I want a job with United, I think I would be very good at choosing who has to be kicked off the plane.
He did nothing wrong. Why does he deserve to get dragged from a plane because United screwed up their business? And some patients prefer to stick with a doctor who they have built a relationship with. Not every patient is comfortable being passed around. I don't really blame the air marshalls. United put them in a lose/lose situation. United should be the one to take the blame.
A certain carrier at love field has free seat changes because their IT system can't handle charging fees for them. It's one of their best features by far though... in terms of choosing, I'd pick that Malaysian airline.
I'm not sure why you're being so hard on the guy who did nothing wrong but win the lottery he didn't sign up for.
Why are people saying he will be wealthy? When you buy a ticket you are agreeing that you can be removed from the flight. When you resist law enforcement they tend to beat you up. The captain can remove you from a flight if he doesn't like the way you look at him.
His goal was to force some other peon to be inconvenienced after he was randomly chosen. me first, F you.
While that may be the case, using violence to get your way sets an ugly precedent, and has no place in a civil society. There were plenty of ways to get him (or anyone else) off the plane, and it starts with money. United started the selfishness first by overbooking their flight in the first place.
There's always that one poster. I guess it's going to be you today: "Dude deserves to be mauled by goons. Got what he was asking for." The dude's a doctor with patients to tend. Now, if it had been me (and certainly my wife: "How much? Let's go!"), I can see taking that United money and donating to my favorite charity (us). In this case? I hope United takes a severe beating. Some things you just don't allow. Trump's America. A good time to be law enforcement. Middle-aged weiner won't move? F***ing make him move, amirite?
that was the air marshalls. Good luck with a lawsuit against them. me first isn't a society. overbooking is how airlines work because customers like cheaper tickets and the ability to cancel without a fee. I seriously hope he doesn't win a lawsuit for throwing a sit down toddler tantrum.
Apparently they tried to kick a lady off before the doctor. Another passenger just uploaded more video: Spoiler
United set the events into motion in the first place, though. The Air Marshals were doing what they were asked to do, but it was United who asked them to do it. Taking the very cognizant step of escalating things from a negotiation into violence certainly has no place in a civil society, whether it's a selfish one or not. I understand how airlines work, and I understand why they overbook, but it can't be denied that it's a selfish approach to the business that leads to problems like this one. But, in the past, they simply found a price that worked for the customer, and moved on. This was over the top, and completely unnecessary.
United's voluntary removal process has always been awful. Their volunteer compensation has always been in the form of vouchers for future united flights which isn't worth much if you aren't going to travel or can't travel on United. For comparison, I was on a Delta flight to Montreal that had a similar overbooking issue. Delta kept raising the possible voluntary compensation (I remember it hit around 700 dollars in the form of a Delta certificate). However, unlike United, the Delta agent realized that no one was going to bite on a certificate and switched to offering a check. She eventually hit $1000 cash and a ticket on a flight the next day (in first class no less) and someone eventually bit. They also did that whole process BEFORE boarding. That to me is my problem. United had no business boarding the plane until they resolved the seat assignment issues. And if you're going to have to pull people off the plane after boarding, they shouldve just kept increasing the bid price over the speaker even if it meant going over the FAA mandated involuntary boarding compensation. Delta recently melted down in Atlanta and were getting killed in the press for cancellations and United comes in and bails them out by shifting the focus back to United.
Not to mention that they rarely, if ever, let everybody board the plane... THEN start kicking people off who've already boarded. The whole thing reeks of something "last second" that required them to make special accommodations for their pilots, likely because of possibly dropping the ball elsewhere. Should be a pretty clear-cut investigation. "Why did the pilots have to go on that flight at the last second?" "Why wasn't the possible monetary reimbursement raised to a level where more people would be interested?" "To what level do you consider 'appropriate force' when removing somebody from a plane?" Why will there be a settlement to make this go away, when technically nobody is in the wrong (by the letter of the law)?... because this looks like a cluster-**** from a PR standpoint, and will continue to look like a cluster-**** till its settled. Absolutely nobody is taking the side of the airlines, minus the one random "that guy" poster.... even though overbooking and bumping has been going on since the dawn of the airlines industry. Of course, the next move towards an authoritarian state will be "no cell phones allowed at all... because you may video what just happened, and now it will go viral in less than 24 hours thanks to social media..."
CNBC referred to the Dr. as a "nut job" this morning in the most vile and pathetic tribal suck-up to corporate money I can recall.
