ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
Totally - just add money is all they needed to do. I guarantee you $1600 cash or $2500 in vouchers for travel would get someone.
Man Dragged off United Flight
- Thread starter Bonanzaman
- Start date
Totally - just add money is all they needed to do. I guarantee you $1600 cash or $2500 in vouchers for travel would get someone.
Autothrust Blue
PCU M/Y SPIRIT OF MELLIE
Certainly, everyone has a price; at a certain point it's likely cheaper for the business to simply voluntell someone, though.
ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
When I lived on Kauai I upgraded to first class for $60 to fly back to the mainland AND almost missed my flight, I was the last person on the plane and was dressed like I was still at the beach (mostly because I had been). The FA goes, "your seat is over there" pointing towards an empty seat in the back.
I said, "uhh I'm in row 3" - her face immediately changed from a scowl to a smile, "oh my goodness, sir, you must behaving a rough day, could I get you a cocktail?!"
I got to bask in bourgeois glory the entire flight. "Yes, miss, of course I'll have another glass."
If your cost of upgrade is cheap enough then the question is can you drink enough "free" booze to make up the difference.
ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
Not if you have to drag them off the airplane, lol. Everyone has a camera these days, the hit to their image is worth more than the couple grand they could have had to give up to find a volunteer.
Autothrust Blue
PCU M/Y SPIRIT OF MELLIE
It was a crap-arse use of force, and apparently DOA PD agrees with me on that one, as the officer who thumped him is suspended.
Apophis
Resident Iconoclast
But is it really? Especially considering the backlash United has already received at this point. Even though the customer could have definitely handled things better, giving the guy a $2500 travel voucher would have almost certainly been less painful than the massive negative publicity.
T/O w/FSII
Well-Known Member
NovemberEcho
Dergs favorite member
The internet is having a ball with this...
Should be Zone 3
Baronman
Well-Known Member
In a week they (as well as the rest of the world) won't care........I couldn't for the life of me remember the yoga pants incident of 2 weeks ago.
Murdoughnut
Well sized member
You can re-brand all you want, but without a change in culture it's lipstick on a pig.
jayd1038
Well-Known Member
Good news gents, for the next few days you can pretty much do anything you want while at work and not have to worry about it. I'm thinking of flying my next flight without any pants on. If anyone asks, I will gladly remind them "Did I beat up any passengers today and throw them off a flight", and presto all the general public will care about is that guy on United. At least for a few more days, until nobody cares anymore and moves on with their lives.
We have a few days left til the public outcry is over from this and we could dominate a headline. So in the meantime, have some fun!
We have a few days left til the public outcry is over from this and we could dominate a headline. So in the meantime, have some fun!
mrivc211
Well-Known Member
This is how I view this scenario: "You're not wrong Walter, you're just an *I don't have the education to emote without using a curse word*."
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:
This one is slightly NSFW, so I'll link to it.
Here's one I find particularly funny:
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.
In hind sight, yes, you are right. of course UAL would of liked to avoid this PR nightmare. But how were they supposed to know this was going to happen. You can't police the thousands of flights on a case by case basis. United has a set policy to make the business run profitably. Crews gotta get to outstation or flight cancels.
You guys know whats going to happen now? That guy knew exactly what he was doing in refusing to get off. Hoping for something like this to happen so he can sue. UAL is probably going to settle out of court and its going to set an example to other pax that they don't have to get off. And if security shows up, take a beating and make some $$$. This is going to lead to more childish behavior on planes.
I know it's causing more changes at my company and we've even had managers that purchase our travel post this incident and other memes to their Facebook pages so the likelihood of us traveling United thankfully has gone down. You might have a short memory, but that could've been someone's grieving relative getting that kind of mistreatment and the arrogance the CEO has displayed is beyond loathsome. No one in management at United wants to own up or change anything and that's a huge reason why their more affluent customers have been migrating to other airlines. This is just one symptom of total customer service failure at United.
Don't even compare the yoga pants incident to this. Our 'wonderful' media ran with that garbage story without bothering to do their homework and believe it or not I defended United to some of my co-workers saying that there had to be more to the story.
mrivc211
Well-Known Member
You know you're a sick man when you start wondering if that cabin is the EMB-120 or ERJ-135/145. LOL. BTW, the EMB-120 had the most legroom of any A320/B737 I've ever been on.United has hired outside consulting on new techniques to insure passenger compliance with aircrew instruction...
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ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
This just confirms my suspicions - Hawaiian by the way has the most amazing customer service of any airline I've ever flown on.
mrivc211
Well-Known Member
Agreed. But this ain't a restaurant. It never will be. It will never be like any other business. So theres no point in comparing the two. In 2009, after Obama took office, all the major airline CEO's went to the white house and were asked whats going to save the industry. They said consolidation. Less competition. The green light was given from that administration that the DOJ would not object to it. Whats happened since then? Less competition, prices up. UAL/AA/DAL will not face the same pressures other airlines did in decades past. It's over. If you have a problem with UAL because of what happened and you need to fly LAX to where ever, your choices are very slim.