re: OT - United Airlines situation

Just another story about a bunch of jerks.

The airline practice of removing passengers already in their seats is awful.

The guy asking the officers present to remove him "to just kill him" is awful.

The airline was in the right for the removal.
4 crewmembers in Louisville equates to another flight that will not take off if 4 passengers on this flight didn't leave. Flying sucks to begin with. But not flying because the crew is in Chicago is even worse.

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The airline practice of removing passengers already in their seats is awful.

The guy asking the officers present to remove him "to just kill him" is awful.

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Accurate

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The airline was in the right for the removal.

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Maybe "within their rights"... but in the right implies that the move wasn't a mistake. Removing paying passengers to board a non-rev passenger is beyond ridiculous... Given that it's only 4-4.5 hours to drive from Chicago to Louisville, they would have been better to offer those crew members overtime and ask that they drive (or hire someone to drive them).

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4 crewmembers in Louisville equates to another flight that will not take off if 4 passengers on this flight didn't leave. Flying sucks to begin with. But not flying because the crew is in Chicago is even worse.

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Also, this implies that there was no feasible way to get additional staff in Louisville which simply isn't the case.

I think this is all karma for them cancelling my flight to Europe last september and then losing our luggage in the process of rerouting us.

I saw this coming.

United Airlines stock nose dives

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And you might not be concerned with a 5 hour delay for that next flight, but the airline takes delays seriously. Lost revenue is always serious.

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How would it lead to a 5 hour delay?

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And you might not be concerned with a 5 hour delay for that next flight, but the airline takes delays seriously. Lost revenue is always serious.

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That flight was for the next day, they were not immediately landing and manning a flight. At least, that is, according to the report that I read.

I understand about the quandary that United was in; I run a business that is predicated upon timely delivery of goods and services. However, there's a good way to handle things and a bad way to handle things. Then, there's how United chose to handle things. When me or my employees travel for business, we normally go with the cheapest flight that fits our needs. We will not be flying United anymore.

It's not a 30 minute flight, but I get your point.

I'm sure United had every reason to want to get their crew to Louisville. It's the execution that has people mortified.

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Maybe "within their rights"... but in the right implies that the move wasn't a mistake. Removing paying passengers to board a non-rev passenger is beyond ridiculous... Given that it's only 4-4.5 hours to drive from Chicago to Louisville, they would have been better to offer those crew members overtime and ask that they drive (or hire someone to drive them).

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Ok. I've been in this discussion over on the Poli board. I retired for a major airline after working, well, a long time. A ticket is considered a contract. The contract states (In the small print on the ticket) that an airline is required to get a passenger from point "A" to point "B" in a one year time frame.

A lot of the rest is all guessing, since we don't know all the details.

They were not non-rev passengers...as such. meaning, they were not going on vacation. They were going to take another airplane, in which the crew had run out of hours. (You are allowed to fly in the air for a limited number of hours each month. Once those hours are met, you are done. Per government regs.)
Why didn't they drive 4 1/2 hours? because you have an airplane full of passengers waiting, and then another set of passengers waiting on the airplane at its destination and so on. One flight running late causes a chain reaction all the way down the line. It could possibly impact hundreds or even thousands of passengers.

Now. the reason airlines overbook. Passengers (Typically businessmen) will book three or four flights in a single day going to the same destination. tehy are in meetings and are not sure when those meetings will end. If they make the first or second flight, they don't bother cancelling their other reservations. I have seen flights overbooked by as many as 10-15 passengers go out with 11 empty seats. This is a HUGE loss of revenue when you multiply it across several thousand flights a day. (Granted not all flights are this bad, but this was not an exaggerated example, either)

It doesn't appear, from the story that this was a case of overbooking, though. I saw where a passenger said this, and I think the media just ran with it. Maybe it was, maybe it was not...but it appears as if United had an emergency in which they needed to get the crew members to the destination quickly. Normally, if this happens the airline will attempt to book the inconvenienced passengers on another flight...even a competitor, so I have to think there were no more flights that day.

Could it have been handled better? Yes.
I am not defending how the situation was handled, and I am certainly not defending United. I am just trying to clarify some misunderstandings about what could and could not be done.

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We pay less because they are allowed to use fraud as a business model. Any other business that attempted to sell things that it did not actually have would face serious criminal and civil liability.

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I am guessing you have never ordered anything from a store and it was "Out of stock"?

The carriage contract says they have a one year period of time to get the passenger from point "A" to point "B". I realize this seems stupid, but that is what it is.

I wonder if United's agent made it clear that this was an IDB situation and what $$ would be given to whoever was pulled off?