Man Dragged off United Flight

if people don't like a complicated contract of carriage, they're welcome to take their travel dollars elsewhere.

This is how the free market works. One entity offers a service, and another entity of their own freewill decides to enter into a contract with the original entity, exchanging money for services. Don't like the terms of the contract? Don't enter into the contract.

It is none of the government's business.
 
av8tr1 said:
So he's done some bad things (criminal) that makes it ok for United to treat a paying pax this way? What does his criminal past have to do with how he is treated as a paying pax? Other than having terrorists ties his past shouldn't have any bearing on his treatment as a paying customer.
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It definitely doesnt give UA the right to treat him like crap. However, it should be noted that UA did not physically remove this man. The DOA police need to take the full responsibility of this for using excessive force. His criminal past actually has a lot to do with this. It's clear he doesn't believe the law or rules apply to him and he was more than willing to show it by refusing to give up his seat in the manner that he did. The only thing UA really did wrong was board the airplane before they had this crap figured out.
 
Hacker15e said:
if people don't like a complicated contract of carriage, they're welcome to take their travel dollars elsewhere.

This is how the free market works. One entity offers a service, and another entity of their own freewill decides to enter into a contract with the original entity, exchanging money for services. Don't like the terms of the contract? Don't enter into the contract.

It is none of the government's business.
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This assumes that there is perfect competition- the airline industry is an oligopoly and they simply may not be able to "take their business elsewhere." This is actually a case of partial market failure in some parts of the country.
 
ppragman said:
This assumes that there is perfect competition- the airline industry is an oligopoly and they simply may not be able to "take their business elsewhere." This is actually a case of partial market failure in some parts of the country.
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How does it assume a "perfect" anything?

Don't like airline contracts? Then don't fly on airlines. There are lots of other ways to travel, even by air.
 
ppragman said:
This assumes that there is perfect competition- the airline industry is an oligopoly and they simply may not be able to "take their business elsewhere." This is actually a case of partial market failure in some parts of the country.
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Perhaps, but there are these things called cars. They work at getting you from point A to point B, too. ;)
 
Cazadores said:
My issue is outrage fatigue. Had this person simply complied with the lawful requests made of him by both the airline and police, no video, no outrage. There are protocols for handling this situation and if anything the outrage should be either directed at the individual who failed to comply, or the officer who chose to bloody him up.
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You're right, had United followed the law and offered to pay the cash they were responsible to pay under the law this issue is defused immediately. Why you think United is beyond following the law I won't understand.

Cazadores said:
Airlines deny boarding daily. Often it is greatly inconvenient to the passenger. Up until now the way to handle it was to ask for a supervisor and demand through reason and respect what is guaranteed by the contract entered voluntarily and maybe more through the conventions of customer service.
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He wasn't denied boarding as you can see he was already on the plane as were the other 3 pax.

Cazadores said:
Now it seems the way to handle things is to behave like a petulant child, get video taped disobeying lawful police orders, and end up some form of folk hero over literally nothing. This wasn't the last flight off Ton Son Nhut. He wasn't having his civil rights abused.

So go ahead, be more than irritated, you already said United is avoid at all cost for you anyway so I bet they're really concerned about your opinion. I'm irritated, too. Likely dozens of passengers were denied boarding that day, and they're not news as they behaved as reasonable adults. This guy acts like a four year old and gets two teams of attorneys and a march from Rainbow Push.
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United wasn't following the law in compensating him fairly and were acting with the competence of children themselves. If they acted like adults who took pride in their jobs it would have never come to this, but even their CEO had to be coached repeatedly to act like a responsible and compassionate adult before he started behaving remotely responsible.

Cazadores said:
I suppose those who behave in a manner with thoughts of others beyond themselves learned a further lesson from this, sadly.
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How emo and manipulative as that implies that anyone disagreeing with you is acting purely out of selfish reasons. The passengers have rights and United has to follow the law as well. Pay the passengers the cash their owed under the law instead of near worthless vouchers. Why weren't the passengers offered the cash they were owed under the law and much, much sooner?
 
srn121 said:
You're right, had United followed the law and offered to pay the cash they were responsible to pay under the law this issue is defused immediately. Why you think United is beyond following the law I won't understand.



