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The airlines have every right to overbook. It is in their business plan, and the government can butt out.
However, arriving at a solution to an overbooking is the airline's problem, and the solution is NOT what happened here. United will pay dearly for their stupidity.
The solution to overbooking is a no refund policy on your tickets unless they sell them to someone else. Cant make your trip? Notify the airline to put your tickets back up for sale. If they do resell them, you get a refund. If not, no refund . The plane is full in terms of payed seats ( if it sold out ), and no excuse for overbooking.
Fine, then I'll bow out of the discussion, as I thought the issue was whether or not they have the full force of law behind them and the authority to "act as police would, with the resources of police, and to be obeyed as one is expected to respond to being given a police directive". Carry on then...
Do not misunderstand. I have no idea what Illinois law is...so I too am flying blind. However in a world I controlled the most highly trained and capable Police would be working in the air ports. One hopes Chicago understands the danger and the damage that could result from "Security Guards" in O'hare. Be like Las Vegas hiring security guards for the Strip. We could...but we would regret it.
The solution to overbooking is a no refund policy on your tickets unless they sell them to someone else. Cant make your trip? Notify the airline to put your tickets back up for sale. If they do resell them, you get a refund. If not, no refund . The plane is full in terms of payed seats ( if it sold out ), and no excuse for overbooking.
Tricky stuff. I would guess that over 5 or 6 million miles I flew on the initially planned ticket 20% of the time or less. On some occasions I would change the itinerary multiple times a day. I once did a NY to CA to London to Holland to NYC to NY in 72 hours with I think 9 or 10 different changes. End up losing my luggage as you would expect. This was truthfully damn the cost travel...not up to being able to charter a plane but up to that. But it is why you want to get to avoid getting too clever about hard itineraries. Some of us make a living on the birds and we need to be able to move things around as the events flow.
It is complicated Blondy. I would not bet either way. A cost regulatory trade off that may have union rules as well. Clearly if they had offered a sufficient price they could have gotten the volunteers. Get up to $5,000 and it would tempt me who would never volunteer for an overnight bump. And no they are not restricted to $1350. That is simply the most they must offer for 400% of the fare. They can offer anything they want above that.
Well that's something we will never know. You can say everyone has their price, but this was a pretty small flight......around 70 passengers I think. Take out the block of high school kids and their chaperone. Add in the length of time until the next flight they could take. Seemed to also be quite a few families with kids who probably wouldn't see hanging around a hotel/airport or taking kids out of school for that long as desirable. Pretty rapidly dwindling pool of people to volunteer.
Clearly they should have tried harder by raising the offer and if they didn't have the authority to do that gotten on the phone to a manager who did. They could have also made a personal plea to the passengers for someone to take the doctors place. Of course, he could have done the same.
The airlines have every right to overbook. It is in their business plan, and the government can butt out.
However, arriving at a solution to an overbooking is the airline's problem, and the solution is NOT what happened here. United will pay dearly for their stupidity.
This airline forfeited that right for the government to butt out when they called in airport security funded by tax dollars. They love purchasing politicians, they love writing regulations to crush their competition, they can therefore not cry foul when same said government crushes them.
Don't like it, throw the lobbyists out of DC
i also support consumers fighting back against them. It is the Capitalist Way
Millions in China are viewing the video with disgust.
Wonder how this will impact ticket sales on United's China routes.
Disgusting is understated. It doesn't matter what race the man is, it is outrageous. It could happen to anyone. Apparently, United has a track record of treating passengers like ****. The man should sue and sue big. Make this a warning to other airliners worldwide.
Is this "man forcibly removed from an overbooked flight" a convicted felon? The press has reported he is a convicted felon.
I don't want anyone thinking they can disobeying airline staff. I don't side with this rude passenger in any way based on what I have read.
His lawyer seemed to confirm that in the press conference he held today.
I'm paraphrasing, but he said something like.....Yes, He's 69 years old and has had some bumps in the road.
He went on to say, and again, I'm paraphrasing, that according to the law it was not relevant or not the story due to the remoteness in time. As well as in a jury trial, jury would be instructed to disregard that info.
His lawyer seemed to confirm that in the press conference he held today.
I'm paraphrasing, but he said something like.....Yes, He's 69 years old and has had some bumps in the road.
He went on to say, and again, I'm paraphrasing, that according to the law it was not relevant or not the story due to the remoteness in time. As well as in a jury trial, jury would be instructed to disregard that info.
It's still funny though. Almost as funny as saying selling narcotics for sex is a "bump" in the road.
While I agree he should sue I think about 50K is more than enough. I suspect he will get more. He won the lotto and ended up with just a few bruises.
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