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Shock as man forcibly removed from overbooked United Airlines flight

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Everyone include animals seem love to fly with united airlines

 

United Air passenger says scorpion bit him on flight from Texas

 

TEXAS: United Airlines found itself on the defensive again on Friday after a passenger complained that a scorpion stung him during a flight from Texas, capping off a bruising week for the public image of the one of the worlds largest carriers.

 

A man on board a United flight from Houston to Calgary, Alberta on Sunday, said a scorpion dropped on his head from an overhead storage bin and stung him under his fingernail, according the United and media reports.

 

We were on the plane about an hour, having dinner, and then something fell on my head, so I grabbed it, passenger Richard Bell told CBS in a Skype interview on its website.

 

Bell said another passenger who was Mexican told him, Hey, thats a scorpion, theyre dangerous, Thats when it stung.

Edited by michgyver

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United Continental Holdings Inc. issued an updated policy to ensure crew traveling on its aircraft are booked at least 60 minutes prior to departure, according to a United spokeswoman.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-15/united-modifies-policy-for-booking-crew-on-crowded-flights

 

Laterally last minute crew booking has priority over boarded pax is inviting trouble.

Edited by KK Lee

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United Continental Holdings Inc. issued an updated policy to ensure crew traveling on its aircraft are booked at least 60 minutes prior to departure, according to a United spokeswoman.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-15/united-modifies-policy-for-booking-crew-on-crowded-flights

 

Laterally last minute crew booking has priority over boarded pax is inviting trouble.

 

Good move! Every other airlines should follow suit.... but then again... which other airline would force their pax in that manner?

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United's newly appointed panel doctor. :D

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Offload 4 PAYING passengers so their staff who needs to work at other airport next morning can have a seat. That is totally against the right of a paying passenger. Airlines should only allow their staff to travel onboard if there's empty seats available. If not they have a lot other options for them to send the staff to other aiport before next morning.

 

The options are:

i) Can put their staff at a later flight if empty

ii)Can put their staff travel on other airlines. This is what Jetstar are doing if their staff needs to work at other airports. Some private jet charter company are doing this also. If there is a need for recovery flight.

iii)Can send by land. Heard the travelling period if they send those staff that need to work at other airport next morning is 4 hours. Even with luxury bus still they have to fork out less than what they are going to pay this doctor in the lawsuit.


United Continental Holdings Inc. issued an updated policy to ensure crew traveling on its aircraft are booked at least 60 minutes prior to departure, according to a United spokeswoman.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-15/united-modifies-policy-for-booking-crew-on-crowded-flights

 

Laterally last minute crew booking has priority over boarded pax is inviting trouble.

If flight is full send the crew on other airlines or by LAND transport!

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Offload 4 PAYING passengers so their staff who needs to work at other airport next morning can have a seat. That is totally against the right of a paying passenger. Airlines should only allow their staff to travel onboard if there's empty seats available. If not they have a lot other options for them to send the staff to other aiport before next morning.

 

The options are:

i) Can put their staff at a later flight if empty

ii)Can put their staff travel on other airlines. This is what Jetstar are doing if their staff needs to work at other airports. Some private jet charter company are doing this also. If there is a need for recovery flight.

iii)Can send by land. Heard the travelling period if they send those staff that need to work at other airport next morning is 4 hours. Even with luxury bus still they have to fork out less than what they are going to pay this doctor in the lawsuit.

If flight is full send the crew on other airlines or by LAND transport!

 

Non-essential airline staff do fly only when there are empty seats. In this case the staff flying are flight crews heading to the destination to operate the next flight.

 

So:

1) There's no later flight

2) Other airlines are full, charters not available etc. etc.

3) The crew that are flying are technically considered on duty & so travelling by land would still delay the next day's flight because of FAA regulations regarding crew rest requires flight crews to have 10 hours rest with 8 hours sleep time. A four hour trip to the destination pushes that rest time further and would delay the flight they're scheduled to be on. If it's the first flight of the day then the cascading effect on the delay will magnify.

 

Now the question is, why don't the passengers go by land transport? Ask for cash compensation & take the bus.

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Non-essential airline staff do fly only when there are empty seats. In this case the staff flying are flight crews heading to the destination to operate the next flight.

 

So:

1) There's no later flight

2) Other airlines are full, charters not available etc. etc.

