actually have to work to achieve an unpleasant result, were I to comply. I was passed through. That was a United flight, on a rickety plane with pooping & screaming babies in the back seats. Mr Booboo pooped in his carrier underneath my seat & I kept my smile in place during the whole nightmare. No one got upset & neighboring seats thought the smell was exclusively from the babies in back.
I don’t think I’ve seen any report where it wasn’t obvious that it was LEOs who drug him off the plane. Even UA in one of their initial statements recapped the situation by saying “…beyond that, you’ll need to contact the authorities.” (Yet another weaselly move, as if they had nothing to do with involving The Authorities.)
It may turn out that the passenger was an Asian mob boss who was supposed to meet in a plot to take out a rival in the underground trafficking of siphoned-off product from the Jack Daniels distillery; but assuming he is actually an MD who was trying to meet his Monday obligations to his patients, I see his reaction as being extreme, but not unwarranted. This whole “just do as we say and
no one gets hurtit will be easier on everyone” is really what enables the powers who say that to continue their mistreatment of people. I am no fan of the Black Lives Matter thugs, but there were incidents years ago which in reality led up to their creation and continued existence today.You know, they could’ve upped the offer a little bit. Or announced that the plane wouldn’t move until four people volunteered to get off. There are people who CANNOT change — really cannot. On a rare occasion, that has been me. I have actually always volunteered for the money and the hotel, but never got it.
BTW, the two times I could NOT volunteer was when a parent was dying. If I had been the ‘randomly chosen person,” I might have acted the same way. I didn’t have much luxury of time to get back.
My United horror story is this: They cancelled my reservations. Just cancelled them and told me, “You’re on your own!” In an email. About forty-eight hours before the flight. Something to do with an airport that had one of my stopovers. They did not try booking me on a different set of flights. No, “sorry for the inconvenience, here, have a drink on us.” Just, cancelled.
Fortuitously, I booked through Expedia, who did a great job of getting me on another flight in 48 hours.
I, too, am one of the many who will NEVER fly United again.
I’m curious as to whether the $800 was in vouchers or cash. I’d stay at a hotel for $800 in cash. Everyone has their price and it’s clear that UAL hadn’t found the “market-clearing” price at that point. One thing for sure, the customer is seldom right. I wish every passenger on the plane had gotten off (“deplaned”), demanded refunds, and told the airline to move all the staff it wanted to.
The video I saw from the cabin showed what appears to be LEOs dragging the guy out of his seat.
Given the airlines difficulty in getting volunteers, my guess is that passengers had already endured enough screw-ups for the day and just wanted to get to SDF and be done with it.
Hubby and I are planning a trip to Sydney, via LAX, later this year so, for grins, I tweeted UAL “Qantas it is”.
(With apologies to the U.S.A.F.) Nothing can beat, nothing can beat Southwest Airlines! Just wait till they fly overseas, I will bet they will still use 737 with midair refueling.
They did drag him off the plane, after hitting his head on the armrest, causing the bloody lip. Reportedly he was on a stretcher for a bit, but after deboarding all the passengers for ‘clean-up’, he was one of those allowed back on to begin the flight, two hours later.
One of the writers for Yahoo! Finance pulled UA’s Contract of Carriage; it states that you can be involuntarily denied boarding and “reaccommodated” (which is United’s Word Of The Day), but I assume the sticking point will be how ‘boarding’ is defined and whether it means pre- or post-seating.
The CEO of United, Oscar Muñoz, received an award in mid-March from a public relations industry organization for his communications skills. (I’m guessing he probably won’t receive it again after this incident.)
As to be expected, some tweeps are yapping about how “this is what you get in a Trump world”. (To which I replied, “Right. Because this never would have happened under Obama, particularly in Chicago, where both police brutality and crime are down.”)
I fly a lot between a Delta hub and a UA hub with most of those flights on regional jets under a dba contract with another company that does it for both carriers. Luckily I live in the Delta side so I use them most often. I had an enlightening experience on one flight where I was up front & heard the flight attendants talking to each other about how Delta flights were so much better than UA because of the carriers’ policies & treatment of everyone. That experience continues to be one main reason I’m willing to play around with flight times, etc. to stay on Delta rather than having to go on a UA flight.
#5; “You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun.” ― Al Capone
Fly the unfriendly skies of United the Chicago Way, …or else.
Like Lee, I volunteer to give up my seat anytime I don’t have some other obligation. Really don’t like being on flights that are packed.
But, as RSG points out, it’s a question of being denied boarding. United let the guy on the plane. They had a seat for him, and he was in it. United could have dealt with this problem at the boarding gate — not in the aisle.
BTW: When making reservations I always select a seat. At least when Delta’s reservation system doesn’t let me pick a seat, I know they’re full — and I always look for another flight (or airline), just to avoid an Overbooking Adventure.