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posted by on Wednesday April 12 2017, @03:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the customer-relations dept.

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: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:40PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:40PM (#492871)

    It was a voucher for travel, not cash.
    It was also what you needed to use to buy your ticket home.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:17PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:17PM (#492899) Journal

    Ie worthless. No wonder the the "offer" were ignored..

  • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:18PM (3 children)

    by zocalo (302) on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:18PM (#492901)
    Ah, that would certainly explain the reluctance to volunteer then. I've only heard anecdotal tales of this, and it's always involved people getting some actual compensation over and above getting them to their destination on the next available flight, sometimes in free tickets/loyalty points, other times in actual cash. A colleague in a similar situation to my imagined scenario (company policy was a paid day off after long haul/overnight flights) got a bump to Business from Premium Economy and €500 only a few years back, for instance. Maybe it's a US vs. EU carrier thing.

    Still, inconvenience for no gain, and they actually expect that to work? Wow.
    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    • (Score: 2) by aclarke on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:18PM

      by aclarke (2049) on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:18PM (#492991) Homepage

      Flights originating (and possibly landing) in EU have laws to protect consumers. Fancy that. If the flight is delayed due to something in the airline's control, there are required payments to the flyer. It's one amount for a delayed flight, and more for a cancelled flight. Payments are more for longer hauls than they are for shorter.

      Of course, the airlines will still try to weasel out. British Airways is in the process of trying to screw my family out of €2400 due to a delay they say was out of their control, but oddly enough at the gate when our flight was cancelled it was due to not having crew available. There are processes to go through to have this mediated, and I just need to see the process through.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:19PM (1 child)

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:19PM (#493040) Journal

      Maybe it's a US vs. EU carrier thing.

      Every country has regulations for this sort of thing. But even in Europe, I'd urge caution. Several years back, I took a reputable European airline up on one of these things. My wife and I had a connecting flight, and at the connection point, they had an overbooking.

      At this point, it was about 2pm, they were offering a free hotel and meal vouchers in a nice city, along with something like the equivalent of $1000 (total, for the both of us). So we figured we'd try it and spend an evening there; we were staying with a friend at our destination, so our plans were somewhat flexible. In the end, I'd say the hassle was barely worth it. Suffice it to say that we were abandoned not once but twice by airline agents who failed to give us all the stuff they promised. It took us well over 2 hours before they even processed the change, and then the guy abandoned us before giving us our vouchers. (It was 5pm, and in Europe, I'm sure regulations said he had to leave his job that instant.) We repeatedly had to wander around the airport trying to find someone who'd direct us to someone else who could help us.

      And then the was the ordeal of getting our bags back. We were told that it would be no problem to do so when we made the initial change (we didn't have any change of clothes in carry-ons, etc.), but it was after 8:30pm before we finally got our bags. When this whole thing started at 3pm, they gave us a short-term voucher at the airport to "tide us over" while we waited, but it wasn't enough for a meal -- it was barely enough to pay for a coffee for each of us.

      Then we found out the shuttle that was supposed to transport us to our hotel didn't exist. Then when we arrived at the hotel, we were told the meal vouchers we had been given weren't enough to actually afford anything on the hotel menu, so they had to create a special extra-cheap menu to serve us -- and it was all done in a way like the hotel staff were annoyed and disgusted at this. (It's not the airline's fault that the hotel treated us badly, except for the fact that they booked us at a place that couldn't provide meals for what the airline gave us.) We paid extra to actually get something reasonable to eat. In the morning, the hotel outright refused to accept vouchers for breakfast, so we paid ourselves... and again for a taxi back to the airport.

      And I'm sure there were a few other things I'm forgetting, because by the time we finally got to the airport in the morning we were both incensed by how we had been treated and asked to speak to a manager -- who basically was completely unsympathetic and said we had no right to complain because we had received our compensation. I think we ended up spending over 25% of our "compensation" out of pocket just for basic stuff the airline said it would be covering like transportation and meals, not to mention approximately 8 hours of frustration arguing with people and wandering around trying to get basic stuff (like our bags). [Note that we were in a very "expensive" city, which was part of the reason we made sure they were offering transportation, etc. before we accepted the deal in the first place.]

      Anyhow, we tried to argue, but we needed to catch a flight, and finally we just decided it wasn't worth it to try to fight more. It was one of the most stressful and crazy periods of ~18 hours that I've ever had in my life.

      I'm sure others have had more pleasant experiences. But I personally will think hard before ever accepting such a "deal" again.

      • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday April 12 2017, @09:26PM

        by zocalo (302) on Wednesday April 12 2017, @09:26PM (#493073)
        Looks like it's possibly another victim of the general fall in aviation standards and the mindset that if it's not an essential part of the flight, it's perfectly OK charge extra for the additional service - like having to taking a bag to pack all the stuff you are no longer permitted to take in the cabin that they require you to check, in-flight food and drink, enough leg room to avoid DVT... Don't think I'm going to be volunteering for that anytime soon then...
        --
        UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!