Passenger Forcibly Removed From Overbooked UA Flight

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

It wouldn't have been four passengers delayed but more like 400.

In perspective - it was a small regional jet - I think 70 seats. So perhaps not 400. But the issue is that the airline should have planned better, or had better contingency measures in place. EU261 for example does not excuse the lack of crew as a valid reason to escape compensation.

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

jb747 answered this. If the crew had not been in position to fly the next day, that flight would have been cancelled, along with inconvenience to a whole planeload of passengers, and consequent knock-on effects throughout the day with aircraft out of position. It wouldn't have been four passengers delayed but more like 400.
<snip>.

I believe jb747 was speculating, or rather, canvassing scenarios.

But, needing to move a crew at short notice happens. I've even seen aircraft, that have already departed the gate, brought back to pick up some crew that were in a 'must fly' situation. Invariably that means that if they don't get to where they are going, there will be subsequent cancellations of one (or more) services. Same really applies to the comments about driving them to their next port. If they have to operate, that will be part of their duty time, and will almost certainly result in the duty being curtailed.

They were not necessarily a standby crew, nor was there necessarily plenty of notice. They may have just finished a flight, and been planning on going home, when grabbed for another duty elsewhere. That could be forced by any number of factors.

Much more informed speculation than the rest of us , but at that stage there was little firm info about.

I hope in due course a full time line will be in the public domain ... when United realised / decided it needed those 4 crew at the other end, when those 4 presented at the gate and what time they were going to present to operate the flight the next day. Given that the flight the subject of the story didn't ultimately depart for three hours after schedule, I wonder what actually happened to that other flight? Cancelled, or did they find some other crew to operate it?

 

[Skyring]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

In perspective - it was a small regional jet - I think 70 seats. So perhaps not 400.

More than 4, certainly. Airline planning must be a complex business, and no outfit would enough assets to cover every minor emergency that comes up in a day's operations. An aircraft going tech, a pilot calling in sick, fog… there must be any number of things going wrong in a normal day.

Whatever, I'll accept that United had a legitimate reason to get four crew to Louisville in a hurry, and that bumping four passengers was better than delaying seventy or whatever at the other end.

Their solution to the problem, and subsequent handling is surely a(nother) classic example of how not to do things.

 

[ajw373]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

Their solution to the problem, and subsequent handling is surely a(nother) classic example of how not to do things.

And that is the real story and issue.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

More than 4, certainly. Airline planning must be a complex business, and no outfit would enough assets to cover every minor emergency that comes up in a day's operations. An aircraft going tech, a pilot calling in sick, fog… there must be any number of things going wrong in a normal day.

Whatever, I'll accept that United had a legitimate reason to get four crew to Louisville in a hurry, and that bumping four passengers was better than delaying seventy or whatever at the other end.

Their solution to the problem, and subsequent handling is surely a(nother) classic example of how not to do things.

BA does, for example, have spare planes sitting at Heathrow for exactly the situation you describe... tech, weather, knock on effects. And they have spare crews on stand-by. They have the incentive to do that from a commercial perspective (their reputation for being reliable), and also from an EU261 perspective.

Airlines running their fleet to the absolute limits is not an excuse for failing to deliver a service in the event a link within the airline's control breaks. There are alternatives... a spare plane, accommodation on other flights, or other airlines.

UA may have had the best intentions to get a crew to SDF. The crew may have been given 'must fly' priority. But that priority is of the airline's own making has no basis in any law or regulation.

 

[ajw373]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

BA does, for example, have spare planes sitting at Heathrow for exactly the situation you describe... tech, weather, knock on effects. And they have spare crews on stand-by. They have the incentive to do that from a commercial perspective (their reputation for being reliable), and also from an EU261 perspective.

Airlines running their fleet to the absolute limits is not an excuse for failing to deliver a service in the event a link within the airline's control breaks. There are alternatives... a spare plane, accommodation on other flights, or other airlines.

UA may have had the best intentions to get a crew to SDF. The crew may have been given 'must fly' priority. But that priority is of the airline's own making has no basis in any law or regulation.

Well you would hope so seeing as LHR is BA's home and hub!

Louisville on the other hand is not United Express (Republic Airline) home, hub or crew base.

So not really comparable.

 

[opusman]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

So it turns out the "dirt" some media organisations dug up on the passenger was actually about someone else entirely with a similar name. Smells like a defamation lawyer's paradise.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

Well you would hope so seeing as LHR is BA's home and hub!

