First of all it’s their fault they overbooked.
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They are allowed to overbook. It keeps fares lower, and that’s the number one concern of passengers. The doctor purchased a service that allowed the provider to remove him from the flight. He’s the one who didn’t live up to the agreement.
The doctor purchased a service that allowed the provider to remove him from the flight. He’s the one who didn’t live up to the agreement.
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Actually NO! The agreement (section 25) states they can deny boarding... He had boarded , UNITED has no right to remove boarded passengers under their contract. They verbally assaulted this man who was asserting his contracted rights until he responded and then used his “indignant” response as an excuse to have police beat him and drag him off.
United had an urgent need to get crew to a destination 300 miles away to avoid cascading cancellations due to being unable to meet FAA regs for pilot rest... They could have handled this much better. That doctor has a strong case and will cost UNITED millions ,, he already has in bad publicity.
“They are allowed to overbook. It keeps fares lower, and that’s the number one concern of passengers.”
Unfortunately they overbook with the idea that some passenger will not show for the flight, despite forfeiting their fare.
They have reduced the number of flights, crammed passengers into smaller and smaller seats, demanded that passengers pay extra for the same size seat that is “in a better area” of the plane, and feed them sparingly on long flights (five to seven hours). They then wonder why the public complains.
Recently I found I had more legroom on a puddle jumper from my local airport than a fourteen hour flight from LAX to Sydney Australia.
Fortunately I flew Qantas part of the way back. The first flight was a Qantas flight operated by Emirites (total luxury) in coach. The second leg was with Qantas itself (a step down, but good). My last three legs were by American and torture again.
So guess how I’ll fly in the future, if I go overseas. It won’t be by one of our carriers.
This is true but misses the point of running a service oriented business. So you can throw customers off the plane. OK what does that get you. Because you can also charter a small jet and take the four crew members who were responsible for the overbooking to their destination without resorting to the awful contract that the coustomers must agree to in order to fly.
As I understand, a driver could have taken them to their destination too. United needs people in charge who can think. It is appropriate that people dump their stock, the company is being run by people who have reached the level of incompetence.
The plane was not oversold per UA’s own definition of that term in its own policies in their contract. There were not more passengers with tickets than seats. The crew members that were displacing the “re-accommodated” passengers were not ticket holders.