SvennoJ said:
Machiavellian said:
It does not matter if you are on the plane or not on the plane. Not sure why people keep thinking this is a distinction. Federal regulations allows ALL airlines to bump passengers when overbooked even if they are on the plane. This means that your ticket means nothing as far as you having rights to fly on any particular plane. Usually all things get handled before boarding but it doesn't matter if you board or not board as you can still get kicked off.
United called security after asking him to leave repeatedly. Since United cannot enforce removal of a passenger, security was called because no matter what he was going to get bumped. As I have stated, he played a bluff but once security came on the scene, the rules changed. Now he was being asked to leave by security and by refusing the onus was now on him.
On another issue, I am not even sure that this guy will be able to sue United. Federal regulations allows airlines to oversale and bump passengers from planes so United was in their legal right. Since it was security that removed the passenger which caused him to get hurt, then only airport security can be placed in the claim. Should be interesting to see if a lawsuit gets filed and if United can be claimed.
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Where are those federal regulations, it's not in here
http://www.kcra.com/article/you-can-legally-be-removed-from-flights-for-these-reasons/9261454
Or here
http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2017/04/11/united-denied-boarding-illegal/
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I actually read the regulation and it states airlines can involuntarily force passengers from flights if overbooked. It does not make any stipulations of whether they are on the plane or not which means airlines can do it at any point they choose. Actually the only thing the airline has to do is first ask for volunteers before resulting to any measure they deem to use. The regulations is pretty open on this part and it’s the discretion of the airline how they go about this policy. Usually this all happens way before boarding but in this case it did not which of course is the problem that got United into this spot. Interesting enough, when reading the regulations, it appears that United is the least company to bump you off a flight as all airlines have to report this to the DOT.
