
Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident - osteele
https://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/002292.html
======
tuna-piano
I see this whole event kind of like the Rosa Parks situation. I'm not
comparing the magnitude of injustice, just that (a)There was an unjust system
and (b)It took an individual to stick up for the just result, even though it
was breaking the rules.

Also, the author is wrong in this passage:

From the article: "The gate agents offered offered $800 in airline scrip to
anyone willing to deplane, which from past observation I think is the maximum
that was allowed by United policy. That's an illegal cheapskate policy for
which United fully deserves the condemnation it has received, and the fines it
should be assessed for violating Department of Transportation regulations on
denied boarding compensation. Obviously, the gate agents should have been
allowed to offer more, and in cash, as Federal law requires. "

The truth:

The airline can try and get people to voluntary give up their seats with
whatever method they would like. They can offer free kittens, cash, vouchers,
etc. If no one accepts the airlines arbitrary amount, THEN DoT rules take
effect, mandating the cash compensation amounts. So Dr Dao and the other 3
passengers that left the plane are entitled to a completely separate amount
from what United offered.

From the DoT website[1]:

"DOT has not mandated the form or amount of compensation that airlines offer
to volunteers. DOT does, however, require airlines to advise any volunteer
whether he or she might be involuntarily bumped and, if that were to occur,
the amount of compensation that would be due. Carriers can negotiate with
their passengers for mutually acceptable compensation."

[https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-
rights](https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights)

~~~
dalbasal
I'm not American, so I guess it's a bit out of place for me to comment . That
said, my reading of this incident is naked corporatism.

Laws, industry regulations, corporate policies and police enforcement are
jumbled together, collaborating in a corporatist manner.

(A) The airline has policies and business practices such as overbooking &
"must fly." These save money, get staff to their required destinations,
whatever.

(B) Police enforcement is a required for these business practices to actually
be practiced.

The only reason they can practically have this _involuntary removal by
lottery_ policy is police are willing to enforce it. If police of any
city/airport refused to execute these corporate polices, the policies would
have to change.

That's ultimately who outrage should be directed at, the police. Why did they
come in the first place? Had a crime been committed? Passenger safety
endangered? Police were summoned by a "private" company. They were informed
that corporate policy required them to drag a passenger of the plane. They
said OK, I guess that's our job.

I'm not as concerned about United or anyone else having nasty policies. Many
companies do. I care more about police enforcing those policies. There is no
consumer protection against police action.

~~~
tzs
> That's ultimately who outrage should be directed at, the police. Why did
> they come in the first place? Had a crime been committed? Passenger safety
> endangered? Police were summoned by a "private" company. They were informed
> that corporate policy required them to drag a passenger of the plane. They
> said OK, I guess that's our job.

If you frame it that way, then it does sound outrageous. This:

> They were informed that corporate policy required them to drag a passenger
> of the plane. They said OK, I guess that's our job.

makes it sound like the police think it is their job to enforce corporate
policy.

But is that accurate? The airline owns the plane. They have the legal right to
decided who is and who is not allowed on the plane. They allowed that
particular passenger onto the plane, and then later they revoked that
permission. When he refuses to leave at that point, doesn't he become a
trespasser?

From the police point of view how is this any different from any other
situation where someone is on private property without permission and refuses
to leave? In most countries, I believe, removing trespassers is one of the
normal functions of the police. Generally, in civilized countries, we want the
police to do that rather than having the owner try to force the trespasser out
themselves.

~~~
opo
>...The airline owns the plane. They have the legal right to decided who is
and who is not allowed on the plane. They allowed that particular passenger
onto the plane, and then later they revoked that permission. When he refuses
to leave at that point, doesn't he become a trespasser?

I think an argument can be made against treating this as trespass. There is a
(rather long) contract between the passenger and the airline. There are many
reasons they list on the contract why they can deny transport, but wanting
that seat for their own use is not one of the reasons. If a landlord rents you
an apartment, there are reasons they can have the police evict you, but
wanting to kick you out because the landlord wants to use the apartment for
the use of his family is not one of them.

~~~
mimmmi
I will change a few words in your question to make some senses. >>...A
convenience store owns the place. They have the legal right to decided who is
and who is not allowed to buy (candy, alcohol, cigarettes...). They sold to
that particular client, the client paid it, and then later the store revoked
the sell. When the client refuses to return the item at that point, doesn't he
become a theft? <<.

I am sorry to say the client is not trespassing since he already paid, he got
this seat number and is already seated in the plane. The trespassers were the
4 employers that the crew has decided to kick the 4 others clients. That is
called favoritism.

------
sandworm101
The how and why these people were asked to get of the plane isn't the story.
There is a big mash of different companies behind the uniforms. We know they
are all cut-throats. But people are asked/told to get off planes every day. It
isn't right but happens without issue every hour of every day. So for me this
story begins and ends with why violence was used against this particular
person. That has much less to do with United than it does with the rent-a-cops
who work in places like airports.