3) The crew that are flying are technically considered on duty & so travelling by land would still delay the next day's flight because of FAA regulations regarding crew rest requires flight crews to have 10 hours rest with 8 hours sleep time. A four hour trip to the destination pushes that rest time further and would delay the flight they're scheduled to be on. If it's the first flight of the day then the cascading effect on the delay will magnify.

 

Now the question is, why don't the passengers go by land transport? Ask for cash compensation & take the bus.

As much I would like to support you, but in this case, more specifically the doctor, I disagree with you. The doctor has a medical appointment with his patient on the very morning after the flight. We will never know how important is the medical appointment, or how serious is the patient's condition, it was not mentioned in the press, but when a doctor is needed somewhere, it means there is an urgency. The appointment may have been planned months or week ahead, who knows. Other passengers may also have important date, appointment, wedding, funeral, anniversary to attend.....

 

In addition, United did not sweeten the deal further, thus no one else took up the offer except for three persons. There, you have your answer......You don't just yanked fare paying passengers out of their seats just to accommodate your employees. It is United's poor planning to find seats for their crew that resulted in such PR nightmare, not passengers' fault at all. If they knew earlier on they needed four seats for their crew, then block off those seats early and inform passengers when they are checking in at counter. You don't ask the all the passengers to board and yanked them out later.......no boarding should have happened at first place if they really need those four seats.

 

Any way, the case is settled out of court. United is currently handling another bout of PR shortcoming...flying a passengers to wrong destination.

Edited by JuliusWong

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Haha. Thought of flying Airbus, but asked to hit the road with Greyhound bus.

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As much I would like to support you, but in this case, more specifically the doctor, I disagree with you. The doctor has a medical appointment with his patient on the very morning after the flight. We will never know how important is the medical appointment, or how serious is the patient's condition, it was not mentioned in the press, but when a doctor is needed somewhere, it means there is an urgency. The appointment may have been planned months or week ahead, who knows. Other passengers may also have important date, appointment, wedding, funeral, anniversary to attend.....

 

In addition, United did not sweeten the deal further, thus no one else took up the offer except for three persons. There, you have your answer......You don't just yanked fare paying passengers out of their seats just to accommodate your employees. It is United's poor planning to find seats for their crew that resulted in such PR nightmare, not passengers' fault at all. If they knew earlier on they needed four seats for their crew, then block off those seats early and inform passengers when they are checking in at counter. You don't ask the all the passengers to board and yanked them out later.......no boarding should have happened at first place if they really need those four seats.

 

Any way, the case is settled out of court. United is currently handling another bout of PR shortcoming...flying a passengers to wrong destination.

 

Actually the doctor is taking the flight to return home after a trip. So him taking the bus wouldn't have a bearing on his appointment the next day, no? As for the seats - it could be that the crew arrived at the last minute due to untoward complications (a delayed flight, traffic jams etc.). Unfortunately we'll never know.

 

In any case if you delay the crew you delay the next flight and delay others who may also have important dates, appointments, wedding, funerals, anniversaries, etc. The only difference is that by delaying the crew, you'll inconvenience 50 - 100 passengers, instead of just 4. It's a no win situation here.

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Now the question is, why don't the passengers go by land transport?

 

Don't know how to agree with this. If a passenger is willing to go by land transport, he would not have bought a plane ticket in the first place. ::80:: And until now I doubt United ever claimed that there wasn't any other option to ferry their crew there. They simply did not care to think of other options, or increase the compensation so that someone would eventually voluntarily give up the seat. And as explained previously under the law United has NO legal rights whatsoever to bump a passenger like that - whether it is under federal aviation laws or under the carriage contract between the airline and the pax - they can't do it legally. Even without speaking about the law, what they did is at all levels inhumane. So, for something which is not only inhumane but also lacking in legal justification - I really don't see why we should expect a passenger to go by land transport when it is the airline at fault here.

Edited by CX B.

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My question remains unanswered - why did United not block off the 4 seats BEFORE they opened the flight to passengers? That would have solved the problem and they need not remove pax from the aircraft. They are simply not allowed to check in.

 

As it is, the situation escalated because of this bad handling and everyone (including the crew) were late.

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My question remains unanswered - why did United not block off the 4 seats BEFORE they opened the flight to passengers? That would have solved the problem and they need not remove pax from the aircraft. They are simply not allowed to check in.

 

As it is, the situation escalated because of this bad handling and everyone (including the crew) were late.

 

Didn't you read the earlier post or news, they about to take off and only then 4 crews rushed to the gate to ask to board the flight for their next shift.

