United volunteers to kick people off plane

The location of the incident doesn't determine liability, unless the location was some kind of hazard that played a central role in the incident.

It's the fact that United created the scenario wherein the man was injured and/or grievanced in some way.

There's several questions that go into that.

1) Did United follow the law/procotols in re-assigning the passenger?

2) Did United make a reasonable effort to avoid having to re-assign the passenger?

Etc etc.

#1 is murky. #2 is where United will take it up the butt if they ever let this go to a civil trial.

 

New Video Emerges of the Moments Before Doctor Was Dragged Off United Plane

https://www.yahoo.com/news/video-emerges-moments-doctor-dragged-154700153.html?soc_src=community&soc_trk=fb

 

Wow, so that unequivocally shows he was asking for it. I was already a bit uneasy based on what he was wearing, but come on now. He definitely was asking to be beaten and bludgeoned. Well, nothing more to see here, United was just doing what is best for their customers.

 

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-live-stream-david-dao-presser-20170413-story.html

United passenger lost 2 teeth and got concussion and broken nose, attorney says

Damn man. They really messed that guy up!

 

He gets to sue United and the city of Chicago.

 

No straw man, I think...

 

Exactly. My post was somewhere between a bad joke and sarcasm.

 

I mean, you did question his bizarre behavior. You also questioned if he had a concussion. Others have thought he may suffer from mental illness. I think the evidence shows he was a perfectly rational thinking adult before being dragged out of his seat and bloodied which led to his behavior afterwards.

 

I took your post as a sarcastically Flavored false representation (strawman) of a defense of United Airlines (which I wasn't offering).

Is that incorrect?

 

I guess it could be seen that way. It was more of mocking that viewpoint, not to win the argument, but to just be an *******/troll. I'm not always purpose driven, sometimes I'm just a dick.

 

I don't know why you think that's murky. Everyone who works in the industry knows they screwed up. I was saying they broke protocol before United admitted that they didn't oversell because it was obvious. They lied and they lied repeatedly until people who had an understanding of how the FAA rules on involuntary bumps (and United's own CoC) worked. Now they finally admitted that they didn't oversell the flight.

Non-Revenue passengers DO NOT count as sold bookings. Just because you ticket a staff member and confirm their booking does not mean that it counts towards sold bookings. You could even give a non-rev passenger a seat assignment and it still wouldn't matter Non-revenue ticketing is actually a distinct process and function within a reservation system and that's by design. They're not the same as paying passengers. In this case, not only were the four passengers non-revenue but they didn't even have seat assignments. The gate agent did the legal thing and boarded the plane because anyone with a brain knew that you couldn't involuntary bump four passengers in this situation. They could only hold an auction and try and get four people to voluntarily accept a later flight.

As a country, we have accepted fewer passenger rights and poorer service in exchange for lower prices. And its a tradeoff that I'm largely in favor of as air travel has never been more affordable in our country's history. But in this case, there were clear and explicit rules that UA didn't follow. The FAA rules on voluntary and involuntary re-assignment of a passenger are a response to a Ralph Nader Supreme Court case where the courts ruled that airlines must have a process when bumping passengers. And the Supreme Court case (and subsequent FAA rules) were explicitly about overselling flights. Note the term sale. That term comes from the courts because Nader's complaints revolved around the sale of a flight and being bumped. UA didn't have an overbooked flight. They're never going to win the idea that non-revenue passengers count in that equation.

Lastly, I'm not making the argument that UA can't remove seated passengers. I actually think an airline can probably do that provided it meets the requirements of the contract with the passenger (even though in my opinion they shouldn't be allowed to). Airlines generally operate around the idea of lifting passengers. "Lift" starts when the doors close. Until then, sitting on a plane is no different from sitting in the terminal. The plane door is still open and connected to the jetbridge and as such, the airline is free to modify seat assignments. I've personally been upgraded after being seated because of a no show. Seat assignments change all the time after boarding.

I'm pretty sure UA will settle this. They can't win and attempting to win will just make them look even worse than they already do.

 

It's so funny to me how everyone is so eager to push each other to opposite corners in this discussion. 100% with Dr. Dao, or 100% with United. Pick your side. FIGHT!

Because I'm hesitant to take anybody's word on it (no offense or anything). Beyond that, what actually transpired, and how it transpired, has been developing and unraveling over time, so I'm hesitant to jump to conclusions there, and even more hesitant to take those conclusions and base them on random people's understand of FAA rules and so forth. It's just a really complicated and evolving situation, regardless of what the Twitter warriors may think based on a CEO apology, or whatever else. If you are privvy to exactly what happened, and are also privvy to the rules (you seem very knowledgeable on it for sure), then I salute you. I'm sure that truth and common understanding will find its way to the surface soon enough.

As for UA lying -- did they ever actually claim that the flight was overbooked, or did the reporters/writers just assume that? I know they said Dr. Dao was "belligerent" and that wasn't actually the case until he was being detained, so it's a half-truth at best. This stuff gets confusing to follow.

 

They did lie. Here's UA's original statement.

 

While most situations are full of gray areas, I don't really see one in this situation. United was wrong to force any passenger off the plane. Dao decided to stand up for his rights and was assaulted for it. What did Dao do wrong?

 

If United broke the law/protocol and had no right to remove Dr. Dao, then he did nothing 'wrong'.

I personally think it was maybe... suboptimal to choose to get into a full blown fight on a crowded airplane with 3 quasi-police officers, but it wasn't 'wrong'.

Now, of course it's highly unlikely Dr. Dao knew the law/protocol, especially since UA apparently wasn't honest about the situation from the get-go.

On the same note, the security folks probably couldn't have known the situation or protocol either, so I'm not sure what degree I can hold it against them either.

 

I was trying to figure out why this thread has gotten to 38 pages when the answer dawned on me. Some folks are attempting to defend the airline and have made insulting remarks about the poor guy who, I hope, is going to get a large number of $$ for United's idiocy. Go figure.

 

analysis of how badly United and the media got this story wrong:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/04/united-passenger-removal-reporting-management-fail.html

https://ethicsalarms.com/2017/04/13...on-the-united-flight-3411-ethics-train-wreck/

and legally wrong:

http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2017/04/united-airlines-own-contract-denied-it.html

 

So......

Any idea on how much money he'll get?