NPR reports
Passengers on a United Express flight from Chicago to Louisville, Ky., were horrified when a man was forcibly removed--violently wrenched from his seat and physically dragged down the aisle. [...] Videos of the scene have prompted calls to boycott United Airlines.
[...] The Chicago Department of Aviation [...] says the actions of the security officers were "not condoned by the Department" and that one individual has been placed on leave pending a review.
[...] Passengers had already boarded on Sunday evening [April 10] at O'Hare International Airport when United asked for volunteers to take another flight the next day to make room for four United staff members who needed seats.
The airline offered $400 and a free hotel, passenger Audra D. Bridges told the Louisville Courier-Journal. When no one volunteered, the offer was doubled to $800. When there were still no bites, the airline selected four passengers to leave the flight--including the man in the video and his wife.
"They told him he had been selected randomly to be taken off the flight", Bridges said.
[...] The man said he was a doctor and that he "needed to work at the hospital the next day", passenger Jayse D. Anspach said.
[...] Both Bridges and Anspach posted videos of three security officers, who appear to be wearing the uniforms of Chicago aviation police, wrenching the man out of his seat, prompting wails. His face appeared to strike an armrest. Then they dragged his limp body down the aisle.
Footage shows the man was bleeding from the mouth as they dragged him away. His glasses were askew and his shirt was riding up over his belly.
"It looked like he was knocked out, because he went limp and quiet and they dragged him out of the plane like a rag doll", Anspach wrote.
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(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:03PM (10 children)
The flight wasn't actually overbooked. United had four employees that they needed to get to Louisville so they bounced four passengers to accommodate their own people.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:19PM (1 child)
Just when you think it can't get any worse. Probably 2 billion people worldwide have heard of this incident. It's starting to look like a PR case study.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @06:06PM
Royal Jordanian has already taken the chance [independent.co.uk] to stomp on United Airlines by tweeting that "We are here to keep you united" and “Dragging is strictly prohibited”.
I think the company might get a new name: United Thuglines
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:28PM (3 children)
This must be reinforced: the flight was NOT overbooked. It was fully booked, the customers were boarded and seated. At that point, four United crew came along wanting to board, claiming to need to get to the destination city for a flight the next day. Either they were making it up or it was some really shitty logistics on United's part -- if they really had crew that they needed to shuttle forward, they should have known that well before the passengers were boarded and could have kept four seats clear by bumping passengers.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:38PM (2 children)
Parsing words doesn't change the facts. United sold more tickets than they were able to accomdate. United knew, or should have known, days in advance, that their staff would require 4 seats on that flight, and those 4 seats should NOT HAVE BEEN SOLD!!
This is, indeed, yet another case of overbooking their flights. Ticket sold, seat not available at takeoff, OVERBOOKED!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @06:53PM
That's not "parsing words", that's calling bullshit on misreporting. United is trying to play the "overbooked" card and a lot of the media is repeating it, but if it were true then they would have turned away passengers before letting them on the plane. The passengers were boarded. They were in their seats. If the flight was overbooked, just enough people showed up for that not to matter. Until the four United staff showed up and demanded seats.
BINGO! Now you're getting it.
The fact that their staff showed up at the last second and demanded accommodation means that either they were full of sh!t about their need to board or United has really sh!t logistics. Either way, they had no good excuse to force paying passengers to remove themselves, never mind the assault.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:52PM
It's an important distinction here. There are rules about what they can and can't do and being denied boarding due to being overbooked is legally very different from what happened. My guess is that UA is going to be hit with a sizable lawsuit due to how they held this. They'll be on the hook for his injuries as well as any losses from his practice incurred due to their violating the terms of the contract they wrote.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:44PM (3 children)
Those four crew could have flown, 45 minutes, or driven 4 hours. The result of coercing a doctor to volunteer to be re-accomodated, resulted in a 2 hour delay. So that is 2 hours and 45 minutes. Maybe the United crew should have just driven.
What happened here is that United is unwilling to pay the true cost of transporting its crew.
Different travelers value their missed flight differently. If I am going to Disney World, then $800 plus free overnight hotel might not be quite enough. One park day pass $130 ish, or $172 for park hopper. One night missed at resort about $200 ish for moderate resorts. Plus one day of vacation.
For some travelers the cost of a missed flight might be a missed family event (wedding, funeral, or combination wedding/funeral). It might mean a missed business contract.
For some travelers, say going on a cruise, if you miss your flight and don't get to the cruise on time, you've missed the entire vacation. The cost of the entire cruise.
I realize this is now an overbooking situation. But United was using the normal procedure for overbooking. Effectively treating this as over booking. If a football stadium or theater owner sold more tickets than they had seats, they would be in jail. But airlines bribed congress to allow them to over book. (Or involuntarily bump passengers with "compensation".) The problem is that the compensation may be out of touch with what it costs the bumped traveler.
Maybe the airline should be required to effectively auction for a volunteer. Anyone want to get off for $1,000? Anyone for $1,200? Anyone for $1,400? If you remain seated hoping for more money, you risk that someone else will volunteer at any point. So it seems like a system that would be fair. If nobody volunteers until they reach some absurdly high price, then that is the true market value those people place on being bumped. If someone jumps for only $800, then great.
I later read that four high school students later got off the plane because they were traumatized from the bloodied doctor who was kindly "reaccomodated" by the police. So now there were more open seats. And the doctor got to fly after being beaten up, er, I mean reaccomodated. And I'm sure those four students didn't get any benefits or perks for getting off the plane.
Let's not forget: United Breaks Guitars.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:47PM
Meant to say: I realize this is NOT an overbooking situation
Ugh!
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:16PM
...and, for the $3200 they were offering, I'm betting that the airline could have found someone with a private plane who would have ferried the 4 employees the 300 miles.
I'm also betting that this wouldn't have happened with Southwest, where the employees are empowered to make customers happy.
Note also that before becoming United's CEO, the current chump had no previous experience running a service-providing outfit.
His prior gigs were with outfits that manufacture sugar-water and he happened to be on the airline's board of directors when the sitting CEO bailed out before he could be kicked out.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by SDRefugee on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:50PM
AND the trouble is, today, when you get bumped, you don't get COLD HARD CASH via airline check or greenbacks, you get a fucking voucher for future travel ON THAT AIRLINE... I suppose that would tolerable for somebody who flies a LOT, but for people like me who have flown ONCE in the last 15 years on my own dime, that "voucher" is worthless to me, UNLESS its able to be sold.. then who knows.... Back in the 80s, a friend and I flew from San Diego to Las Vegas over a weekend. On the way back, the plane was overbooked. They offered getting volunteers on the next flight and a $300 payment. I leaped at the chance, but my friend was worried he'd be stuck overnight.. I took the offer, got a check handed to me at the gate checkin counter for $300 and got put on a flight with another airline which got me back to San Diego about an hour after friends flight...
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..