United is now offering both red eye and black eye flights!! From Rrddbb in the comments.
Can you believe anyone so fucking stupid as to physically haul a paying customer off a flight because you need room on the flight for a flight crew traveling to another airport? And doing it in this day and age when everyone has a cellphone and can and will record it? You couldn’t put the flight crew on another plane? What idiot made this decision? Geez! If you need the seats so badly keep raising the price for someone to take another flight. Someone will eventually rise to the occasion. Then, the tone deaf CEO of United makes a non-apology apology and then has to make an actual apology. Now everyone is laughing at United.
Fly the battered skies of United.
What kind of food does United serve? Take out Asian.
Freaking amazing! The dude is suing United and I hope he gets a lot of money. They deserve to pay for their stupidity and incredibly bad policies.
So for everyone involved, from the CEO, the the United staff at the airport, and the Chicago cop, here’s a collective award. You all earned it.
Too darned right !
The man had been allowed onto the plane. He was not a trespasser. He was a licencee at least, but probably an invitee ( legal jargon). Then someone decides he has to go. What capricious reasoning revoked this man’s right to be on the plane! Then someone who looks like a tradesman ( dressed in jeans etc ) assaults him and batters him.
Thank the Lord for camera-phones and media sites.
Next we need to re-train the CEO chap to think of passengers as people, not as money.
I remember that many years ago I had a Greyhound pass for the USA. The Greyhound boast was that it would run an extra bus for a single passenger if need be. I was never quite the single passenger, but sometimes there were only a few people in the second bus.
You would think that a man who has had a heart transplant would be freaking out at the word that his staff mistreated a doctor of any sort. I hope his physician decides to stand with the victim and tells Oscar Munoz to take a hike, then accidentally deletes his entire medical record.
sorry Denny, I agree with you a lot of the time but on this one you’re wrong. US government law says this is totally legal, see https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights – Involuntary Bumping. and no, they probably couldn’t put the crew on another plane, they would have been required to be where they were going so an entire plane didn’t get held up to being short on required crew complement. finally, it was the police that removed the overentitled asshat who decided to throw a temper tantrum in public – not the airline.
Have to disagree on this one. The asshole is the doctor who refused to get off the plane. His ticket clearly stated that he could be bumped according to FAA regulations.
No the doctor could not be bumped! United broke the law because once he was on an seated he had fulfilled his part of the contract and non of the fine print on the ticket allows United to remove a paying passenger in his reserved assigned seat when he is traveling on a common carrier. It’s clear that what they did was illegal– they gave preference to their employees over people who had reserved confirmed seats, in violation of 14 CFR 250.2a. United had no right at all to removed a seated passenger from his assigned seat once he was on board and seated. The passenger was within his rights to protest verbally that he should be left alone so he could go home. The moment they told him to get off of the plane they were breaking the law and when they brought the Security Goons dressed in blue jeans on the plane and allowed them to touch him they were participating in a felonious assault that caused life threatening bodily harm, concussion, broken nose, two teeth knocked out. The passenger was totally within his right refusing to get up and he was still in the process of talking to them, which was not being disruptive, up until the Goon grabbed him and them started punching and smashing the passenger.
The Fake News Media messed the story up from the very beginning with the overbooking which did not happen, Refusal to obey a lawful order of the police which did not happen, at first they said it was Federal Officers and then Chicago Airport Police and now they acknowledge these are non-commisoned Security Goons which explains why the son of a bitch was stupid enough to beat up a 69 year old man who was trying to explain his lawful right to stay on the plane.
All of the parties involved in the decision to remove Dr. Dao should be charge with the crime of interfering with the passenger’s peaceful passage on a common carrier that ended up in a grievous assault, remember is you are part of a criminal effort and anyone is killed or injured you are charged with that crime. The Security guys should have been put in handcuffs and taken to jail under charges of assault and battery, the person at the gate and/or the person above who made the decision to bring the goons on board should be arrested. I would also say the pilot and head flight attendant should face charges due to their negligence of protecting the passenger who should have the assurance of peaceful transport on a common carrier in interstate commerce. All the people in the business of selling tickets and driving airplanes for a living should know the law and uphold the law.
Of course the PR people and CEO of United who perpetuated the over booking rules should lose their jobs and the Fake News Media who did not take the time to get the whole story are at fault too. Especially the folks who did some research and found the wrong guy who had his license suspended for practicing medicine and pushed that out for about a day before it disappeared.
