Man Dragged off United Flight

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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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Most of the time the cameras can be avoided if we don't try and play gate agent like that CA in the vid. I let them deal with any pax issues if the door is open, maybe your airline has different policies though.
 
Nick said:
Story time.

I actually had a scenario a few years ago that I will never ever forget. The inbound jet to pick our crew up in OMA and DH us to DTW was late and one of the F/As and I wanted to enjoy the nice free breakfast buffet, they had a pancake machine, fresh berries, etc., so I coordinated with the company to move the van time back. They approved.

Well the inbound DH jet made up an incredible amount of time en route. When we left the hotel, they were already pulling into the gate to do a 50-seater quick turn. No matter; five minutes to the airport and I told the F/O and FAs to head on up to the gate and I'll stop by the ticket counter and tell them to radio up to the gate that we'll be up in a minute. No problemo.

We got there and boarding was complete. But it had been oversold and one passenger was getting a check for $1200 (not a voucher, a check) for denied boarding. The agent saw us four show up and said I can't get you on. I said, sorry we're late to show up but we checked in online last night and either way we have to get on, we're operating three flights out of DTW when we get there, and there is no one else to do them out there. She said too bad, and went down to close up.

The jet slowwwwly departed the gate, come to find out later that the captain was getting OE from the check airman in the right seat and they also had a fed on the jumpseat for the line check. So things were understandably slow and deliberate.

I sat down and got on the phone with my company (who I must give credit for, never once in seven years had a hold que to talk to anyone). They somehow ran this situation up the chain of command through mainline and back down to the DH company real fast, because the CRJ pulled into the runup pad at OMA's 32L and then I wondered...no way...it can't be what I think it is.

Yes, way. A few minutes later they gate returned to toss four passengers off and get us on.

Problem was, during that transaction, DTW went into a groundstop that never lifted the rest of the afternoon...crazy thunderstorms en route. So whereas they would have gotten off the ground before the groundstop went into effect, they deplaned all 50 people and the flight was canceled a few hours later. Their two additional flights were also canceled.

My crew's three flights were also canceled.

And a deadheading crew that was already on board also had two legs out of DTW canceled.

Seven canceled flights because the agent didn't believe me when I said we were positive-space-must-rides.

Ah, outsourcing.
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What time did you and your crew show up to the gate itself? The way this thing reads sounds like your fault.:smoke:
 
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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Delta is at fault for all of this :stir: if they could get their res system back up and going from the storm last week, everyone wouldn't be so overbooked. Our E175 flight today had 118 booked/stand by pax...

Screaming_Emu said:
I had a situation like that where we needed something like three people to move aft for W&B. I basically said what you wrote above. Nobody moved.
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Tonight, we landed in MIA and just after starting the taxi in, the FA called up saying someone just got up and went into the LAV. Captain made an announcement... next thing we know we get a call saying another person went to the other lav...

Lawman said:
You aren't staying at the right Marriot
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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It is a shame there is only one set of sheets at hotels as the sheets Hilton's Home2 Suites use are the softest sheets I have ever slept on. I think they might even sell them to the public
 
My mind is boggled by the line of thinking by some posters. The issue is black and white. United can remove anyone they want to at anytime for any reason. United is a business, not a gov't agency. They offered the guy $1,000 to get off. Not only did he refuse, he raised his voice and became abusive. After he was offered $1,000, not $800, he was then asked to get off nicely a few times by CS. His response every time was rude and abusive. He was then told if he didn't get off, law enforcement would be called to physically remove him. Another chance for him to realize what was about to come. Rude.....abusive. Finally when they showed up, they told him if he didn't get off, they'd physically remove him. Didn't budge. After they grabbed him, the pax started screaming, making a scene, and grabbing onto his seat. What did you think was going to happen when two forces are pulling hard in the opposite direction? The weaker one will eventually give. When he did, he was flung into the other seat and hit his head. His non cooperation led to ALL this crap. The guys a DR and he's acting this way? Like a 12 year old child. Then what boggles my mind is social media justice to the rescue.
 
mrivc211 said:
My mind is boggled by the line of thinking by some posters. The issue is black and white. United can remove anyone they want to at anytime for any reason. United is a business, not a gov't agency. They offered the guy $1,000 to get off. Not only did he refuse, he raised his voice and became abusive. After he was offered $1,000, not $800, he was then asked to get off nicely a few times by CS. His response every time was rude and abusive. He was then told if he didn't get off, law enforcement would be called to physically remove him. Another chance for him to realize what was about to come. Rude.....abusive. Finally when they showed up, they told him if he didn't get off, they'd physically remove him. Didn't budge. After they grabbed him, the pax started screaming, making a scene, and grabbing onto his seat. What did you think was going to happen when two forces are pulling hard in the opposite direction? The weaker one will eventually give. When he did, he was flung into the other seat and hit his head. His non cooperation led to ALL this crap. The guys a DR and he's acting this way? Like a 12 year old child. Then what boggles my mind is social media justice to the rescue.
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This is how I view this scenario: "You're not wrong Walter, you're just an •."

Sure, United is well within their rights, but it never should have gotten to this point. United is getting skewered for having crappy customer service, because people don't like overbooking, and because they randomly selected people instead of upping the financial incentive to find more volunteers. It's not the passengers fault United's crew schedulers didn't have their S together. Frankly, while they have every right to do what they did, and yeah, the guy acted weird, UNITED escalated the situation by calling the cops on a paying customer - they screwed up in PR world, and they'll pay for it.

According to United's own website, they serviced 143,000,000 passengers in 2016 and let's assume this will be the average we'll see in 2017. Let's say that only 1 in a million customers will be upset enough about this to say "SCREW UNITED, I'LL FLY ON LCC BRAND X INSTEAD." That's still 143 airfares they're missing out on over the course of the year. Google says that the average cost of a ticket in 2013 was $379, that's $54,197 - and that's if only 143 people change their air carrier per year. They could have upped the ante to $2500 and I guarantee that would have gotten someone off that flight and not had a public relations nightmare on their hands.

If I were a business traveler, the aggressive reminder that the gate agents wouldn't hesitate to randomly select me to physically yank off the flight would make me think twice about booking travel on United to get to important meetings, just saying. And I know that that isn't "reality" - but remember, the perception in this case is much worse than the reality, just look at these hilarious memes:

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This one is slightly NSFW, so I'll link to it.

Here's one I find particularly funny:
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What kind of financial damage to the brand is the result of a crappy decision to escalate? Did someone even think about this sort of thing? I doubt it - and yeah, this will all blow over in a week or so, but even if 1-in-a-million people change their plans because of this they've likely lost a lot more than they've gained.
 
This situation was grossly mis-handled. First, if the gate knew they would have to bump why did the still board everyone? Could have solved the problem there. Next Security is going to get questioned on the manner of removing that pax. He was protesting, yes, but unclear if that type of removal action was necessary. They could have waited him out until pax started harping on him to leave the plane, or they could have deplaned everyone and sorted it out.
 
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