poor man

Not to fly in America at least.

But then i wasn't planning to...

http://i.imgur.com/99dgkTs.gifv

The flight wasn't even overbooked. The airline wanted to give those seats to its employees at last moment.

This is what happens when airline staff is numb to the everyday mistreatment of their customers and when police are trained in violence before self-restraint and aggression before reason.

It appears that United might have violated FAA policy to inform the passenger in writing about his legal rights all to save a few dollars.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/11/opinions/i-got-bumped-from-a-flight-then-i-sued-opinion-stone/index.html

Reports say passengers were offered up to $1000 to give up a seat. I find that hard to believe that no one on the entire plane took up that offer if they advertised it properly. More likely it was $1000 in vouchers to fly on United, but still, if you fly with any frequency, that's as good as $1000. If you're looking at a four hour delay to get home on another flight, the airline is offering you $250/hour to sit in an airport and do whatever you want - that's pretty good pay.
I'm ok with airlines overbooking, but using physical force to make someone leave is ridiculous. If they properly provide incentives (ie $$$) and explain the delay involved for each passenger, I'm sure they would get volunteers without having to resort to this. Given that they overbook to make more money (since they have late cancellations), they should be willing to cough up whatever it takes when they miscalculate.

The flight wasn't legally overbooked. They wanted to cheaply get 4 employees to the destination as a last minute change. United could have used other means to get their employees there or at least explained it better.

Imagine a doctor telling patients in his waiting room that he was running late and they would have to come back in a few months when he had another available appointment. I'd like to see that happen to United employees especially Munoz that had a heart transplant last year.

This whole ordeal fills me with rage. Has the airline even issued an apology? Would this have happened if the man was a white doctor? This is so shameful on so many levels.

@DO

they had the computer choose 4 random people to remove their seats, they didn't specifically go after the asian guy. given that the man was also a doctor who wanted to see patients, if it were a white man who wanted to see patients, i have little doubt these shitty airport employees wouldn't have reacted well to him demanding to stay either either.

the correct solution is to offer more and more money until someone says "sure" not to physically assault your paying customers who have boarded the plane.

I'm aware of how the process works. I don't think the use of physical force would be used against all members of society equally. Believe what you will, Yanik. Engaging with you has never been worth it.

As far as I'm aware, the airline hasn't issued an apology and the CEO doubled down. They should've just kept randomly picking someone until they got someone who agreed. The doctor was person #3 that they informed. The first couple left the plane.

The whole thing astounds me on so many levels. The lack of apology. The use of force. The poor judgement. ***And nobody taking the offer of like $1000 they gave***

Seriously, I'm pretty sure under DoT laws they have to give it in cash if you demand it. They just try for vouchers so they keep business.

I'm with JY. If you keep increasing the offer, eventually you will get actual volunteers who will give up their seats for the $s. If United wanted to make it even easier, it could say expressly that it is ok to resell the vouchers (it probably is already) on eBay or some secondary market. Now you're looking at hard cash (maybe 90% of voucher value) for what you give up. With all the financial stress we hear about people being under, hard to believe somebody won't pounce on this once the offer becomes high enough.

@DO - while on one hand, you're correct about unequal force and this *is* the Chicago PD we're talking about, I'm fairly sure any police called to an airplane to remove a passenger at the airline's request would use force if necessary. They might be more patient with a white guy and give him more time, but end result would be the same

@DO

I think it's unfair to immediately assume that the amount of force they used was entirely because of race.

if you don't have any ACTUAL evidence for racism, accusing someone of racism is not a logical next step, besides relying off of generalizations.

People who go around claiming that everything is racist without a slightest shred of evidence besides the fact that one party was white, and one party wasn't... it's sickening. there is no more due process, no burden of proof, just vitriolic attacks on strangers you've never met.

Everyone is fixated on the fact that the victim is a doctor. That's the least interesting fact about this incident.

@"More likely it was $1000 in vouchers to fly on United, but still, if you fly with any frequency, that's as good as $1000. If you're looking at a four hour delay to get home on another flight, the airline is offering you $250/hour to sit in an airport and do whatever you want - that's pretty good pay."

