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Machiavellian on 12 April 2017
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SvennoJ said:
Machiavellian said:

Did you not read those rules.  Since it does not stipulate when or where but what must be done first before involuntary bumping means its up to the airline how they proceed after asking for volunteers.  Here is the part you need to pay real attention to.

"OT rules require airlines to seek out people who are willing to give up their seats for compensation before bumping anyone involuntarily"

Nothing about when, only that they need to ask for volunteers before kicking you off.  This is what I mean.  There is no mandate on the how, when or where so the regulations are very open to the discretion of the airline.  When regulations do not state exactly a rule then its open.  

Bumping is before boarding. Bumping does not mean removing from the plane. Where does it state that?

They have very specific rules for when you can be removed from inside the plane, this is not part of those rules. It stands to reason that they have no right to remove you if you comply with the specific rules set out. Why have such specific rules if it's open to the discretion of the airline?

There is absolutly nothing in the regulations that state before boarding.  What you normally see with airlines is that this happens before boarding because they know they are overbooked and get that resolved before boarding but the regulations themselves do not stipulate before or after boarding.  This is not an isolated incident to United and people have been booted while on the plane.  Actually United is not even the worst offender in bumping people off planes as I believe its Delta.  In this case they were not overbooked but instead wanted to bump for their own employees.  This is outside of the oversale policy and thus United is not safe under that regulation.

At Bolded:  Now you hit the right question.  This is why you elect officials to protect your rights because of situations like this.  The regulations could change if enough outcry but currently there isn't anything preventing any airline kicking you off if they oversold their flight.  This only pretains to the oversale regulations as I have not seen anything outside of that regulation on the topic.

Edit:  Here are your policy makers to the rescue.  As I stated there isn't anything preventing Airlines from bumping you either before or after you are on a plane but your trusty congressmen are looking to add a bill to remedy that problem.

http://www.wbaltv.com/article/bill-would-bar-airlines-from-forcibly-removing-passengers-for-overbooking/9267055