Man Dragged off United Flight

I hate camera phones on a jet. People will film crap, narrate it as if they know what's going on and distribute widely. I have a friend that ended up in a video that is probably one of the coolest, most level headed captains we have and she pretty much got video slandered. Of course you never see the event that transpired with him being asked to leave the aircraft, probably profanity, being aggressive and non-compliant, but "all I want is a bottle of water"

Right.

 
B767 said:
That's why the crew that misses the flight doesn't make the phone call until AFTER the plane they missed takes off.
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It was awhile ago so my memory might be off a bit, but I think dispatch ACARS the crew during taxi to find out about if the must-rides were on, and they told them no. The crew who needed to must-ride didn't seem eager to go at all, they seem pleased at the prospect of avoiding their deadheading.
 
jayd1038 said:
It was awhile ago so my memory might be off a bit, but I think dispatch ACARS the crew during taxi to find out about if the must-rides were on, and they told them no. The crew who needed to must-ride didn't seem eager to go at all, they seem pleased at the prospect of avoiding their deadheading.
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In my situation, at that time, A1 was must ride. A3 was positive space. They never changed me to must ride. I'm sure they would've figured it out if they had changed me as both the CA and FA were on the flight. I was not.
 
B767 said:
I know you know a lot, because you've been in the industry a while...

:sarcasm:

They wouldn't have been stranded. It would've been worked out to get those pax out of SDF, albeit a few hours late.
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Ha! If it wasn't a big deal, why would they create this? It happened quite a lot with DL this past weekend, maybe not dragging people off of planes, they seem to barter better for volunteers, but delaying flights for no other reason than crews timing out, forcing many to just rent a car instead of continuing to get delayed, and people went from hating DL back to hating UA, and those who hated AA, now are huge fans. Selective loyalty. ;) The last few days haven't been a huge win for any passengers. ATL was a mess with luggage everywhere. I know of people going from the first flight out to barely making a flight eight hours later. Others just ended up renting cars. Not a fun airport to be stuck at that long with constant excuses, and few solutions.
 
etflies said:
"Rule 21 Refusal of Transport
UA shall have the right to refuse to transport or shall have the right to remove from the aircraft at any point, any Passenger for the following reasons:

[*]Force Majeure and Other Unforeseeable Conditions – Whenever such action is necessary or advisable by reason of weather or other conditions beyond UA’s control including, but not limited to, acts of God, force majeure, strikes, civil commotions, embargoes, wars, hostilities, terrorist activities, or disturbances, whether actual, threatened, or reported."

It specifically states they may refuse to transport or shall have the right to remove from the aircraft at any point"

And goes on to outline certain conditions that apply but does not limit these terms to only those conditions.
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Only under force majeure. An unforeseen circumstances such as wars, etc. Heck it could even be argued it could be having to add gas at the last minute because the weather went down and wasn't forecasted to do so and an alternate is needed. Please tell me you don't really think the two are similar?!?

This is 100% within United's control. They chose to put DHs on that flight over passengers. They chose to DH them vs delay or cancel the flight the next day or provide them ground transportation.

To claim this is force majeure is laughable at best.
 
Business proposition
Who wants to chip in for a beater CE-501? We can call it "Deadhead Spillover Express", and since it's just a handful of customers should be able to do it part 91.
 
wheelsup said:
I really cannot believe the lack of customer service in our industry. Go to a hotel and have the folks at the front desk treat you like agents and FAs treat you, would you ever stay at that chain again?!?
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Hotels will totally boot you when they overbook. And they do, has happened to me many times. And rental cars - even prepaying for one doesn't assure that that a car will be there, and no refunds even if there are no cars to be had (as Hertz customer service took 2 hours to tell me). Amex was happy to reverse the charge at least.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Hotels will totally boot you when they overbook. And they do, has happened to me many times. And rental cars - even prepaying for one doesn't assure that that a car will be there, and no refunds even if there are no cars to be had (as Hertz customer service took 2 hours to tell me). Amex was happy to reverse the charge at least.
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You've been removed from your room once checked in and inside it? Wow that is crazy what hotel did that?
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Hotels will totally boot you when they overbook. And they do, has happened to me many times. And rental cars - even prepaying for one doesn't assure that that a car will be there, and no refunds even if there are no cars to be had (as Hertz customer service took 2 hours to tell me). Amex was happy to reverse the charge at least.
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There was an entire Seinfeld episode about that!
 