It was vouchers, yes. It usually doesn't get this far, because they don't let you board if they know they have over sold the flight (whoever is last to check-in may not be allowed to).

In this case, the next flight wasn't until 3pm the next day, (and the doctor had patients to see). The fact that other airlines could have given the staff a discount flight was overlooked, because the staff are just used to not serving their customers.

Apparently the market doesn't give you better service. You can bet this would be illegal in europe. (Though they still over-sell flights).

From twitter:

Nate Bethea‏ @inthesedeserts
According to complaint site untied.com, United docked the pay of the pilots who died on 9/11 for "failure to complete flights"

Simple solution, don't fly United.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-11/united-airlines-tumbles-as-social-media-storm-spreads-worldwide

Doctor was hospitalized for his injuries and already has lawyers. United is on it's third apology.

Twitter:

Caribbean Sun‏ @CaribbeanSun11
#NewUnitedAirlinesMottos
Join our new Seat'n'Beat frequent flyer program!


David Murphy‏ @DavidW3344
#NewUnitedAirlinesMottos
Just imagine how we treat your luggage


Next time my kids refuse to get out of bed, I'm calling United Airlines

https://mobile.twitter.com/nationalpost/status/851527884913213443/photo/1

How Trump thinks United could be the solution.

Haha, I saw a meme that said "Southwest Airlines - We beat the competition, not you"

@Manwe

only the free market could produce memes this strong

Best meme I've seen:

United Airlines: One free carry off.

United CEO does damage control on ABC's GMA Wednesday morning. How many times will they show the video during that interview?

And next time when you are told to check your bag and not carry it on you will listen!

http://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2017/04/12/united-airlines-passenger-new-angle-video.hln/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/
Video taken moments before doctor was taken show he wasn't "belligerent" like United claims. Cell phone videos of the incident are going to make United case worse.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/13/travel/united-passenger-pulled-off-flight-lawsuit-family-attorney-speak/index.html
Lose your teeth and get a concussion when trying to fly United. Talk about hidden fees.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/22/us/american-airlines-video-confrontation-trnd/index.html
American Airlines is investigating one of its flight attendants hitting a mother holding a baby and almost also hitting the baby.

I'm guessing the only safe passenger is the federal marshal because he has a gun and the right to use it.

@DO are you saying the process wasn't randomized? Jesus does everything develop into a racial issue for you? It was fucking randomized!!!!! Why don't you check the ethnicity of the other three passengers forced to leave as well!?? The problem to adress here isn't the man's race but rather the way the airlines went around dealing with an overbooking issue. The problem has nothing to do with race! Also intersting to note that apparently the doctor was trading drugs for sex illegally and wasn't a great person. Helped me feel a little less worse for him!

He had 98 Felony drug accounts! Not trying to say the problem is any better... Just nice to see some just Karma being distributed http://www.cscmediagroupus.com/robert-zerfing/doctor-united-airlines-legal-history

Wtf, sure it was randomized I'm not questioning that. I'm questioning if the force that was used here would have been used if the man was a white doctor. Look at dammdaniel claiming the moral high ground and then shaming the man for what I'm pretty sure has already been disproved as false news (but even if it wasn't it should have 0 impact on what happened). Disgusting

Federal marshals are not safe. One just left her gun in the restroom for a passenger to find. Luckily the passenger gave it to the flight crew.

I'm sure United ran the doctor's police record in deciding who to remove.

Yeah, his career, race, or drug history shouldn't affect how we judge the violence used against him by the state.

Even if the airline was technically within it's rights, because all customers agreed to fine print, doesn't mean the fine print can't leave them being assholes.

As I said, his past crimes have zero impact on how the crime should be treated. What United Airlines did was horrible and terrible. The force involved shouldn't have been. I am simply saying that the force that was applied was not acceptable. I am just saying like Karma dude....

We should just go back to third class steerage. We can lock them in the baggage compartment and put the freeloading staff in first class

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-27/united-passenger-dragged-off-plane-settles-with-airlines
United settles with doctor dragged off their plane. Now they need to do the same with the owner of the dead giant rabbit.