Louisville on the other hand is not United Express (Republic Airline) home, hub or crew base.

So not really comparable.

But Chicago is a major hub. Spare plane and crew in ORD could have been ready in 90 mins or less for either the crew, or the pax that had to be off-loaded.

 

[moa999]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

I don't think United offered the maximum. Seems the offer stopped at USD800.

I also find it strange that someone didn't take up the compensation offered. That's a lot of money for a short overnight delay including accommodation and food.

There are a lot of weird facts floating around.

Relevant flight was UA3411 on ORD-SDF.
This route is serviced by UA, AA and WN (Southwest)

An article I read says the next offered flight with the compensation was 2pm Monday - so nowhere near the next flight -- and would mean any volunteer would effectively lose all of Monday.

Google Flights shows UA had flights at 9pm that night - so only 2 hrs later, 7am and midday as well as other airlines - so I don't know if everything was booked ot some event.

Munoz statement also said other pax randomly selected had deboarded voluntarily. This was refuted by a few other pax who said that others had refused as well, and the staff just moved onto the next person.

I cant see an IDB passenger ever getting dragged off a plane again - they will deboard the whole plane instead

 

[N860CR]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

But Chicago is a major hub. Spare plane and crew in ORD could have been ready in 90 mins or less for either the crew, or the pax that had to be off-loaded.

Worth noting that this was not a united flight. It was a republic flight. Republic operate for UA, DL and AA on a "cheapest bidder wins" contract. It would have been up to Republic to organise transport for the 4 crew (sounds like an E170 compliment)

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

Worth noting that this was not a united flight. It was a republic flight. Republic operate for UA, DL and AA on a "cheapest bidder wins" contract. It would have been up to Republic to organise transport for the 4 crew (sounds like an E170 compliment)

That may be true in a technical sense in terms of the metal used - but it's United for all intents and purposes. The passenger is not buying a ticket on Republic, they are buying one via the United Airlines website for a flight on United. When I call for seat assignments I call United, and speak to United agents, not Republic. As evidenced by the United CEO being in the spotlight, not Republic's.

That it is operated by a partner should be of little or no concern to the flying public when it comes to contractual arrangements.

 

[anat0l]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

More than 4, certainly. Airline planning must be a complex business, and no outfit would enough assets to cover every minor emergency that comes up in a day's operations. An aircraft going tech, a pilot calling in sick, fog… there must be any number of things going wrong in a normal day.

Whatever, I'll accept that United had a legitimate reason to get four crew to Louisville in a hurry, and that bumping four passengers was better than delaying seventy or whatever at the other end.

Their solution to the problem, and subsequent handling is surely a(nother) classic example of how not to do things.

As it stands, people (passengers) don't care that the airline needed to get 4 crew out to help them avoid - without reference to the beleaguered CEO - reaccommodate 100-200 passengers (or whatever it may be) the next day. The airline had either poor contingency, wasn't thinking outside the box, or simply would have had to suck it up and eat the consequences.

Don't forget, when it all comes down to it, customers care extremely little about the company and effects on them. They want what they paid for, and whether hell, high water or if someone has to die for it, they don't care what happens to get it. If it were another human being, maybe some empathy is due; for a big company, especially an airline? Particularly in America, where there is a strong sentiment of, "airlines take so much, so we need to stick it to them when we can".

As history will serve to tell (but not before the incident), putting up with a couple of hundred disgruntled passengers would have been better than beating up one.

Actually, the real answer to this mess is the passenger simply shouldn't have been beaten up bloodied. Had he marched off the aircraft without being assaulted, this whole thing would have no more significance than dinner on the table, and we wouldn't even be talking about overbooking or the like. Certainly a CEO wouldn't have a lot of people demanding his head on a platter. So the more astute answer to all of this is when a passenger refuses to leave on request, come up with a better idea rather than beating them up - perhaps:

• Reroll and offload another random passenger
• Raise the offload bid and see if anyone will bite

 

[N860CR]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

That may be true in a technical sense in terms of the metal used - but it's United for all intents and purposes. The passenger is not buying a ticket on Republic, they are buying one via the United Airlines website for a flight on United. When I call for seat assignments I call United, and speak to United agents, not Republic. As evidenced by the United CEO being in the spotlight, not Republic's.

That it is operated by a partner should be of little or no concern to the flying public when it comes to contractual arrangements.