Every asshole who has made comments, especially on YouTube making fun of the poor guy who started screaming when they were pulling on him and whacking on the Doctor should be ashamed of calling him names. I am sure up until the split seconds he was under attack, he had no idea that he would be beaten for standing up for his lawful legal rights and that is the story.
Because the gate attendants were under instruction to cut off the dollar offer at $800 instead of going on up the value of United stock is down a couple of billion. I would suspect it will go down further as this man’s legal case progresses. Don’t forget bonus points for the lawsuit, x 2 over 65, age squared, x 3 if Doctor x patients next day,plus temperature on plane x 6 if Asian and perhaps infinity because United was breaking the law by telling him to get off of the plane ,, this is a logarithmic progression and if you hit all three when they play Whack-a-Mole on your head you could end up being the majority stockholder of United and have to answer for the next round of screwups.,, Just saying..
This isn’t an isolated incident with United. Two days later, they followed it up by removing a first class passenger, threatening him with handcuffs unless he left. (I’m guessing the beating was in his mind when he left.) He is now talking about a lawsuit as well.
http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-united-low-priority-passenger-20170412-story.html
Also, David Carroll (United breaks guitars) comments on the situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQz8qqioCt8
— Steve
I am glad that Dr. is not my doctor. He might have been right about his seat but a complete idiot for getting his ass kicked over a seat. I am sure he will get a ton of money out of this.
I’m in the minority (I think) on this topic … no fan of United, air travel, or the TSA but come on. At some point you either fight back, relinquish your seat, or whatever … but acting like a petulant toddler, getting your ass handed to you, and now filing a lawsuit? I would be embarrassed beyond belief to have acted like this guy and to have it captured on video would be even more awkward.
I’ve been bumped, given up my seat, and been the cause of someone being bumped … no one likes it, but most choose to act a little more reasonable/mature.
Just my opinion…
Dumbest post I’ve ever read.
Completely disagree. The “good doctor” who trades drugs for sex should have got off the plane when asked. I fly a LOT and see these assholes all the time. There is a system for bumping, it isn’t random. First they ask, then offer $, then the last person to purchase a ticket gets bumped. It isn’t possible for us to know the whole story, but his selfish ass delayed hundreds of people. Agree it was handled poorly, but the fuckhead sex predator “doctor” should have deplaned when told. It’s pretty much his own damn fault.
Aw, come on, Jill, tell us how you really feel. ;^)
BTW, I’m with you on this.
This is the only place on the planet I can speak my mind. It’s so cathartic!
When I traveled for business “A Lot” the standard policy in effect for Republic Air , US Air & several others including United was in the event of overbooking the first seated passenger in a given seat in dispute was the winner & the other passenger was compensated but removed from the flight if no other seats were available & no one had volunteered to give up their assigned seat for compensation.
Republic Air then had a flight leaving Erie at six AM to Detroit with a connecting Flight to Cincinnati. I ALWAYS booked this flight when I had business in Cincinnati/Kentucky because the connecting flight was ALWAYS overbooked & Republic ALWAYS offered anyone willing to take a later flight a voucher for a round trip ticket to anywhere in North America Republic served.
I & several other savvy regulars were ALWAYS at the boarding desk to be first to take advantage of the travel vouchers for round trip tickets . Why ? Well why not & as for Business considerations the next scheduled flight from Detroit to Cincinnati was only one hour later then the flight which was ALWAYS overbooked. A minor delay at best.
This practice continued for about two years or so until Republic figured out the system was being successfully played but I gathered 14 round trip tickets for future use by family members & myself & never was late for a Business appointment. Republic eventually merged with North West Orient who rescheduled the second connecting flight to three hours later then one hour but still offered travel vouchers for compensation if necessary.
My frequent Air travel period lasted 20 years,during that time I never seen any seated passengers being forced to give up their assigned seats for Airline Crew travel…..Maybe I was just lucky in that regard but I doubt it, anyway Airlines once competed for customers with appreciation & service not treat them like livestock being shipped to market.
I got bumped today. For a pilot. American Airlines, in Dallas. I was sitting in a seat on the plane and they asked me to take the next flight. Someone please notify the press, call Trump, take a video. Oh wait! I didn’t get beat up. BECAUSE I’M NOT A FUCKING ASSHOLE.
In case you doubt my story, it was a gate B4 flight Dallas to Springfield Missouri. I can’t remember the flight time, I’m very tired right now. I took the 3:55 flight which was the next flight out.
Did they give you any compensation? What airline?
Something about the ‘jawbone of an ass’ comes to mind…