Overbooking, Flightcrew over paying passengers, the United incident

[Weeping Sore]

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Yeah, now I think he's milking.  Not cool.

Claiming broken/missing teeth, broken nose and concussion. I don't think quantifying significant emotional distress is out of line, even if he's being hyperbolic with the statement. He's got a high-powered lawyer, and should clean up.

[Week]

6 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Yeah, now I think he's milking.  Not cool.

"A Chicago attorney for a man who was violently dragged off an United Airlines flight at O'Hare International Airport Sunday said his client told him the experience was more horrifying than leaving Vietnam."

http://abc7chicago.com/news/united-passengers-attorney-removal-from-flight-was-more-horrifying-than-leaving-vietnam/1868535/

Let's not mis-attribute quotes.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Week,

I was relying upon BFC.  I still think that's a tad over the top whoever made the statement.  

[Week]

40 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Week,

I was relying upon BFC.  I still think that's a tad over the top whoever made the statement.  

My apologies - I should have quoted BFC there. Still, a lawyer is going to say that kind of thing. Who knows whether Dao actually said it or what the context was -- but it makes no sense to attribute it to him and judge him for it.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

21 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Indeed.  United's defenders like to gloss over the "deny boarding" ambiguity.

There's a bit of ambiguity here, but it seems like the general practice across most airlines is you haven't officially boarded the plane until the door is closed. 

[Swordfish]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

There's a bit of ambiguity here, but it seems like the general practice across most airlines is you haven't officially boarded the plane until the door is closed. 

Indeed.  There is no ambiguity about whether they had the right to remove him.  They can remove just about anyone, at just about any time, for just about any reason. 

i find it interesting as well that he was ALREADY apparently on the phone with his lawyer when the security agents boarded the plane.

it seems likely to me that he played both the 'Don't you know, I'm a doctor' card and the 'You will be hearing from my attorney' card.

[Commodore]

price controls beget violence, inevitably

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

28 minutes ago, Commodore said:

price controls beget violence, inevitably

Then violence begets massive lawsuit.

[Larry of the Lawn]

3 hours ago, Swordfish said:

Indeed.  There is no ambiguity about whether they had the right to remove him.  They can remove just about anyone, at just about any time, for just about any reason. 

i find it interesting as well that he was ALREADY apparently on the phone with his lawyer when the security agents boarded the plane.

it seems likely to me that he played both the 'Don't you know, I'm a doctor' card and the 'You will be hearing from my attorney' card.

Oh for fucks sake.  Not just directed at you, but anyone defending the airline here needs to get their fucking head checked.  The fucking logical and semantic hoops that you're jumping through to defend assaulting a guy (be he a douchebag or be he not).  Are sufficient that I don't mind leaving the preceding sentence as a run-on.

Yeah, they had a legal right to remove him.  Great.  Thanks for playing.  The point is, is that it's super fucked up that they have that right.  The airline industry makes a shit ton of money for a bunch of rich fucks that just get to do shit like this with minimal consequences.  Maybe their stock price drops a bit before it recovers, and only some of them get richer on the quick sell and buy back.

The world this practice implies is one that values corporate profits and convenience over basic human decency and agency.  Defending that world gives you lifetime membership in the Big Turd club.  

Dunno if that letter from a pilot's wife has been linked here but I just about puked reading it on facebook.  This country has a police problem that is ties into all of this but it's fucking ridiculous the latitude that corporations have over citizens.  

And yes, air travel may not be a right, or even an entitlement, but that doesn't make any of this shit okay.  

 

[mormont]

17 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

No they didn't. They upped the offer multiple times to the point where they were offering  four times the value of the ticket. And by all accounts the airport security were very polite in the beginning. Dao began the escalation by not complying. 

Surely the airline began the escalation by calling in security?

'He began the escalation by not complying'. I just want you to take that sentence for a second and wonder if you've heard it before - say, in almost any other confrontation between a civilian and a police officer. A demonstrator involved in a peaceful political protest, for example. A black man stopped for a traffic offence. That sort of thing.

Sorry, but to me that phrase seems to condone an extremely unhealthy culture of policing.

[Fragile Bird]

Too bad there isn't more outrage over the husband who walked into the school and killed his wife and a young student, and critically wounded another child. Shooting your spouse and shootings in schools are so ho hum these days. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 hours ago, mormont said:

Surely the airline began the escalation by calling in security?

Nope. Why was security called? Because Dao refused to leave. 

5 hours ago, mormont said:

'He began the escalation by not complying'. I just want you to take that sentence for a second and wonder if you've heard it before - say, in almost any other confrontation between a civilian and a police officer. A demonstrator involved in a peaceful political protest, for example. A black man stopped for a traffic offence. That sort of thing.

I've spoken out against police brutality multiple times on this forum when it's justified. There's another viral video floating around where a cop stomps on a guys head while he's on the ground in handcuffs. Why does that not have it's own thread? It's a much clearer example of the policing issues in this country.

5 hours ago, mormont said:

Sorry, but to me that phrase seems to condone an extremely unhealthy culture of policing.

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. What were the security people suppose to do in this situation if Dao kept refusing to get off of the plane? 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Too bad there isn't more outrage over the husband who walked into the school and killed his wife and a young student, and critically wounded another child. Shooting your spouse and shootings in schools are so ho hum these days. 

Or the genocide in Africa, as I pointed out before....

