lgaflyer

That's a good interview question!!

AmericanFlyer

https://www.inc.com/cynthia-than/the...t-matters.html

Fletch727

Goosent - it appears you are new here, welcome. It also appears you may not be employed in the industry...? It would take a phone conversation to explain everything that goes into how an airline operation functions on a daily basis. But, to address your comment that there would be a case if, indeed, the flight was not oversold but sold to capacity, in my opinion, would be weak. Even if there was a policy at United to not oversell, situations like this occur all the time. Just look at Jet Blues denied boarding numbers.

Things change on a minute by minute basis at an airline. Whether or not that crew of four was previously booked, any number of things could have happened to require them to be quickly booked and placed on that flight. Happens all the time, especially during irregular operations due to inclement weather. These forced bookings have now made the flight oversold, by four, therefore putting the gate agents the painful position of having to go through the process of probably ruining someone's day, unless there are volunteers willing to take in some easy money/tickets, or whatever, and take the next a available flight.

What not a single blowhard news anchor seems to understand, since no news agency is willing to have their "airline consultants" appear on their shows to explain it - these crew members are considered Must Rides, because they are going to be taking another plane load of people somewhere else that has to go, and have duty day limitations and rest requirements established by federal law to abide by (Colgan crash a number of years ago should ring bell - if not, google it). Taking a car ride is not really an option 99.9% of the time. If the booked crew or crewmember doesn't get on the plane, the operation gets messed up, and depending on the aircraft type, hundreds if not thousands of people in one day would be inconvenienced by delays and missed connections during an entire day as a result (considering a crew was to take out the first flight of the day early in the morning, and subsequent crews are unable to make up the lost time during the rest of the days scheduled flights for that aircraft).

With all this rambling, the point is that there are countless tidbits that play into this mess that will be covered by the attorneys. My personal opinion? He should get compensation in the form of what he would have received at the time he was being removed and seek further damages from the Aviation Police Department. The request was legal on part of United, whether he liked it or not. United's Customer Service Representatives requested assistance from law enforcement due to his escalation and unwillingness to exit the aircraft - they did not touch him. He told the Police the only way he would exit is if he was dragged out, and they obliged. His blood is due to resisting, not because he stood up and walked out.

On the other side, obviously change needs to be made, and most definitely will - how could anyone disagree? But, everything was handled per a protocol that has been successful and in affect for probably decades, and that had never led to what you are seeing today - who could have predicted a tantrum-driven adult would cause so much pain? It sickens me that he will probably walk away with millions from this, especially given his character based on published public documents.

jsled

You nailed it! That's me. A vanity plate on my 15 yr old pickup. LOL. That would be AWESOME, baby. I'm just tired of all the resident experts on this forum. It's worse than Facebook. I know that misery loves company....but c'mon man.

Shindo

You're an idiot.

This passanger was told to get off by the airline, he refused and the authorities had to ask the same thing and he still refused. They had to forcefully remove him and since he resisted his face hit the armrest. This was all his fault and he should be charged with a crime.

Claybird

CAPTNR1 would be awesome

Shindo

Doesn't matter, he was told to deplane. He doesn't get to argue commands.

SpeedyVagabond

Goggles is right. In the end the doctor bloodied himself by resisting. That said, I think it's completely ridiculous to remove a perfectly fine already boarded passenger from a plane to cover operational problems. That's the real issue here. If you can't get volunteers then leave the late deadheads behind. I know the pro-union tyoes won't like this, but there was still one seat left up front. If either pilot had taken it this wouldn't be worldwide news today. I'm not saying that taking the jumpseat and empowering the doctor is neccessarily the right thing to do. But I've ridden up there many times in similar situations and I've had many UA and AA pilots come up front after explaining they volunteered to do so to get someone on board. I think that's great and good customer service and thank them for it after welcoming them aboard. In the end, this is a customer service job. The airlines are going to have to come up with a definitive plan for deadheaders to prevent this going forward. I see much more civil disobedience going forward from boarded passengers refusing to leave when asked to. And in this case I agree with them.

Taco280AI

Some of you just don't get it. Regardless of what company policy is, what officers told him, whether or not he was right or flat out wrong... United is guilty in the court of public opinion which is going to cost United in $$$. That's the bottom line and this could have been avoided or settled in a better way than it was. Go ahead and argue with consumers about policy and fine print, they'll just book with a different airline in the near future.

Plane Ramrod

The "face full of armrest" wasn't punishment, it was incidental to the police getting him to comply. Whether that was an over reaction on the cops' part isn't clear since we don't see what led up to the armrestification of his face. Punishment would be the fine for trespassing on the aircraft after UAL revoked his privilege to be there. Restitution would be the amount the Dr. pays UAL for the armrest he broke while committing a crime, and the ensuing bio-hazard cleanup.