Yes 110% correct, I'm just saying that from an operational point of view, it was a Republic issue to deal with (and clearly they didn't do it very well).

Same with a QantasLink flight in Australia. If they need to position Dash8 crew from Sydney to Dubbo, Qantas will have nothing to do with it.

From a marketing point of view, it's all Uniteds problem.

 

[Tiki]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

Probably the lack of volunteers comes from the fact that no one wants vouchers that are restricted to United. They should have had someone with CASH get up there and reverse auction the seats. Assuming there was some reason the 4 crew couldn't take a minivan to Louisville, if they had prebooked a minivan, told the pax that they would get transport to their homes/hotels in Louisville which would have arrived by 10pm-ish plus get cash in hand for the inconvenience, they would have had their volunteers pronto. Start the bidding at minibus + $400 cash and go up until they got the 4 people. Even miles would be better than vouchers, at least 25k (free domestic RT).

I would really like to know the criteria for the "random computer" selection.

 

[Happy Trails]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

I would really like to know the criteria for the "random computer" selection.

I find it hard to credit, but according to the UK Independent:

[FONT=&amp]"When too few volunteers came forward, law enforcement was tasked to select random passengers and force them off the plane."

[/FONT]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/united-airlines-doctor-david-dao-drag-flight-3411-overbooking-chicago-hospital-a7679426.html

 

[Haplo]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

Don't all of the jump seats and also crew rests have to be fully occupied before they have to start offloading passenger?

Anyway I think the way in which they treated the passenger is a disgrace and the use of law enforcement to take people off the plane is appalling.

If this were to happen here I am of the view that ACCC will not take this lightly.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

Don't all of the jump seats and also crew rests have to be fully occupied before they have to start offloading passenger?

Anyway I think the way in which they treated the passenger is a disgrace and the use of law enforcement to take people off the plane is appalling.

If this were to happen here I am of the view that ACCC will not take this lightly.

Crew at jump seats must be certified to operate the exits at which they are seated. Some crew rests may not be certified for take off and landing, although that's not applicable for thr ERJ. There is no requirement, as far as I know, that all crew seats have to be occupied before offloading can occur. The plane could be far from full and pax still denied boarding for weight or other safety issues.

 

[JohnPhelan]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

I cant see an IDB passenger ever getting dragged off a plane again - they will deboard the whole plane instead

What if they ALL refuse to get off the aircraft??

 

[Skyring]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

As it stands, people (passengers) don't care that the airline needed to get 4 crew out to help them avoid - without reference to the beleaguered CEO - reaccommodate 100-200 passengers (or whatever it may be) the next day. The airline had either poor contingency, wasn't thinking outside the box, or simply would have had to suck it up and eat the consequences.

Don't forget, when it all comes down to it, customers care extremely little about the company and effects on them. They want what they paid for, and whether hell, high water or if someone has to die for it, they don't care what happens to get it. If it were another human being, maybe some empathy is due; for a big company, especially an airline? Particularly in America, where there is a strong sentiment of, "airlines take so much, so we need to stick it to them when we can".

In this situation, what the passengers think is immaterial. From the airline's view, the choice is between delaying four passengers now, or a hundred later. Passenger opinions won't have any effect on the situation.

If, as you suggest, they "suck it up", it just means that there's a planeload of passengers that won't fly because their crew is in Chicago rather than Louisville. The airline was trying to do the greatest good for the greatest number.

Where they went off the rails was in letting passengers board the plane, if they knew they were four seats short, or (if the requirement came up after that point) selecting the passengers "at random" instead of just upping the offer until they had four takers.

Regardless of any other effects, the flying public has now had its collective education level upped on the matter of what to do in a similar situation, and United, along with all the others, will find more passengers knowing their rights when bumped.

 

[Skyring]

Re: Pax forcibly removed from United overbooked flight

I find it hard to credit, but according to the UK Independent:

[FONT=&amp]"When too few volunteers came forward, law enforcement was tasked to select random passengers and force them off the plane."

[/FONT]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/united-airlines-doctor-david-dao-drag-flight-3411-overbooking-chicago-hospital-a7679426.html

That's bullsh*it. That's a journalist misunderstanding a source, or a source with the wrong notion talking to an ignorant or credulous journalist.

As I understand the situation, the four pax were selected - probably not "at random" - and asked to vacate their seats. Three complied, one didn't, and only after repeated refusals were the cops were called in.