Derg said:
I hate camera phones on a jet. People will film crap, narrate it as if they know what's going on and distribute widely. I have a friend that ended up in a video that is probably one of the coolest, most level headed captains we have and she pretty much got video slandered. Of course you never see the event that transpired with him being asked to leave the aircraft, probably profanity, being aggressive and non-compliant, but "all I want is a bottle of water"

Right.

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I hate hate hate the victim mentality
 
wheelsup said:
Only under force majeure. An unforeseen circumstances such as wars, etc. Heck it could even be argued it could be having to add gas at the last minute because the weather went down and wasn't forecasted to do so and an alternate is needed. Please tell me you don't really think the two are similar?!?

This is 100% within United's control. They chose to put DHs on that flight over passengers. They chose to DH them vs delay or cancel the flight the next day or provide them ground transportation.

To claim this is force majeure is laughable at best.
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As I've already said, I would argue that the "...including, but not limited to..." statement in this clause opens this up to just about any contingency you can think of, and I should guess that is not an accident.

As far as being 100% within United's control, I don't know the details regarding why a crew needed to be positioned. I've yet to see anything explaining the reason behind this so I can't argue for/against it being "necessary."
 
Hacker15e said:
If this is at all typical of JC, there will be a Delta pilot in here any minute talking about how much of a crap-show UAL is and how much more refined and excellent DAL is.
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As a very frequent customer of both in past years, I can vouch for SouthenJets customer service being vastly superior. Their employees taking pride in that isn't a bad thing in my mind, in my personal experience they have on the whole really, actually cared about their customers.
 
BigZ said:
Business proposition
Who wants to chip in for a beater CE-501? We can call it "Deadhead Spillover Express", and since it's just a handful of customers should be able to do it part 91.
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Most pilot contracts contain language only allowing for company DH transport on 121 or 135 carriers...
 
I would have urinated and defecated on the seat and claimed shock and then no-one would have gotten off the ground. You can't lock me up for bodily functions....at least there isn't a fine print that covers that.
 
Vector said:
I would have urinated and defecated on the seat and claimed shock and then no-one would have gotten off the ground. You can't lock me up for bodily functions.
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e31.jpg
 
Vector said:
I would have urinated and defecated on the seat and claimed shock and then no-one would have gotten off the ground. You can't lock me up for bodily functions....at least there isn't a fine print that covers that.
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Don't be too sure, under Rule 21 sub part H:

"16. Passengers who have or cause a malodorous condition (other than individuals qualifying as disabled);"

You may or may not get locked up for it, but it would seem they leave the door open for removing a passenger for that sort of thing too. I'm not sure claiming shock post-incident would qualify as disabled per UA's own terms.
 
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Derg said:
If it was an operational recovery and they're deadheading crewmembers to staff a distressed flight, I'm not sure how else to handle that situation.
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Keep offering more money until someone bites? I mean, it would seem cheap compared to this in hindsight.

I think by law they are supposed to pay 4 times the ticket price up to $1,350 cash now (14CFR250.5), but I've never seen a gate agent actually offer this. And they are free to pay more. In reality, it is costing my employer way more than $1,350 when I don't show up - and they have no sympathy for me getting bumped off of flights (in my case it has always been for W&B and I've been offered nothing by the gate agents, lack of ballast was considered by them to be force majeure)
 
Murdoughnut said:
Take it from a marketing guy ...

Perception > Reality
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For sure.....

Clearly this was a complicated, difficult scenario that didn't end well. Like it or not folks get bumped all the time and rarely does it end up like a scene from Fight Club.

In a long ago, previous career, I did business to business sales. That perception = reality axiom is real. A customer's perception is most definitely their reality, and of course the perception and reality is sometimes erroneous.

This will give UAL a fire to put out for sure. I suspect UAL had little to do with the level of force the airport police ended up using. Even with contract of carriage and such, the average "I want the cheapest fare but all the perks" passenger will not completely understand the system or the scenario, nor do most news outlets I have read.
 
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