(vanity) Did I just hear on the news, the guy taken off the UA flight, was to keep a UA employee on?

(television) ^ | 4/11/2017

[cba123]

OK.

Sorry for the vanity.

I am just checking however, recently UA by way of the police, pulled (physically) a paying passenger out of a flight recently. He was actually dragged off the plane.

The plane was over-booked. The airline did some sort of lottery, and the guy lost.

Now I get that things happen, and I get that the flight was overbooked (not a good thing, from my view) but I think I just heard a report that this was partly due to a UA employee reservation, being kept.

On a nationwide, live news program.

So the guy was pulled out of the plane, so a free/discount employee could fly?

Is that true?

[cba123]

This story is pretty big right at the moment, but this was the first I (think) I heard that a UA employee was on the flight, so the paying passenger was bumped?

I am not sure of this. But that is what I (think) I just heard on television.

Anyone know if this is true?

[Darksheare]

Not just one United employee, but four.
They overbooked the flight and voluntold four people to leave.

[Fhios]

Not so fast.

Employees and family fly on standby. Meaning a seat has to be available.

Employees on duty fly priority.

It seems shitty, but you know what, When told to get off a plane get of the ‘effing plane.

[StolarStorm]

From what I understand (and was a former employee..) the 4 employees were not flying for free (non rev). They were needed to crew another flight. If they had not made it to their destination an entire plane (and the passengers) would not have gotten off the ground.

Not excusing it, as in the days I worked there they would have handled it differently (like increasing the voucher amount until someone did take the offer to change flights).

The actions of the police officer was also out of line. He went way too far and should be fired.

Complete failure of overbooking analysis, crew manpower planning and customer service. I would have fired all involved. But I don't work there anymore and it's since turned into a turd.

[Swordmaker]

Not exactly true. . . they pulled four paying passengers off, three who they pointed out to “volunteer” and the one they hauled out so they could seat four employees on standby, waiting to board.

[pepsionice]

The story told....I won’t say it’s true or not....is that four crew members were being sent to the destination to take over for a flight or two that required a new ‘rested’ crew.

The mistake made here is that they’d allowed everyone to board the plane before making this decision (badly executed). Every occasion that I’ve seen over-booking...about 30 min before the boarding...they start to offer deals. In mornings and afternoons....they never have a problem in getting people to take the deal. After 7PM, it’s like a root canal and no one wants to accept these deals unless you throw in a free hotel for the night and $300 in vouchers.

[Blue Jays]

Thank goodness you started this vanity thread about the United Airlines situation.
Nobody is talking about this story and there is nowhere on FreeRepublic to post this insight.

[Helicondelta]

Yes. Flight was overbooked and paying passenger got pulled to make room:

[JParris]

How would you like to be the “employee” that sits in the seat where the guy just got beat up so you could fly?

[Swordmaker]

From what I understand (and was a former employee..) the 4 employees were not flying for free (non rev). They were needed to crew another flight. If they had not made it to their destination an entire plane (and the passengers) would not have gotten off the ground.

I thought it was something like that. . . and they should have kept upping the reward to include cash and vouchers until someone volunteered to wait another flight.

[roadcat]

Nobody is talking about this story and there is nowhere on FreeRepublic to post this insight.

That's odd. I think I've seen several threads on it, and it's all over YouTube and most chat threads elsewhere. It's dominating the Internet tonight. Anyway, United & their subcontractors screwed up bigtime, and deserve the bad publicity. I'm joining the boycott, and will not fly United again.

[XHogPilot]

They offered $1000 for volunteers to leave.

[BeauBo]

I heard a report that he was a doctor, who said that he had patients in the the morning that he could not miss, so he could not take a later flight.

[exnavy]

I do not fly for business, i will not fly for vacations. Screw the airlines.

[roadcat]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3542834/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3542998/posts

[cba123]

Seems to me, they should have offered 1500 next.

That’s just me. But they really screwed up. They should have paid in this instance, I think.

[blueplum]

There were four aircrew that needed to get to the destination. Nobody wanted to give up their seats. The doctor was on-call or had patients (surgery?) the next morning so he couldn’t stay overnight. The airline held some sort of random choosing thing, and ordered those people off. When the doctor refused to give up his seat, they should have just picked another number and asked that next person to leave. And they should have done it before they loaded. Or, even better, they should have put the aircrew on a different flight - or a private flight if necessary. Their scheduling problem, and nasty habit of overbooking 10+%, shouldn’t have resulted in a passenger being dragged off a plane unconscious and in shock.

Airlines I think are frozen in what they can offer monetarily - 3 times the one-way ticket I think. So, now they get to offer this passenger a few million and free flights for life. And they’ll have plenty of seats for their air crew; as people cancel their tickets and go with another carrier.

[StolarStorm]

Yep. This man had a VERY valid reason to get back to work as soon as possible. For all we know he has patients in critical care needing his attention.

I also have some disdain though for passengers (ones not with a demanding timeline ... retired, ect.) not standing up and taking his place. I would have. But then, since I did work for an airline, giving up a seat was commonplace for me so I don't think much of it. A few hours delay or an overnight stay was/is not a big deal for me...

[StolarStorm]

I have to admit something here... ugh. I was involved in software that analysed how much overbooking per flight was feasible. Granted it was years ago and I'm sure my code has since been trashed.

But dammit, I erred on the side of caution... and at the time (under Gordon Bethune) we were allowed as employees to override "rules" like voucher limits and other things that could have resolved this issue. Empower your employees and trust their judgment. If you can't, don't hire them.

[Yaelle]