Awesome stuff you see on the internet
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@Duluth said in Awesome stuff you see on the internet:
'Aviation security officers' (airport police I assume?) but they aren't part of United
Generally airport security are contractors like security at a rugby game (correct that they aren't likely to be part of United - I think that they are paid for by the airport authority / company). Police will be at the airport but are separate, wouldn't normally be involved in something like this (from my experience anyway). Probably just as well as they might have shot him...(a bit cynical I know)
This made me snigger:
"After losing my job as head of ad content for Pepsi, I have to say my 1st day running customer services for United Airlines has been lively." -
Looking beyond the rights or wrongs of kicking paying passengers off overbooked flights or the idea that United should have sorted out things before boarding, what exactly should have United done in this situation? What would you have done in this situation?
My understanding is United asked for volunteers but didn't get any. Then they 'randomly' picked four passengers. Three of those four passengers got off the plane. The good doctor refused. There was no way in hell he was getting off and there was no way, for whatever reason, that United were going to fly that plane without their extra staff members on board.
Would you have cancelled the flight, or would you have made an announcement to the other passengers that because the gentleman was refusing to get off the plane the flight would be delayed for an indefinite period until old matey got off the plane (using peer pressure to get him to move) and then chased him through the civil courts for damages? Would you have picked another poor bastard at random and hoped they got off without fuss?
This Dr fucker is going to get a lot of money out of this and it bugs me because he contributed to what happened in a big way. Bottom line is, he was told to get off a plane and he refused to do so. Now he is playing the victim.
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@canefan said in Awesome stuff you see on the internet:
It was the perfect storm but he bought his ticket, he was asked to board, he wanted to get home. Argue or not you can't assault the guy. The onus is on the airline to sort their systems out, offer more until someone leaves willingly and get their staff some training in crisis management. It would have been cheaper to have offered a free all expenses paid trip to Cancun the Bahamas or Hawaii than the cost to the share price and the reputation of the company
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@canefan assume there would have been penalties form the FAA for missing take off time too, those numbers would have been significant, and less than offering several free business class flights, but not as bad as it has turned out.
Is odd that no one chose to volunteer, the perks of being bumped are usually pretty good, although in this case, the perks of being thumped will be excellent, once the bruises heal.
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Just badly handled all around. As was mentioned above United could have made a PA to everybody on board with an offer that someone would take. Forcibly removing a passenger was always going to end in this shit fight.
WRT to overbooking - every airline that I have worked for does statistical analysis of the route / city pairs and calculates no show rates to determine how many extra seats to sell. This inevitably means that on the odd occasion when everyone shows up you have to give things away to rectify it. Once again a cost analysis is done to make it as efficient for them as possibble. Hard to quantify the publicity cost of dragging a doctor off a plane though.
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@jegga said in Awesome stuff you see on the internet:
Weren't they getting bumped for united staff? The staff should be waiting for a flight with spare seats surely?
They are in the business of transporting passengers so you'd think so..... IIRC they were needed to fly another plane
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@canefan maybe the crew were required to make the return journey? But yeah, as @Snowy says, poorly handled all round.
Always remember when I first flew form NZ - UK via Singapore (on Singapore and AirNZ) in 1999 the plane was well over half empty, I had rows and rows of seats to choose from, moved about freely, was awesome, wonder if they made any money on the flight (both legs were the same)
Never had such an empty plane again!
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@jegga said in Awesome stuff you see on the internet:
Weren't they getting bumped for united staff? The staff should be waiting for a flight with spare seats surely?
Nah. Has a knock on effect for the whole route structure if operating staff aren't where they are supposed to be. Could end up with thousands of passengers affected, not just one doctor. They must have needed them somewhere else. Normally those seats would have been allocated if it was a regular staff movement but it could have been due to a disruption (maintenance, weather, whatever).
Airline staff on personal travel are at the bottom of the heap if that is what you meant? I.E on standby?
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@jegga There are a few different reports on the status of the crew as well. Some actually said they were "off duty" but that doesn't mean that they weren't positioning to start a duty. Have also read that it was "police" that removed the pax which is very unlikely.
Fake news? Alternative facts? Just shit journalism I suspect.
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@jegga I was in NIce flying back to Heathrow and the BA flight we were due on ended up delayed several hours as a few of the crew had been delayed elsewhere and was no one to fly it apparently...so we got free food and beverages for a few extra hours at Nice airport.
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@Snowy I saw somewhere they were some sort of police specific to the airport like the New York subway has the transit cops . Fortunately they aren't armed .
Found it
3 Things to Know About the Officers in the United Airlines Fiasco
The 300-member unarmed airport police force is facing national scrutiny after officers dragged a passenger off a United flight.
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The earlier flight the crew were meant to use was cancelled - a common occurence in the USA from my experience.
United thought their minimum $800 offer would be enough to get 4 people to give up their seats. It wasn't. BTW, you are entitled to cash as well, not vouchers.
I used to fly in and out of O'Hare a lot and I always found their security staff to be over-officious.
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