[Weeping Sore]

Why isn't anyone talking about the real issue? That one day the Sun will go supernova and engulf the Earth? Talk about something that will brutalize Asian doctors...then they'll have something to complain about.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Tywin, Swordfish,

The fact that this flight wasn't in fact "overbooked" appears to have greater significance that I thought.  Take a look at this article:

https://www.inc.com/cynthia-than/the-controversial-united-airlines-flight-was-not-overbooked-and-why-that-matters.html?cid=sf01002&sr_share=facebook

From the article:
 

Quote

Since the flight was not actually overbooked, but instead only fully booked, with the exact number of passengers as seats available, United Airlines had no legal right to force any passengers to give up their seats to prioritize others. What United did was give preference to their employees over people who had reserved confirmed seats, in violation of 14 CFR 250.2a. Since Dr. Dao was already seated, it was clear that his seat had already been "reserved" and "confirmed" to accommodate him specifically.

A United Airlines spokesperson said that since Dr. Dao refused to give up his seat and leave the plane voluntarily, airline employees "had to" call upon airport security to force him to comply. However, since the flight was not overbooked, United Airlines had no legal right to give his seat to another passenger. In United Airline's Contract of Service, they list the reasons that a passenger may be refused service, many of which are reasonable, such as "failure to pay" or lacking "proof of identity." Nowhere in the terms of service does United Airlines claim to have unilateral authority to refuse service to anyone, for any reason (which would be illegal anyway).

I think we now know why this was originally billed as "overbooking" it may be legally significant that this wasn't an "overbooked" flight.

 

[mormont]

31 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Nope. Why was security called? Because Dao refused to leave. 

OK. So in response to that refusal, they escalated. How is his initial refusal an 'escalation'?

If I ask you to do something and you say no, that's not an escalation, that's a reply. If I ask you to do something and you threaten me, or punch me, that's an escalation. It takes the exchange to a new level. Peacefully refusing to leave does not do that. It leaves the dispute at the level it was already at.

This was a contract dispute, that's all. Nobody was in danger from Dr Dao. There was no prospect of a riot breaking out. No danger to anyone present at all, until the airline decided that they would refuse to back down and that they would instead call security. Remember, it was the airline - nobody else - who insisted that the flight wouldn't take off until their crew got a seat. They weren't bound to do that, they chose to. They could have reconsidered, they could have de-escalated the situation. Instead they escalated by taking it to the level of using force.

31 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I've spoken out against police brutality multiple times on this forum when it's justified.

And yet on this occasion, it would appear you're doing the reverse.

[DunderMifflin]

17 hours ago, Swordfish said:

Indeed.  There is no ambiguity about whether they had the right to remove him.  They can remove just about anyone, at just about any time, for just about any reason. 

That doesnt mean everybody has to be ok with it. Regardless of what happens legally, the public at large is sending a message with their own rights here.

It should be pretty obvious that most people don't care about the condition of this guy here. Imo, It's more about the frustrations people have with airlines not being shy to enforce these rights they have over their customers.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

37 minutes ago, mormont said:

OK. So in response to that refusal, they escalated. How is his initial refusal an 'escalation'?

If I ask you to do something and you say no, that's not an escalation, that's a reply. If I ask you to do something and you threaten me, or punch me, that's an escalation. It takes the exchange to a new level. Peacefully refusing to leave does not do that. It leaves the dispute at the level it was already at.

The mistake here is that they were no longer asking him. They were telling him, and like it or not, they have the right to do that.

 

46 minutes ago, mormont said:

This was a contract dispute, that's all. Nobody was in danger from Dr Dao. There was no prospect of a riot breaking out. No danger to anyone present at all, until the airline decided that they would refuse to back down and that they would instead call security. Remember, it was the airline - nobody else - who insisted that the flight wouldn't take off until their crew got a seat. They weren't bound to do that, they chose to. They could have reconsidered, they could have de-escalated the situation. Instead they escalated by taking it to the level of using force.

Eh, it was an ignorant contract dispute. And yes, nobody was in any kind of danger, and you can call me callous, but he was wasting hundreds of people's time.

1 hour ago, mormont said:

And yet on this occasion, it would appear you're doing the reverse.

Not really, I'm just being realistic. 

Again, if this occurred in almost any other setting there would not have been such an uproar, but because everyone hates flying they're siding with Dao. 

 

[Fragile Bird]

Has anyone else seen a story that Dr. Dao was already on the phone to the law firm before the police arrived? I saw comments to articles from people saying he was talking to a lawyer while still on the plane.

I was also told by a friend that in the years Dr. Dao was exiled from medicine, he became a professional poker player. The idea that he was perhaps playing a hand when he refused to leave the plane occurs to a person. This would make a very entertaining trial, although I doubt we will see one, it will be settled instead.

[Ded As Ned]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The mistake here is that they were no longer asking him. They were telling him, and like it or not, they have the right to do that.

They likely did not have that right, see Scot's post above.

Eh, it was an ignorant contract dispute. And yes, nobody was in any kind of danger, and you can call me callous, but he was wasting hundreds of people's time.

I see it as the airline was wasting hundreds of people's time.  With surely a myriad other options available to them to get their crew to Louisville, they chose to hold up a full (not overbooked) flight, and then kick 4 people off the flight to accommodate their employees on a whim. Then when not enough (boarded and confirmed) passengers volunteered to disembark, they further wasted hundred of people's time and picked some at random.  One refused, so they removed him via [excessive, imo] force.  YMMV