Shock as man forcibly removed from overbooked United Airlines flight

[Mike P 0]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/10/shock-man-forcibly-removed-overbooked-flight/

 

This is really so ugly and shocking!

 

Question, how do they pick who to be thrown out of the flight?

[Kenneth Chong WT 0]

In my previous experience...if no one volunteers...the last people to check in...I guessing this happened on their regional subcontracted airline...not their mainline...

[Roy Chin 0]

PR disaster too.

 

They only apologized for the overbooked flight, didn't mention abt the incident at all. Now they are tasting the netizens' attack.

[JuliusWong 0]

Their FB page is having a meltdown.......

[Mike P 0]

I was being informed on the FB social media where they need to remove a passenger to board a staff...

[leon t 0]

and of all things, it was a asian - chinese looking man whi was forced, punched and drag out. how can United do this even if the security personnel was wrong in using physical force.

[Mike P 0]

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/10/travel/passenger-removed-united-flight-trnd/index.html

 

On CNN, a security officer is suspended for this incident. Probably the one who acted violence on this poor passenger. This won't go down easily.

[tktoh 0]

United CEO pens email defending staff

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4400076/amp/United-Airlines-CEO-pens-email-defending-staff.html

[jahur 0]

Looks like its the operational requirement that requires miles redemption/low fare/late check in pax to be offloaded bullshit again. Its a good thing overbooking hardly occurs in hotels and resorts but it is very rampant in the airline industry.

[JuliusWong 0]

This is not simply overbooking case, they needed to bump off four pax so that their own staff can travel to destination for duty next morning.

 

Talk about and10t CEO, Oscar Munoz is not making the situation better by "standing behind all of you on this" in internal email while watching your brand burn to ground! OMG, they can launch what Polaris Business Class or what not, United brand is in shambles now.

Edited April 11, 2017 by JuliusWong

[Khalil Abd Halim 0]

very violent scene indeed, was there no other alternatives than resorting to violent? i guess we should all thank Trump for this manic behavior which is getting rampant in the US.

[flee 5]

This is not simply overbooking case, they needed to bump off four pax so that their own staff can travel to destination for duty next morning.

 

Talk about and10t CEO, Oscar Munoz is not making the situation better by "standing behind all of you on this" in internal email while watching your brand burn to ground! OMG, they can launch what Polaris Business Class or what not, United brand is in shambles now.

Agree that it isn't a simple overbooking case. Someone cocked up badly!

 

If you know that you need 4 seats to transport crew to their duties, you should have blocked off those seats BEFORE boarding. Some pax should have been offloaded and denied boarding and compensation offers can be made in the terminal building instead of inside the plane...

The CEO's note to staff kinda undermines the feeble apology statement - people will now think that the apology was not sincere.

[jahur 0]

This is not simply overbooking case, they needed to bump off four pax so that their own staff can travel to destination for duty next morning.

 

Talk about and10t CEO, Oscar Munoz is not making the situation better by "standing behind all of you on this" in internal email while watching your brand burn to ground! OMG, they can launch what Polaris Business Class or what not, United brand is in shambles now.

I would still call it as overbooking. Duty staffs travel should be put on next available flight(As in flights that actually have empty seats). Suspect the staffs were sent last minute as usually check in would have already blocked those seats and moved the passengers many hours before the flight itself. Moneywise The airline thinks that offloading low tier pax is more cost saving than delaying and retiming the next flight due to late staff arrival. Now with this fiasco they might reconsider as public Image is more important IMO.

Edited April 11, 2017 by jahur

[Mohd Azizul Ramli 2]

Normally, staff travelling on standby ticket are the last ones to be chosen. So it is weird in this case that paying passengers were removed to accommodate staff. I am not too sure about staff travelling to reposition at base.

 

I hope the Asian doctor who was victimised in this incident brings this matter to the court of law.

[Chris Tan 0]

Normally, staff travelling on standby ticket are the last ones to be chosen. So it is weird in this case that paying passengers were removed to accommodate staff. I am not too sure about staff travelling to reposition at base.

 

I hope the Asian doctor who was victimised in this incident brings this matter to the court of law.

Believe the crew had to be sent to Louisville to operate another flight, so they weren't non-revs traveling for personal matters. It could've been unplanned due to IRROPS and they had to send standby crew, or face further disruptions down the line if the crew didn't make it. But that's just my guess with details being so vague.

 

Regardless, it doesn't excuse the horrible way this situation was handled.

[David.W 0]

Their FB page is having a meltdown.......

