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Forums - General Discussion - Man violently removed from United Airlines plane. ~Update~ United may have broken the law.

ArchangelMadzz said:
Muffin31190 said:

http://imgur.com/gallery/qyoYV

I'll just leave this here

Good information.

Unfortunately it's not relevant to this as the link you posted is about being refused boarding. Nothing about what happens once you've already boarded the plane and they try to kick you off. 

Thats the point though, when you board the plane they cant do anything, the transaction has been completed (other then medical emergencies or dangerous situations). It even states in thier Policies that once you are on the plane you cannot be forced to leave unless you breach them, which the the person from the OP did not. Also No one was ever offered what they were supposed to before entring the plane, again the own airline is breaching their own policies.



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I fly Delta for business and I've seen overbooking occur from time to time. Airlines do this because they figure a certain percentage of people no show on flights. However, every time this happens they announce before boarding and offer $500, a hotel if needed, and next available flight. If no one takes voluntarily it there is generally a tiered system for tickets so some people know going in their seat is the most likely to be "bumped". Friend of mine flies this way and has endured multiple "bumps" or even ruined trips in attempt to save money and has received $500 towards other flights. He grumbles, but he has never been on the flight and then asked to leave at random.

I'd say every airline should view this as an example of how not to handle this situation. Bad news sucks and customers are never going to be happy about it, but heading off bad news is the sign of good management to mitigate damage.



SuperNova said:

It is, since the situation only occured out of United acting unprofessionally and likely outside of their right. This man had done nothing wrong. He was within his right to be on that plane and they very likely had no right to remove him.

Yes, I am aware of that. And I do not believe for a second that United gives an actual shit about the other people in that chain reaction, other than for monetary reasons. They screwed up, they likely realized to late and rather than getting their employees to their next flight in some other way or accepting that their scheduling error would cost them a lot of compensation, they decided to bribe and bully their own paying customers in order to fix their mistake.

Besides, none of that is the Doctors fault and he should not have to carry the consequences of an airline fucking up.

This is not a 'lie' accusation. The plane was not overbooked. Employees are Non-Revenue Passengers.

The contract he signed by buying his ticket states no where that they have the right to forcibly remove him from a plane he already, rightfully, boarded, provided that he doesn't pose a security risk. Wich he didn't, even according to United themselves. Their contract as it pertains to overbooking mentions denial of boarding. Nothing in there states that you can be removed from the plane for any reason other than a security or health risk or by refusal to produce your boarding pass and identity. None of wich applies.

Actually once security comes in and you refuse to leave a place that has asked you to leave, they can remove you by force.  People are forgetting that there is two actions going on here.  United has the right to refuse any passenger passage on any plane.  Security has the right to remove a passenger who refuse to leave a plane.  If the passenger resist which is exactly what this guy did and he was hurt as a result, then courts can look at how he was hurt.  You do not have to be a security risk, violent or anything like that.  You only have to refuse to leave.  This would be the same if you went into any building and they asked you to leave and you refused to go.  The police has the right to remove you by force.  If you resist then any injury occurred can be placed on you and if you resist and the police officer was hurt, you could be charged a felony.

This has nothing to do with United fare rules or anything like that because those things can be disputed and they can be sue for breach of contract.  The fact that comes into play is that the man was asked to leave and United does have that right.  By refusing to leave he then put himself into tresspassing.  Now once security comes on the scene they can remove any one who is tresspassing and can use force.

The guy will get something from United but it will be settled out of court and it will not be anywhere close to a million.  Hell it probably would not be more than 5K.  



Augen said:
I fly Delta for business and I've seen overbooking occur from time to time. Airlines do this because they figure a certain percentage of people no show on flights. However, every time this happens they announce before boarding and offer $500, a hotel if needed, and next available flight. If no one takes voluntarily it there is generally a tiered system for tickets so some people know going in their seat is the most likely to be "bumped". Friend of mine flies this way and has endured multiple "bumps" or even ruined trips in attempt to save money and has received $500 towards other flights. He grumbles, but he has never been on the flight and then asked to leave at random.

