YER ATTA HERE!!!

[FRJ]

What ever happened to "Fly United"?

[steve99f]

It's no wonder people hate to fly anymore. Just the usual grind of getting to and from an airport puts me behind the wheel of a car when its within 8 hours drive time.

[Chase]

I am with you Steve...I will drive if it is within 12 hours or so. I usually drive to Atlanta every year for the Blade show and that's 11-1/2 hours.

These Airlines need to bite the bullet when they overbook, not the other way around. They need to sweeten the pot for passengers to give up their seats until they get someone to accept their offer. Just because they overbook, that isn't the customers fault.

Now having said all of this....that guy should not have refused to follow the orders of the officers, he could have handled it differently. Not saying that the officers were justified in how they went about it, however, that could have all been avoided had he just followed the instructions of the officers.

Tom

[steve99f]

I recall a time when the airlines (they were regulated then) made air travel seem glamourous, adventurous, whatever. A ticket price cost what it cost, no BS fees for baggage that are not applied equally, fees for aisle seats, you name it. I want air lines to make money but the way they are doing it just makes people angry.

Thank you Joe for posting this originally. I feel better now.

[FRJ]

Thanks guys.

[jerryd6818]

United Airlines overstepped. The fella paid for a ticket, had a confirmed seat and since United decided they needed to get four crew members to Louisville, they arbitrarily picked four passengers to loose their seats. When one passenger refused to give up his seat, he was dragged down the aisle by "security" (not law enforcement officers). UNACCEPTABLE under any circumstances.

[montemojo]

I hope united goes bankrupt. That would be fitting after the lack of respect they show their customers. I hope he sues the pants off of them.

Monte

[fergusontd]

That guy was a doctor, he stated he had to check on his patients and needed to get to his destination. I hope he sues the pants off of that airline and the guy that assaulted him and gets he fired. Just my 2 cents. ftd

[CheckSix]

I'm going to be the other side of the coin here...

The T&C's you agree to, when buying your ticket, allow the airline to deny you passage on any flight, for any reason. Involuntary boarding denial.
And before you ask, boarding is not complete until the cabin door is closed, locked and ready for flight. Doesn't matter if he was seated.
He was not randomly picked, he was selected for a variety of factors and was in a pool of 4 passengers to be "re-accommodated". The other 3 got off like a normal person would. He refused and resisted. The next step is law enforcement. Refuse that and you will be forcibly removed. It has always been this way. On average, there are 126 passengers involuntarily removed from flights every day, out of 1.8 million passengers. Dao made it an issue. He refused compensation, he refused to comply, he was removed and injured because of his lack of compliance and resistance.

I have just under 1.5 million miles flown in the last 20 yrs. I know the routine and this guy was WAY out of line.

Did UAL handle it well?? No. Did passenger Dao handle it correctly? No. Did the CDA Police handle it correctly? No.
Everyone failed.

Dao's attorney has him staying in a hospital, to play the injury thing up. They are looking for a pay day. If I were Law Enforcement... I would charge him with every law he broke... which were several.

Had I been in UAL at that gate, once Dao refused to get off, I would have deplaned everyone with all their belongings, called Dao to the gate counter and had him escorted away. Re-boarded everyone and moved on to Louisville.

But this is just me and my view is in the minority. I hold people accountable for their actions. UAL followed their procedure, even though it may be flawed. That is not an excuse to not comply.

[orvet]

I wonder how many people are aware of the T&C's? I was not aware of them. I don't fly often and in my opinion the airline made a colossal error in judgement!
I heard today they had already lost 800 million dollars in stock prices alone. It would not surprise me if this incident bankrupt United Airline. I guess it depends on how deep their pockets are.

If they had just offered $5,000 to any passengers who would like to stay and take a later flight I am sure they would have had for volunteers who would have been delighted to take a later flight and put $5,000 in their wallet.

As it turns out they tried to get by cheap and it's going to cost them a lot more than a few thousand dollars in the long run. Whether the 800 million follow figure is correct or not, I do not know, but I would not be surprised if the total cost to United for this fiasco exceeds 1 billion dollars.

Question, what are the T&C's and at what point are we advised of them in the ticketing process? I was completely unaware of them and the fact that I had supposedly agreed to them. I have never bought a ticket with those were pointed out to me, or even seen them in fine print.
What are they and when do we allegedly agreed to these stipulations when we fly?

As a matter of fact, the last time I flew (last year) I bought the ticket online and the only thing I ever saw was the boarding pass I print it on my computer. It never asked me to agree to anything.
If the T&C was in effect then why were they not pointed out to me in the ticket purchasing process?

[jerryd6818]

I'm with Dale. I don't have as many miles in the air as you but during my working years (and since) I was no stranger to airports & logged a lot of miles, over 100K on United alone. The rules you related are new to me. Never heard of them.

