United Airlines....PR disaster

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4396986/Passengers-film-moment-police-drag-man-United-plane.html

They'll face a massive backlash and no doubt a law suit after this.

They need some training.....

Topdawg wrote:They need some training.....

I thought they dragged him off pretty well

Topdawg wrote:They need some training.....

The Police officers definitely need some training, but to randomly select 4 passengers to be removed form a flight, to allow flights attendants to 'dead-head'...is all wrong.

Apparently, their procedures say they have to offer more money first or maybe choose a different passenger after he refused. The 'officer' has been suspended by the airport.

Simon Calder says that it was the passenger that broke the law and not the airline. If the captain says someone can't fly, they have to conform. Sorry, but that's bullshit.

Under the Air Navigation Order (ANO) there are rules about smoking, refusing to obey the crews requests, one that states

"all passenger must obey the lawful commands of the Captain"

....so yes, in theory, you could say he broke the rules...but that's not the point.

They should have simply offered more money until a passenger decided that was enough to get off, stay in a hotel, get the next flight and get $2000 or more. Simple economics.

It's not the passengers fault he was selected 'randomly'...

I bet you one thing, if they needed a Doctor on the flight for an in-flight medical emergency, I bet he would have come forward to help.

It should never have gotten to that stage anyway, most airlines turn passengers away when they know it's overbooked don't they? They sell the tickets, it's all on a computerised system, how the hell can they screw it up then physically eject and i would go as far as saying, assault a fare paying customer who by law has a contract with the airline when they took his money in exchange for goods received, i.e. a ticket for his seat.
I hope he sues the arse off the airline and the security guys, that will send out a clear message that this is not acceptable.

Totally agree MCM.

Many airlines will sell tickets to the point they are overbooked - knowing they will have travellers not turn up, mainly on scheduled carriers. It's a strategy that's been going on for years.
I used to travel between Manchester and Gatwick every week with BA (when that route was open) and on a Friday, I knew they'd be offering £200-400 to passengers to be off-loaded, a night in a hotel and the first flight back on a Saturday morning.
I always took it whenever I could.

On this occasion, it's clearly a scheduling problem, as they had 4 flight attendants needing to be 'dead-headed' to the destination so they could operate another flight, probably due to an aircraft going tech, that crew out of hours etc.....so they randomly chose 4 passengers after asking for volunteers. The fact they couldn't get all 4 paxs to volunteer, meant they have a criteria that goes through a process of identifying paxs who probably travel less frequently with the airline, who didn't check in online and booked their seat, but turned up at the airport and used their check-in desks, all of which identified this doctor as being one of them....but that still doesn't mean to say they handled it effectively.

They could have simply said "$1000?"...."$1500?"....last offer $2000"....somebody would have taken it and it wouldn't have meant a law suit or 20x that money being spent on media handling intervention, which is clearly happening now.

As for the Police....an utter disgrace and hope that officer gets sacked with immediate effect.

They offered some money and no one went for it. Then they offered 800 bucks. Then they selected random passengers (randomly selecting husband and wife). Apparently, they could have gone as high as 1350 bucks and I reckon someone would have volunteered at that offer. 
United's CEO has commended the staff...

Yeah, Munuz is a notorious prick.

But he just eon an award for 'communicator of the year'!!!

There is a term in their contract that allows them to boot you off. But normally they wouldn't let you board the plane before kicking you off.

Airlines should be severely punished so that they don't fuck around with passengers. Most don't give a shit about their customers

Topdawg wrote:There is a term in their contract that allows them to boot you off. But normally they wouldn't let you board the plane before kicking you off.

That's true, but rather than 'boot' your fare paying passengers off the aircraft, or drag even, they also have a duty of care to their passengers once on board - which clearly was violated in this case.

I get the fact it wasn't a United employee who dragged him off and assaulted him, it was an airport security employee....but to let it get to that point means it was poorly handled by the airline staff and then by their CEO, shifting the blame from them, to the passenger and now the airport staff.

I'll be shocked if they don't lose millions in revenue because of this. The Chinese community is already up in arms over this as people thought he was Chinese (not Vietnamese as it turned out)

Turns out the doctor was 69 years old. And the police said he 'fell'

Video evidence suggest otherwise...more back-covering gone wrong. As I said..PR disaster.

should've just taken off, booted him out in mid air & said he should have kept his seatbelt fastened. Simples!!!!!


In all honesty how bad a pr disaster is that for the airline. They would be getting a big law suit from me that's for sure.

Oh they are doing Oz......it's reckoned they've lost in the region of $80m in share degradation, plus at least a $10m law suit coming the way of them and the O'Hare Airport Authority.

All for not going above the $800 they offered.

To put it into perspective for those that have ridiculed this event and the Dr, personally....

United Airlines overbooked their flight seats in 2016 by nearly 63,000. Of those, 3765 refused to get off their aircraft.

In the USA....nearly 475,100 flights were overbooked by US carriers in 2016. They again off-loaded many, but 40,629 passengers refused to get off the plane's in question.

Yet, out of that many passengers refusing to leave an aircraft on a stand, after paying for their ticket with those airlines and getting to the aircraft on time...not one, not a single one, had their head smacked into an armrest of their seat, losing 2 teeth and dragged from their seat causing a broken nose....then dragged by their hands to the front exit door down the aisle....

And then the airline's CEO calls this guy 'belligerent'....

They'll get what's coming their way....$$$$$$$$ law suit. As for the security officer, he needs arresting for an 'aggravated assault' charge.

United have one of the worse customer service records in the USA....they're awful to fly with. It's a long time coming and about time the airline industry gets back to what it did best...provide a great customer experience....unlike the profit-making shite that's on offer these days - a la British Airways as an example.

Haven't flown BA for many years now. At least Air France make up for their OTT prices with better service.

Flown AF several times in the last year....and they're nowhere near what they used to be.

Charter company's like Thomson now provide the best service in the UK.....they've realised that there is a gap in the market when it comes to CS.

Haven't flown AF for a few years now. My wife says they've gone downhill too now that they're chasing seats.

tbh, I don't really fly that much now. I drive back to the UK 5 or 6 times a year instead of flying and we may take 1-2 big holidays a year and we go with Emirates now.