I'd say every airline should view this as an example of how not to handle this situation. Bad news sucks and customers are never going to be happy about it, but heading off bad news is the sign of good management to mitigate damage.

United offered the 500 before boarding then 800 and hotel after boarding.  3 out of the 4 seats they needed was given up.  The 4th was not.  I am sure in hindsight United should have upped the value to 1K but probably did not because employees only do as much as the guidelines tell them to.

The problem with United is that they should have handled the situation themselves before calling security.  As you stated once people get on the flight, then stuff like this can occur and secuirty doesn't know or care about the image of the airline.  Once they are called, they only know that a passenger was asked to leave and they will not.  They will go through the motion all the way up to force.  Forcing a passenger off the plane was never going to look good but security doesn't know or care because that is not their job.  If left under United they probably would have seen this issue and just up the incentive like first class seat or more money.



Machiavellian said:
SuperNova said:

It is, since the situation only occured out of United acting unprofessionally and likely outside of their right. This man had done nothing wrong. He was within his right to be on that plane and they very likely had no right to remove him.

Yes, I am aware of that. And I do not believe for a second that United gives an actual shit about the other people in that chain reaction, other than for monetary reasons. They screwed up, they likely realized to late and rather than getting their employees to their next flight in some other way or accepting that their scheduling error would cost them a lot of compensation, they decided to bribe and bully their own paying customers in order to fix their mistake.

Besides, none of that is the Doctors fault and he should not have to carry the consequences of an airline fucking up.

This is not a 'lie' accusation. The plane was not overbooked. Employees are Non-Revenue Passengers.

The contract he signed by buying his ticket states no where that they have the right to forcibly remove him from a plane he already, rightfully, boarded, provided that he doesn't pose a security risk. Wich he didn't, even according to United themselves. Their contract as it pertains to overbooking mentions denial of boarding. Nothing in there states that you can be removed from the plane for any reason other than a security or health risk or by refusal to produce your boarding pass and identity. None of wich applies.

Actually once security comes in and you refuse to leave a place that has asked you to leave, they can remove you by force.  People are forgetting that there is two actions going on here.  United has the right to refuse any passenger passage on any plane.  Security has the right to remove a passenger who refuse to leave a plane.  If the passenger resist which is exactly what this guy did and he was hurt as a result, then courts can look at how he was hurt.  You do not have to be a security risk, violent or anything like that.  You only have to refuse to leave.  This would be the same if you went into any building and they asked you to leave and you refused to go.  The police has the right to remove you by force.  If you resist then any injury occurred can be placed on you and if you resist and the police officer was hurt, you could be charged a felony.

This has nothing to do with United fare rules or anything like that because those things can be disputed and they can be sue for breach of contract.  The fact that comes into play is that the man was asked to leave and United does have that right.  By refusing to leave he then put himself into tresspassing.  Now once security comes on the scene they can remove any one who is tresspassing and can use force.

The guy will get something from United but it will be settled out of court and it will not be anywhere close to a million.  Hell it probably would not be more than 5K.  

lol, this is going to cost United waaaaaaaaaaay more than 5k. There are tons of high profile lawyers who would be licking their chops to take this case on for zero fees (but a cut of the settlement of course), they are going to rip United a new a-hole. They will settle out of court and settle quickly. 

A million or more wouldn't surprise me. United wants this to go away quickly, they are getting absolutely killed on the PR front. Their stock price has lost $600 million in market cap because of this today. 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/uniteds-stock-is-set-to-fall-5-and-wipe-1-billion-off-the-airlines-market-cap-2017-04-11



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Machiavellian said:
SuperNova said:

It is, since the situation only occured out of United acting unprofessionally and likely outside of their right. This man had done nothing wrong. He was within his right to be on that plane and they very likely had no right to remove him.

Yes, I am aware of that. And I do not believe for a second that United gives an actual shit about the other people in that chain reaction, other than for monetary reasons. They screwed up, they likely realized to late and rather than getting their employees to their next flight in some other way or accepting that their scheduling error would cost them a lot of compensation, they decided to bribe and bully their own paying customers in order to fix their mistake.

