Hilarious to see those still arguing vehemently for united when united themselves realizes how idiotic that looks. But, it makes sense since I doubt the most frequent dissenting posters (BTG) here know much about running a business... since they spend all day on a basketball internet bbs posting some major drivel.
CLEARLY you are wrong as pointed out by multiple people. It wasn't an overbooking as United confirmed. They had no right to kick out any passengers to fit their employees into the flight at last minute. All they could do was have volunteers.
yes but if he got off, then he would be obliging and volunteering to do so and there would be no terms of suing them.
Ha. Since 1999 (really 1996). I'm also not the one continuing to try and argue for the airlines when the airlines themselves admitted fault.
They're altering their story to fit PR needs, if there were open seats, he wouldn't have been asked to leave the plane. There were no seats, which would mean there was an overbooking, yes even their own staff is part of the booking process. This concept is fairly easy to grasp.
That's not the part that was wrong. The part that was wrong is the "They can boot you whenever they want to, no matter what". This was not even an overbooking situation, and none of the reasons given in their own contract of carriage (I will leave aside whether all of its provisions should be enforceable in the first place or unduly disadvantage the consumer) apply.
Rules only apply in an oversold situation. United admits it wasn't oversold, hence they were wrong, and have admitted as much to avoid implicating themselves further.
No, you wouldn't be because you didn't volunteer, you were forced off of the flight by flight staff against your wishes. Now, it's very possible that there wouldn't be super solid grounds to sue anyway, so I'd likely just take my compensation package and never fly that airline again, but I wouldn't look like a jackass being drug off a plane like a petulant 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum in a grocery store.....so there's that. The multiple felon and all around creep on the other hand opted to look like a jackass and will likely profit off of being a terrible person just like he did when he was accepting sexual favors in lieu of payment while dealing drugs.
So I would call this part of your post busted. United does not define "boarding" in its contract, but an airline representative told Business Insider that boarding refers to any period before the plane physically takes off. So you can be told to leave the plane at any point before liftoff
An aviation attorney disagrees with you: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2017/04/11/aviation-attorney-on-united/#.WOzFWNSm3SE.twitter
Also, to those who assume the guy was massively belligerent before he was dragged out, this is not what this video shows:
I don't see anything there about when boarding takes place he just gave an opinion about pulling him off. I think what was said about this not being a denied boarding is wrong based on the articles I read and one I linked.
Him being or not being belligerent is irrelevant, him being non-compliant is all that matters. Honestly they just got unlucky that they picked a person with serious interpersonal problems, if they picked a normal person instead there wouldn't have been a problem.
Yes, you can argue that it was still a denied boarding because the door was not closed and the plane therefore not in flight. One could also argue against that. But that still doesn't give them the right to forcibly remove someone from the flight with that degree of violence.
The only reason they're admitting it's their fault now because they're losing money. It's all about money.
Because if you do that then people get pissed off that you think what they have to do is less important than what the randomly selected person has to do and you might end up with the same situation only now you can't say that you randomly selected people anymore. I'm sure they didn't think that they were picking an emotionally unstable felon when they started out.