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If a passenger is willing to go by land transport, he would not have bought a plane ticket in the first place.

It's called adjusting to the situation. In fact I've personal experience with this - AK had cancelled my flight to Langkawi, and my whole office trip was almost cancelled until someone suggested that we fly on to Penang & take the bus to Kuala Kedah & the ferry. The most interesting thing is that not only were we NOT compensated, AK CHARGED us to change destinations! At least in this case UA is willing to give compensation.

 

Are you willing to inconvenience 50 or more people (delays have a way of cascading down the line) when there's an option where only 4 people are inconvenienced?

Edited by Mohd Suhaimi Fariz

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It's called adjusting to the situation. In fact I've personal experience with this - AK had cancelled my flight to Langkawi, and my whole office trip was almost cancelled until someone suggested that we fly on to Penang & take the bus to Kuala Kedah & the ferry. The most interesting thing is that not only were we NOT compensated, AK CHARGED us to change destinations! At least in this case UA is willing to give compensation.

 

Are you willing to inconvenience 50 or more people (delays have a way of cascading down the line) when there's an option where only 4 people are inconvenienced?

 

Legally speaking there is no obligation on the part of the poor fella to accommodate to United's problem - we can't expect someone to adjust to the situation out of good will, especially when he is a paying pax! He has every right to be on that flight and we can't fault him for not being considerate enough. (Personally i don't even think that he was being inconsiderate). Moreover United did not even offer to compensate at the level required by law for overbooking (but IMO, that level of compensation is not relevant here because it wasn't a case of overbooking, and United did not have any legal right to bump a pax already onboard). And to distinguish from your AK situation, yours is very much voluntarily accepting the situation, but as I said, Dr Dao is not expected under the law (or even under a social contract) to voluntarily give up his seat (which is why the public is mad at United). Also yours is a case of cancelation which is most likely covered by the carriage contract whereas his situation is not allowed either by law or by contract.

 

And I don't agree with the inconveniencing of lesser people vs more people. United has not proven that flying the crew over was the only solution (they dare not even respond to this point). In fact, their newly revised policy (that paxing crew for operations must be confirmed at least an hour before flight) actually shows that not only was it possible for an alternative to be pursued, but also that their old policy in allowing crews to board last minute was flawed. If they die die need to pax crew over for operational reasons they won't put this new policy in place, I believe. Furthermore, with United's large network across the whole of USA, they should have standby crews at different bases in case the 4 couldn't make it. It is an industrial practice, and even SQ has crews standing by in London in case any crew at any European stations couldn't go on duty last minute. So if the 4 crews in this case could not have flown over, I'm sure United could have sent another set of standby crews from elsewhere. It was simply that United was too stingy to pursue a more expensive solution, but instead rather have the cheapest option. Who is the one inconveniencing more people, when an airline (with the necessary human and financial resources nationwide) is reluctant to fix its own problem by a more expensive way, but instead choose to abuse the innocent paying customer because it is cheap to do so?

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It's called adjusting to the situation. In fact I've personal experience with this - AK had cancelled my flight to Langkawi, and my whole office trip was almost cancelled until someone suggested that we fly on to Penang & take the bus to Kuala Kedah & the ferry. The most interesting thing is that not only were we NOT compensated, AK CHARGED us to change destinations! At least in this case UA is willing to give compensation.

 

Are you willing to inconvenience 50 or more people (delays have a way of cascading down the line) when there's an option where only 4 people are inconvenienced?

Again is it more convenient to cause the company losing billions for all their action? resulting a man being humiliated and depressed and hospitalised?

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Didn't you read the earlier post or news, they about to take off and only then 4 crews rushed to the gate to ask to board the flight for their next shift.

Yes, I have missed that bit of information. Thanks for the recap.

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My question remains unanswered - why did United not block off the 4 seats BEFORE they opened the flight to passengers? That would have solved the problem and they need not remove pax from the aircraft. They are simply not allowed to check in.

 

As it is, the situation escalated because of this bad handling and everyone (including the crew) were late.

Agree. United Airlines should planned well ahead.

 

 

Didn't you read the earlier post or news, they about to take off and only then 4 crews rushed to the gate to ask to board the flight for their next shift.

The crews only required for duty the next day. They would still have more than 8 hrs rest period even if they take other flights onboard other airlines. If im the CEO, I'd rather pay for my crew to fly on other airline rather than paying billions lawsuit to one person and risk losing more potential customer.

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