He wasn't denied boarding as you can see he was already on the plane as were the other 3 pax.



United wasn't following the law in compensating him fairly and were acting with the competence of children themselves. If they acted like adults who took pride in their jobs it would have never come to this, but even their CEO had to be coached repeatedly to act like a responsible and compassionate adult before he started behaving remotely responsible.



How emo and manipulative as that implies that anyone disagreeing with you is acting purely out of selfish reasons. The passengers have rights and United has to follow the law as well. Pay the passengers the cash their owed under the law instead of near worthless vouchers. Why weren't the passengers offered the cash they were owed under the law and much, much sooner?
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Again, United didnt do anything wrong. Why are you defending this guy? He got roughed up by a DOA cop, not United.
 
SeanD said:
Again, United didnt do anything wrong. Why are you defending this guy? He got roughed up by a DOA cop, not United.
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That's only your contention about them doing nothing wrong. Most of America proudly disagrees with you.

Their piss poor customer service is a nationwide embarrassment. Had United not tried to save money by offering worthless vouchers instead of the cash they're legally required to pay, had they been on top of getting the 4 employees on that flight sooner, had they arranged alternate transportation for those 4 pax (it's a 4.5 hour drive from Chicago) then maybe I'd cut them some slack. You never disclosed your relationship with United and I'm still so curious why you shared the United Rocks hashtag in a previous post. United has to follow the law too and going above and beyond the bare minimum is always a nice and mature gesture, but they couldn't even seem to offer what they were legally required to.
 
Hacker15e said:
How does it assume a "perfect" anything?

Don't like airline contracts? Then don't fly on airlines. There are lots of other ways to travel, even by air.
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This isn't necessarily possible for someone who was born and raised in say, Nikolai, Alaska or Lihue, Hi.

I get what you're saying - you're consistently all about dat free market and no government intervention- I don't agree with you, but at least you're consistent.

Regardless, simply "don't fly" isn't an option for a lot of people in the country. If you live in Omaha, then sure you have the option of boycotting the current system by driving - and more power to you, but the free market orthodoxy is wrong in many segments of the economy.

I know your perspective would suggest that market failures are not to be corrected by governments (a la Friedman) but I disagree. I find this wiki article on a particular type of market failure to be particularly apropos: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal–agent_problem
 
srn121 said:
You're right, had United followed the law and offered to pay the cash they were responsible to pay under the law this issue is defused immediately. Why you think United is beyond following the law I won't understand.



He wasn't denied boarding as you can see he was already on the plane as were the other 3 pax.



United wasn't following the law in compensating him fairly and were acting with the competence of children themselves. If they acted like adults who took pride in their jobs it would have never come to this, but even their CEO had to be coached repeatedly to act like a responsible and compassionate adult before he started behaving remotely responsible.



How emo and manipulative as that implies that anyone disagreeing with you is acting purely out of selfish reasons. The passengers have rights and United has to follow the law as well. Pay the passengers the cash their owed under the law instead of near worthless vouchers. Why weren't the passengers offered the cash they were owed under the law and much, much sooner?
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Man, you really hate United and will find everything possible to justify that. All airlines do this. They all have the right to, and I'm not boycotting any because of that. If this happened on DL, which is the air line I fly the most on out of convenience, I wouldn't hesitate to fly them again. I know the terms of service and accept it. I feel for the four crew that had to deal with boarding after that. They were just doing their jobs, too. I care about the safety of the crew and passengers on that plane because I want my loved one to get home safely and while on a trip, to get through each leg the same way. That idiot doctor jeopardized safety and I have a huge problem with it. You constantly defending things like safety wasn't an issue shows disrespect to all the pilots on this board and crew. An unruly passenger is never a good situation and should never be tolerated. If you are asked to leave, leave.
 