 

In this age, customer service is very important. Mess up and watch the mistake explode on the internet. Even MAB had its share of meltdown regarding overbooking although not as bad as this. (refer to the blogger's rant)

 

Before the internet and social media age, I think this would not have blown up on the news.

Edited April 11, 2017 by David.W

[Mike P 0]

While everyone targeting on United Airlines, what about the authority and police who acted violence to drag the passenger off? the Chicago Airport Police who dragged the man off got suspended. Chicago Police also the one who caused this ugly scene, unless their action were condoned and instructed by United! All in all, not just United has to pay for this, but the Chicago Airport police too!

[Mohd Suhaimi Fariz 2]

Normally, staff travelling on standby ticket are the last ones to be chosen. So it is weird in this case that paying passengers were removed to accommodate staff. I am not too sure about staff travelling to reposition at base.

 

I hope the Asian doctor who was victimised in this incident brings this matter to the court of law.

Crews repositioning are given positive space, because they absolutely positively have to be where they are going otherwise operations are disrupted, hence the IDB.

[S V Choong 4]

I thought they pick people on the fare they paid... for example... heavily discounted economy class fare, rather than randomly select people and bump them off.

 

I certainly would not be happy to be bumped off the plane if I am paying higher grade Economy class fare if I know there are passengers who paid cheaper fare than I did.

 

The victim in this case is an East Asian looking person, could have been Chinese, Mongolian, Korean or Japanese. That could easily escalate or be sensationalised to be another case of racial discrimination....

very violent scene indeed, was there no other alternatives than resorting to violent? i guess we should all thank Trump for this manic behavior which is getting rampant in the US.

 

I have been to the US just last month... and I don't feel it to be any different from my previous trip years ago. So... it could be media spin-doctoring... or demonising Trump.

[David.W 0]

I thought they pick people on the fare they paid... for example... heavily discounted economy class fare, rather than randomly select people and bump them off.

 

I certainly would not be happy to be bumped off the plane if I am paying higher grade Economy class fare if I know there are passengers who paid cheaper fare than I did.

 

The victim in this case is an East Asian looking person, could have been Chinese, Mongolian, Korean or Japanese. That could easily escalate or be sensationalised to be another case of racial discrimination....

 

I have been to the US just last month... and I don't feel it to be any different from my previous trip years ago. So... it could be media spin-doctoring... or demonising Trump.

The asian man has been identified as a American Vietnamese by the press

 

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/doctor-dragged-off-united-airlines-flight-identifed-as-david-dao/3670242.html

[jahur 0]

United stocks just went plummet by 900million.

[Chris Tan 0]

I thought they pick people on the fare they paid... for example... heavily discounted economy class fare, rather than randomly select people and bump them off.

 

I certainly would not be happy to be bumped off the plane if I am paying higher grade Economy class fare if I know there are passengers who paid cheaper fare than I did.

 

The victim in this case is an East Asian looking person, could have been Chinese, Mongolian, Korean or Japanese. That could easily escalate or be sensationalised to be another case of racial discrimination....

Fare class is one of the many factors taken into consideration when deciding who gets bumped. SEQ number, connecting flights, FFP status, families, unaccompanied minors, etc.

[Craig 0]

OK. Maybe I'll stop whinging about BA's LCC service for the next few days.

 

Long-haul BOB? Go for it. No baggage interlining? OK. No complimentary water on intra-EU flights? Fine with that.

 

Just don't beat me up and drag me out of the plane.

[Josh T 0]

I would have voluntarily de-planed with an offer of USD800 and a free night's accommodation!

 

Anyway, that was apparently the most offered to get off that flight. Read somewhere that UA could have offered up to USD1300 but they were too cheap to do so. I'm sure some passengers would have taken that offer. They did get a few people off initially with the offer of USD400.

Edited April 11, 2017 by Josh T

[Mohd Suhaimi Fariz 2]

According to United the passenger was belligerent and "he raised his voice and refused to comply with crew member instructions." Which is why the airport security team was called. - https://www.google.com.my/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/united-airlines-ceo-oscar-munoz-s-leaked-email-in-full-read-video-incident-dragging-passenger-staff-a7677721.html%3Famp

 

Technically United did everything by the book & that the assault wasn't perpetrated by the security team. But the optics is all on United & because they did everything by the book it came back to bite them.

 

Even Munoz's email wasn't wrong because all he did was to reassure his staff that he won't throw them under the bus if they were not at fault should another meltdown occur. People are putting their context onto something that had a totally different context altogether.

 

More scrutiny should be placed on ORD's airport security team to be honest. It's one of theirs that beat the guy to a pulp, instead they're getting away with scarcely a mention while United's bearing the brunt of condemnation.