[CheckSix]

Depends on how you purchased the ticket but I assure you, in that process of purchasing, you assented to their T&C's for carriage. Passengers have VERY few rights. Once you understand that, you comply. Flight crews have enormous power and latitude, especially post 9-11. Once law enforcement is called, you are leaving the airplane.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/201 ... 100331176/

Regarding upping the compensation offer... they hit the maximum they are ALLOWED by DOT regulation. 4x the one way ticket cost or $1350.00 max., which ever one you hit first. They exhausted this option. The flight crews / ground crews do not have authority to exceed this.

If I would have been this passenger, I would have complied after voicing my displeasure, hired a limo to get to Louisville and called my attorney.

I see 3 major flaws. 1) passenger refusal to comply. 2) CDA Police force used. 3) UAL's handling of this, post incident.

I still fly A LOT. I dread my near term flights now, because newly empowered, ill-informed, anti-establishment, anti-corporate zealots, will be trying dumb things, like negotiating better compensation or worse, refusing crew instructions... because Dao did it. This idiot is becoming a freaking hero, because he is the David vs the Goliath. Truth is, UAL had the right to get a needed crew to Louisville. They had the right to de-board 4 passengers. And before you ask, the 4 crew that had to get to Louisville, have UNION rights in a contract on how they get to assignments. None of this was handled well.

Some are saying his case will improve travel for everyone. Nope! Airlines will now not accommodate anyone on special cases, for fear of the Dao situation. You need to get to a dying sibling or parent before they die? Nope! not going to involuntary deny boarding of another passenger now, to get you there in time, for example. I see nothing good happening from all of this. I learned a long time ago to go with the flow, when flying. I've sat on a taxiway, pre-takeoff, for 6 hrs, then flew to nowhere for 2.5 hrs, to return to the same airport to refuel and then the weather enroute finally cleared up to get to the destination. I arrived at 4:00am, 11 hrs late and my luggage was lost. Never got upset. Stuff happens, I'm not going to stress over it.

On another flight, the starboard engine failed in flight, at altitude. We did an emergency landing at 3:30am, at a closed, remote airport. I still made it home, eventually. I have a lot of respect for the airlines, even though most people think they are awful. I think they have an incredibly difficult and complex job and they successfully move an amazing number of people (1.8 million) per day. I cut them A LOT of slack.

[orvet]

Well Dave,
after reading the article you posted you linked in your post and after reading a number of other articles and watching some videos regarding this incident it appears that you are correct. Everything United airlines did was “legal.” I would argue however that everything they did was not “right.”

One article I read in an online financial magazine said that the United stock plunge may wipe $500 million off of its market. And if the fall goes… “over 6% that would erase $1.4 billion of the company’s market.” This was reported by MarketWatch.
I’m not a stock market guy. I don’t own a single pieces stock so this is all gibberish to me but it does sound like this incident has already cost United Airlines a great deal monetarily, not to mention reputation, public goodwill and brand loyalty.

In an interview with Joe Schwieterman, professor of transportation from DePaul University in Chicago, the good professor made an astute observation which was essentially that in these days of cell phones, viral videos, Facebook and social media, the way airlines handle these situations will have to change. I think he is spot on and United Airlines is learning the hard way that it is possible to be “legal & right” and still be absolutely wrong.

https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/na ... 100340234/

In another piece of irony United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz was last month given the Communicator of the Year award for 2017 from PRWeek, (I believe that stands for Public Relations Weekly). On their website they quote Munoz as saying; “I did not express the proper sentiment initially.” Yeah think?

They also had an interesting piece in PRWeek about the Chinese response to this incident. Apparently this incident has spawned a #ChineseLivesMatter movement within the first 24 hours. No doubt the $2 billion of business United Airlines does annually with China will be affected.


United’s handling of the entire incident has in my opinion has been very shortsighted. Whether it is “Right” or “Wrong,” “Legal” or otherwise is totally beside the point, the way this incident was handled was a fiasco of colossal proportion. I imagine college textbooks on Management, (as well as history), are being edited at this very moment so that the next edition will include this incident.

PS- I will not be surprised if the Contracts of Carriage are soon rewritten to be a bit more passenger friendly.

[CheckSix]

Dale,
Please do not construe that I condone what happened! Anything but. I do think the passenger Dao had a role in what happened. Many say he did nothing wrong... in my opinion, he did. My whole point in posting is, that most people do not know or understand what the facts are and respond emotionally. And I agree, the optics are bad. The biggest problem I see, is the City of Chicago - Dept of Aviation Security use of excessive force. They are not UAL. Also, as a matter of fact, that flight was Republic Airlines, a regional sub-contractor to UAL. The regionals are usually much less trained than the main line employees.

Speaking of emotion, that is exactly how the share price on the stock market operates. On emotion. UAL stock will rebound shortly, because it will be a good buy. The devaluation of the stock price is on paper. Unless you cash it in, it is funny money.