Avgirl said:
Man, you really hate United and will find everything possible to justify that. All airlines do this.
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They'll offer vouchers and increase them until someone takes a bite, some airlines have vouchers that are much, much better than other airlines, but at the end of the day the Airlines are required by law to pay a pre-determined amount of cash if they have to involuntarily deny boarding. I expect our corporations to follow the law and not to weasel out from underneath it.
 
Avgirl said:
There are also boats and individual plane operators. Planes haven't been around that long in the grand scheme of things. Yet, people still managed to get places.
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I suspect that you haven't left the continental United States much or been associated with average incomes in America much...but whatever, let's keep having crappy service because, you know, Ayn Rand and contracts and stuff.

A law stating that companies are not allowed to bump paying passengers for non-revenue passengers would pretty much end this nonsense and the United wouldn't be able to force their passengers to re-accommodate because crew scheduling didn't plan ahead.
 
srn121 said:
That's only your contention about them doing nothing wrong. Most of America proudly disagrees with you.

Their piss poor customer service is a nationwide embarrassment. Had United not tried to save money by offering worthless vouchers instead of the cash they're legally required to pay, had they been on top of getting the 4 employees on that flight sooner, had they arranged alternate transportation for those 4 pax (it's a 4.5 hour drive from Chicago) then maybe I'd cut them some slack. You never disclosed your relationship with United and I'm still so curious why you shared the United Rocks hashtag in a previous post. United has to follow the law too and going above and beyond the bare minimum is always a nice and mature gesture, but they couldn't even seem to offer what they were legally required to.
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It was not a United airplane or UA employees and it is actually logical to think that the Regional Airline Company employees may not have been aware of the 'laws' on compensation. To be honest, I wasn't aware there was a law to compensate a bumped passenger cash if another option was available. Vouchers and hotel rooms is all I was aware of. It sounds like they thought they were doing everything they could. All in all, no one from UA said "Lets really F this guy up and drag his ass down the isle. Show him who's boss" United is getting a raw deal in my opinion. I think the CEO apology and them refunding everyone on board is plenty.
 
SeanD said:
It was not a United airplane or UA employees and it is actually logical to think that the Regional Airline Company employees may not have been aware of the 'laws' on compensation. To be honest, I wasn't aware there was a law to compensate a bumped passenger cash if another option was available. Vouchers and hotel rooms is all I was aware of. It sounds like they thought they were doing everything they could. All in all, no one from UA said "Lets really F this guy up and drag his ass down the isle. Show him who's boss" United is getting a raw deal in my opinion. I think the CEO apology and them refunding everyone on board is plenty.
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So your argument is that it's ok that they're very bad at their jobs to the point of acting illegally, because of a shared ignorance?
 
srn121 said:
So your argument is that it's ok that they're very bad at their jobs to the point of acting illegally, because of a shared ignorance?
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How the hell did United act illegally? You have no problem sputtering off on how crappy they are and our opinions suck but you have yet to prove a single point on anything they did illegal. Yes, I am completely ok with how UA handled this situatuation.
 
SeanD said:
How the hell did United act illegally? You have no problem sputtering off on how crappy they are and our opinions suck but you have yet to prove a single point on anything they did illegal. Yes, I am completely ok with how UA handled this situatuation.
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SeanD said:
It was not a United airplane or UA employees and it is actually logical to think that the Regional Airline Company employees may not have been aware of the 'laws' on compensation. To be honest, I wasn't aware there was a law to compensate a bumped passenger cash if another option was available. Vouchers and hotel rooms is all I was aware of. It sounds like they thought they were doing everything they could.
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I love how you and other people are expecting paying passengers to go over the contract of carriage with their lawyers before every flight, but expecting a trained employee of the airlines to be aware of a simple law in required compensation is much, too much, to be expected of a simple United employee.

Here's the law again.

(3) Compensation shall be 400% of the fare to the passenger's destination or first stopover, with a maximum of $1,350, if the carrier does not offer alternate transportation that, at the time the arrangement is made, is planned to arrive at the airport of the passenger's first stopover, or if none, the airport of the passenger's final destination less than two hours after the planned arrival time of the passenger's original flight.
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https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/250.5
 
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