Besides, none of that is the Doctors fault and he should not have to carry the consequences of an airline fucking up.

This is not a 'lie' accusation. The plane was not overbooked. Employees are Non-Revenue Passengers.

The contract he signed by buying his ticket states no where that they have the right to forcibly remove him from a plane he already, rightfully, boarded, provided that he doesn't pose a security risk. Wich he didn't, even according to United themselves. Their contract as it pertains to overbooking mentions denial of boarding. Nothing in there states that you can be removed from the plane for any reason other than a security or health risk or by refusal to produce your boarding pass and identity. None of wich applies.

Actually once security comes in and you refuse to leave a place that has asked you to leave, they can remove you by force.  People are forgetting that there is two actions going on here.  United has the right to refuse any passenger passage on any plane.  Security has the right to remove a passenger who refuse to leave a plane.  If the passenger resist which is exactly what this guy did and he was hurt as a result, then courts can look at how he was hurt.  You do not have to be a security risk, violent or anything like that.  You only have to refuse to leave.  This would be the same if you went into any building and they asked you to leave and you refused to go.  The police has the right to remove you by force.  If you resist then any injury occurred can be placed on you and if you resist and the police officer was hurt, you could be charged a felony.

This has nothing to do with United fare rules or anything like that because those things can be disputed and they can be sue for breach of contract.  The fact that comes into play is that the man was asked to leave and United does have that right.  By refusing to leave he then put himself into tresspassing.  Now once security comes on the scene they can remove any one who is tresspassing and can use force.

The guy will get something from United but it will be settled out of court and it will not be anywhere close to a million.  Hell it probably would not be more than 5K.  

No they do not. That is the point. That is breach of contract right there. He was not tresspassing, he had a valid contract with United Airlines and did not violate any of their rules or otherwise behave in a way that would allow them to remove him, until AFTER they started harrassing him. They were out of line.

If I had a contract that said I was allowed in the building against a monetary exchance (aka renting), no, no one has the right to 'remove' me. Not as long as I'm not violating the house rules or the law. That is why contracts exist. See a pattern here?



Bandorr said:
shikamaru317 said:

Did they? I hadn't heard that part. I find it hard to believe that on a flight of 80 people they couldn't find 4 people who would take $800 and a free hotel stay (I know I would have taken it). But regardless, they definitely screwed up by allowing people to board before the overbooking was sorted out. And the police screwed up by pulling him from the flight the way they did, especially considering his age and the fact that he had a good reason for needing to be on the flight (he was a doctor rushing back to see some of his patients).

They got 3 people to take it, but not the 4th. Not sure about the price of the ticket? I assume it would just carry over to the next day?

I would have done it for a First class ticket (instead of the money) and the hotel room (so I didn't have to find another one).

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2017/04/10/video-shows-man-forcibly-removed-united-flight-chicago-louisville/100274374/

"Passengers were told at the gate that the flight was overbooked and United, offering $400 and a hotel stay, was looking for one volunteer to take another flight to Louisville at 3 p.m. Monday. Passengers were allowed to board the flight, Bridges said, and once the flight was filled those on the plane were told that four people needed to give up their seats to stand-by United employees that needed to be in Louisville on Monday for a flight. Passengers were told that the flight would not take off until the United crew had seats, Bridges said, and the offer was increased to $800, but no one volunteered."

They shouldn't have removed him THAT way. But howelse could they remove him? He couldn't get up, and he refused to move. If they moved on because he was a Doctor the next random person would feel slighted. Plus they may start making up lies (my dad is dying, my kid is alone etc).

Deplane the passengers and then board everyone again.

Matter of fact, they should have done that prior to boarding people. They should also keeping up the ante for how much they are willing to pay for a seat until people take it. 800 wasn't enough? Go to 1000. Then 1200, 1600. Trust me, people will take it and the small loss there would be better than this clusterfuck that's happening now.



Poor guy. Sure them for millions!



My grammar errors are justified by the fact that I am a brazilian living in Brazil. I am also very stupid.

Hiku said:



Fixed.