re: United's dragged passenger hires high-powered Chicago personal injury lawyer

Well they have done the first step in this by having the CEO stop digging the hole deeper.

Next step is pay for the guy's injuries and negotiating a settlement which involves changes to the policy in question.

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This is not true...

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You keep saying this, but yes in fact it was. I'm familiar with United's contract of carriage as this past Holiday season my Aunt was denied boarding and ended up taking a flight going to George Bush as opposed to MSY. I went over their contract sitting at Chimes (I was already in BR from Laffy headed to MSY when she called) and she ended up getting $1348 in vouchers and compensation from UA after raising some hell at the counter when they only wanted to give her $1100 in credit ($1350 is the maximum allowable in the contract).

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All of this. Did United oversell the plane by selling all 70 seats when only 66 would be available due to 4 employees needing seats? Yes

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United themselves said it was not over sold

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Did United follow their protocol in their contract of carriage for oversold tickets? Yes

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United themselves said it was not over sold

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Did the passenger agree to these terms? Yes

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United themselves said it was not over sold

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Did terminal security and police have the right to remove a passenger who at this point was in violation of the terms he agreed to? Yes

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United themselves said it was not over sold

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I don't like the way United went about enforcing their oversold procedure as the 70 seats had already been booked and boarding had already begun when they noticed the problem

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United themselves said it was not over sold


I do agree dude getting bloodied is his own fault to an extent, but it should work out pretty well for him in the end $$$ - a hell of a lot better than an $800 voucher and stay in a cheap motel

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There will now have to be a new ad campaign just to counter all the meme and fake joke ads. Many of which are damned funny

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Still makes me .

That is from an eyewitness account posted on Reddit from one of the other 60-someodd passengers who made the flight.

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United doesn't have the Right to put their crew on the flight over paying customers

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There's been plenty of posters who say they do, and maybe those posters are correct, but I haven't seen any poster point out the provision that states they can do this, fwiw.

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The same people that typically defend the rights of owners are losing their minds over United handling their aircraft, how they wanted, and within their policies

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I'm one of those people. I typically defend the rights of owners, and am against United in this case on the count of being absolutely stupid(but I'm not pro-that guy).

Some people are making the point that what happened is either against the law or should be. Others are saying it's United's plane and they can do what they want with it.

I'm arguing the following:
1) The law doesn't matter
2) United has enough highly compensated executives to know well ahead of time that the law doesn't matter.

If you're United, you have to know the following, regardless of what some jerk-arse does on a flight.

1) Involuntarily denying boarding from a plane is an unfortunate consequence of an unpopular policy (even if it does provide benefits to last-second travelers).
2) Nearly 100% of all travelers have cell phones, and every phone produced in the last 10 years has a video camera
3) There have been repeated incidents in the past few years where police activity has resulted in national news exposure.
4) If your policy initially targets the lowest paying ticket holders on a flight for involuntary deboarding, there's a good chance these are the people least familiar with the fine print on a ticket.
5) If you are forced to call the police to have someone taken off of a plane, this will with 100% certainty make the national news.
6) Your voluntary denied boarding policy is less generous than other airlines, and with that being the case you would like for that to not become public knowledge.
7) If you are forced to defend an unpopular policy, this will only hurt you, regardless of legality.
8) If by coincidence the person denied boarding is a minority, this will with 100% certainty become part of the story.
9) If you remove 500+ people from airplanes per year enforcing an unfortunate (but legal) policy, the odds of getting through that without 1 person acting up are honestly pretty low.

The law doesn't matter when the United CEO is on a plane to Beijing apologizing rampantly to the world's most populous country and growth market because he didn't even offer cash to resolve a flight issue (by stupidly sticking with an $800 voucher offer on a 22 hour Sunday-to-Monday delay) - there's even news stories of a rival airline doing offering cash to resolve similar issues just 2 days before?

United seems to have gotten away with undercutting voluntary vouchers by $200/boarding for years (United offering $800, Delta offering $1000-$1200+ or so before initiating involuntary denied boarding). I know I didn't know that before this incident.

So, even after they appease the Chinese, pay this guy to keep this from cycling back to the front page of the news when the court case comes up, they're going to be stuck dropping an extra few million per year matching Delta/American on voluntary re-booking going forward.

All because they didn't think to offer enough cash to get 1 of 72 people (didn't even have to be that guy) off of a plane, knowing damn well that if they called in the police the odds of this making national news become astronomical.

As a customer, someone else getting screwed over by United may work out for me in the long run. But as someone who deals a little with PR, risk management, and finances at work - United is a bunch of dumb**ses with upper level management that's not worth their overinflated salaries.

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You keep saying this, but yes in fact it was.

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Maybe you'll believe united if you don't believe me?

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United spokesman Jonathan Guerin said Tuesday that all 70 seats on United Express Flight 3411 were filled, but the plane was not overbooked as the airline previously reported. Instead, United and regional affiliate Republic Airlines, which operated the flight, selected four passengers to be removed to accommodate crew members needed in Louisville the next day.

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LINK

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You keep saying this, but yes in fact it was.

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Which part of the contract?

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I'm familiar with United's contract of carriage as this past Holiday season my Aunt was denied boarding

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Why?

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Correct me if wrong, but these aren't vacationing United staff who are flyiing standby and bumping people. These are crew that are needed elsewhere. Delaying them causes a domino effect that touches hundreds of people on multiple flights.

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Since when is United's only option to get crew members from Chicago to Louisville on their own planned flight? Why is it so absurd that in a situation like this, United find another way such as something so simple as booking them on other airlines? Many of the airlines have agreements to work with each other on situations just like this.

United simply chose the first way, not the only way nor the easiest, and clearly won't be the cheapest way.

The fact is they should be liable for kicking off paidd customers to save themselves a little money.