
Flight or fight? United's 're-accommodation' of passenger a colossal mistake - hoodoof
http://www.theage.com.au/business/aviation/flight-or-fight-uniteds-reaccommodation-of-passenger-a-colossal-mistake-20170410-gvi842.html
======
hoodoof
Seems to me that the reason this sort of thing happens is that in the 21st
century there is a general expectation from people in power/authority that
they must be obeyed, and that "common people/citizens" who do not obey have
crossed authority and can be dealt with in virtually any manner they choose,
including physical violence.

This perception has formed because governments have moved more and more
towards this manner of interacting with "common people".

When I see this, it seems to be precisely the same behaviour as when the
police beat people up for questioning their authority at any level.

In summary: "Well he didn't do what he was told, so what did he expect?"

~~~
dewyatt
Agreed, violence as a response to disobeying law enforcement has been
normalized in the US, regardless of context/circumstances.

De-escalation and common sense are more often replaced by brute force.

~~~
hoodoof
But in this case, it's violence in response to not obeying a company - who
someone purchased a service from.

------
bassman9000
[https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-
carriag...](https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-
carriage.aspx?Mobile=1#sec25)

~~~
dingaling
From Rule 25:

"When there is an Oversold UA flight that originates in the U.S.A. or Canada"

This flight was not oversold. The passengers had been gate-checked and
embarked[0], ready for departure. There was no shortage of revenue seats.

However the airline realised that it needed to position a crew to another
destination and to save a few dollars opted to remove four fare-paying
passengers from the flight to make space for their non-rev crew.

Regardless of that, it does show that when one party ( United ) subcontracts
to another ( Republic Airways ) in order to save money, the blowback of
adverse PR is onto the main brand and rightly so.

[0] technically they weren't yet "boarded" because the doors were open, which
interestingly also means that the aircraft wasn't "in flight" and therefore
the airline can't appeal to concerns of flight safety.

------
itchyjunk
It seems that security officers manhandled the passenger. But I wonder if they
knew why they were removing the passenger. If a flight crew asks the security
crew to remove a passenger who is refusing to leave, i'd imagine they would
try what ever they can. I am not making an excuse for any of them, especially
for harming someone.

Airport, from the security checks to being in an airplane has been turning
into a nightmare process for some. I hope things get better and not worse
progressing forward.

~~~
a3n
I wonder if the security people were operating under a general expectation of
concluding such an action within a certain amount of time, or if they were
ordered in this instance to conclude within a certain amount of time.

I also wonder if the plane actually was "overbooked," or if the need to get
four crew-passengers on the plane was due to a sudden and unforeseen event.
Claiming "overbooked" may give the airline some advantage that not overbooked
would not. No idea what the rules for overbooked vs not overbooked are in this
case, it just seems weird that exactly four people needed to leave for these
four crew members, and not, say, five because of a real overbooking.

------
chrismcb
United dies gave a plan for choosing people, based on ticket class and time if
checking (among other things) so no, they would not have asked someone in
first class. But they don't have a procedure for removing someone from the
plane, at least not for this reason. As far as I can tell all of their
procedures deal with people before they get on the plane. They do have a list
of reasons to declare someone, but over booking is not one of them.