[orvet]

For the sake of clarity Dave, I did not think you condone the situation.
I also appreciate your in-depth knowledge of the industry, something that I certainly do not have.

I am still appalled at what happened on that aircraft. I cannot believe that individuals with so few people skills are put in a position to deal with people in a potentially confrontational situation. It was utter stupidity on several levels that compounded itself into an enormous mess. I will be outraged if they try to pin this all on the police officers! One of the articles associated with the link you posted mentioned that the plane was not overbooked. At the last minute they decided they had to get four employees to St. Louis and decided they needed to kick for people off of that flight. I can’t believe that they don’t plan ahead enough that they could’ve bumped people before boarding them. If they had used just a small amount of prior planning the entire ugly incident would’ve been avoided and the four passengers would not have been boarded in the first place. Hopefully the entire airline industry has learned a lesson from this incident and hopefully passengers are better informed of their rights, or lack thereof when flying on an airline.

After learning about the Contract of Carriage I think I will read it before I ever purchase an airline ticket again and explore other options like the train. If the indications of the articles I read are true, namely that you have very few rights when you fly on a commercial airline, then I will probably choose never to fly again. Having fought for my rights and the rights of all US citizens, I take them very seriously and to waive those rights for the sake of saving a few hours or even days travel time is not something I will do lightly. There would have to be a great deal at stake for me to waive my rights for the sake of mere convenience.
That’s my feelings on the whole matter.

[CheckSix]

Roger that!

The other thing to consider is, that the whole airline crew mechanism is in motion, in getting crews scheduled and moved to where they need to be with the airplanes, is incredibly complex and fraught with disruptions that influence options on how you get this all done. Within the constraints they have. Another reason I cut them some slack. Most folks have a very narrow view when they are traveling, understandably. They don't realize what is behind the curtain.

[CheckSix]

A few more thoughts...

I never fly United. Never liked them much. I used to be a Delta guy up until 17 yrs ago but am now an American guy, since I moved to Chicago. Between the 2 airlines, I have traveled 1.4 million miles with them. Generally, AA does okay.... but have their moments, both ways, every now then. Sub-standard and above the call of duty. Some FA's have treated me very kindly sometimes... and it's usually because I just talk to them nice and sympathize. I think they can tell I'm an old war horse traveler. So, I've found that if you just lighten their day, just a little bit, they appreciate it! Dao did anything but what I just described... and unfortunately, more passengers are a burden, instead of a bit of joy.

I wouldn't not fly, you just need to be aware of how it works, understand that things don't always go right and not be a P.I.T.A to the crew.

[Colonel26]

From what we're hearing here locally, I can't help but to wonder if this was a set up kind of situation. From what I'm hearing the man got off the plane with the cops, then ran back on.

Then there's the character of the character. He had his medical license revoked a few years ago for peddling prescription drugs on the side, including trading them for gay sex. Then in the last few years had them reinstated in a limited capacity.

Personally, in the back of my mind I can't help but wonder if this guy didn't see dollar signs in the situation and manipulated he circumstances to his benefit.

Bottom line, as I tell my high school students, you can protest your innocence all you want. But, when the men with the guns and clubs show up it's time to shut up. Argue your case in court. Not to the police. You will loose that battle.

[CheckSix]

Yup! I read all about his hinky sex/drug past. Including that he won $234K on the Pro Poker tour, while his M.D. was suspended. It speaks volumes to me about his LACK of character. And I'm totally skeptical about the true nature of this and if this is the BIG poker bluff... for winning the biggest poker pot of his life.

[jerryd6818]

I'm not too worried about United. People have short memories and from what you guys are saying, there is more to this than meets the eye. A lot of this is pure knee jerk responses to the situation. Once the "24 hour news cycle" is over, this will fade into oblivion.

[orvet]

A lot of this is pure knee jerk responses to the situation. Once the "24 hour news cycle" is over, this will fade into oblivion.

No doubt you are right Jerry, and it is probably a good thing in this instance.
All the stories fade quickly unless the progressive press senses there is political capitol to be gained by continuing to grind out the same story and give it a nice liberal spin!


But, I still think I will try the train next time!

[Black Lion]

There will probably be settlement but I feel it should go to court. Dao was on the phone telling the person on the other end to get a lawyer and that he was going to sue the airline. This was prior to any attempt to remove him physically. He then set the parameters of removal and entered a verbal contract with the authorities by telling them, repeatedly, that he would not leave the aircraft unless they dragged him out of it. Once they complied and removed him per his conditions he then broke the contract by running back into the aircraft.

For you RVN vets you probably all remember the phrase "dien cai dau" commonly pronounced "dinky dow" meaning crazy in the head. Maybe his nickname is "dinky" or at least should be.

[fergusontd]

Jerry6818 wrote, "Once the 24 hour news cycle is over, this will fade into oblivion."[/quote]
Just like with all the tired Trump jokes, the late night comedians will keep it going till hell freezes over. ftd