Real cops don't, shouldn't, wear jeans. These guys showing up in t-shirts and
jeans says to me they are thugs with no respect for their job. That they
didn't first clear the other passengers from the area means they are
untrained. That they didn't ask to see the man's ID, that they didn't put pen
to note paper, before laying hands tells me they are inexperienced. United may
be financially responsible for its underlings, but that's just legal doctrine.
I reserve my anger for those three realworld people.

~~~
fatbird
Rather than blame the goon squad, you should blame the king for ordering them
into action. Or, in this case, the subcontracting sheriff's deputy.

I think the more serious error here is the error you display: "people are
asked/told to get off planes every day." That may be true, and maybe in most
cases results in only a grumpy exit, but this situation seems to have exposed
that it is not a legal requirement, and that people's generally co-operative
nature has led to routine infringement of consumer's rights. Dr. Dao was not
clearly obligated to exit the plane, and the justification for the "police"'s
removal of him depends upon the now-questionable claim that they were okay to
do so.

Certainly we are putting too much of a premium on peacefully resolving
situations at the expense of fair treatment. Your story should start with
whether Dr. Dao was, in fact, obligated to incur thousands of dollars in
losses by being "randomly" selected to miss a work day on which an entire
medical office depends, in exchange for 800 units of United scrip.

~~~
kem
Not an expert, but my understanding after reading that article was that at an
important level, whether or not Dr. Dao was obligate to exit depends on
whether or not he was appropriately told to exit. If he was, he was
trespassing; if not he was not.

In this way, it does come back to the police action, because they should have
treated it more as an investigation, asking all the parties involved about
what was going on, and attempting to mediate, and then when that failed, taken
him off the plane.

Overbooking policy in the US is heinous, but at some legalistic level this
seems to me to be more about how Dr. Dao's removal occurred, rather than about
the overbooking per se.

Honestly, I'm disturbed by the classism that's run rampant throughout the
coverage of this and subsequent events. Airline overbooking practices,
security unprofessionalism, etc. are all just part of the system until it
happens to a physician (whose services for a day or so should not in fact be
critical, even if they are inpatient or critical care--a hospital or clinic
needs to be able to cover for illness, etc.), or as in the case of a
subsequent LA Times story, a wealthy businessman. But for everyone else? The
plumber whose livelihood depends on scheduled appointments? Who cares.

~~~
briandear
Why do we use "plumber" as an example of a "non wealthy" person? Ironically,
your argument itself is classist by suggesting plumbers are somehow lower
class in terms of wealth or financial status.
[http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1851673,0...](http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1851673,00.html)

~~~
Ensorceled
Not at all. They are saying that classism exists and people wouldn't care if
it was a plumber, that doesn't mean _they_ think that plumbers are lower
status.

If they had said this happened because racists chose Dr. Dao since he was
Asian that wouldn't make them racist either.

------
edsheeran
They could have used common sense. Be polite. Raise the ante. Negotiate. There
was a manager/person in charge who didn't use common sense and then it
escalated to more parties without common sense. Low EQ who only know threat of
force and escalation of force.

Our loss of wisdom
[https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisd...](https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom)

~~~
masondixon
They offered $800 to get off the flight.

This is what they have to pay by law. Bumping is legal, and must pay if the
bump involuntarily.

I don't know how a grown adult can get into the kind of situation where they
need to be carried off a plane.

Absolutely ridiculous that anyone thinks the behaviour of the passenger is
acceptable in society. And he is a doctor. This is so unprofessional and I
would fire the man if he worked for me.

~~~
FireBeyond
> They offered $800 to get off the flight.

Another problem, as (if you had read the article) United is _required_, by the
DOT, to offer at least up to $1350. If the passenger can show that United
refused to go up to $1350 they are in violation of DOT regulations (and indeed
there's video of the gate agent laughing at someone who offered to deplane for
$1500, "No, that's not happening. Someone is getting off this plane or it's
not going anywhere") - indeed it's a challenge because United doesn't want to
compensate more than it has to, but it also has obligations.

~~~
bonzini
It's not at least up to $1,350. They can offer _as little as_ $1,350 even if
the ticket costs more than $1,350/4 = $337.50, but there's no upper limit.

Apparently their policy is to never go above 4x the cost of the ticket (they
said it's $800 in this case, your computation in another message said $1030,
but airline fares are really complex). That's a valid policy. But they should
definitely have offered cash instead of vouchers.

~~~
masondixon
> But they should definitely have offered cash instead of vouchers.

They are allowed to offer vouchers or free flights.

[https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-
rights](https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights)

Should the law be different. Maybe. But the law is the law.

~~~
bonzini
Yes, but only for voluntary bumping. Involuntary bumping requires the airline
to pay cash if the passenger insists on that. It seems reasonable to offer
cash before moving to involuntary bumping. Anyone who can read would request
cash rather than vouchers worth the same $$$ (a $2000 voucher might be
different, but they didn't offer that, either).

And even if they didn't, they could have drawn say 10 passengers instead of 4,
and given them "a written statement describing their rights and explaining how
the carrier decides who gets on an oversold flight and who doesn't" as
mentioned in the page you linked, They might very well have found 4 people who
would have refused a voucher but would have accepted a $800 check.

Or skip the stupid lottery and go with involuntary bumping of the 4 people who
checked in last. Well, pretty much anything but what they did.

~~~
FireBeyond
> Involuntary bumping requires the airline to pay cash if the passenger
> insists on that.

Not even "insists on it", they are required to pay cash or check, only, for
IDB.

Their "dirty little secret" (which makes it sound 'naughty', as opposed to the
more accurate 'illegal') is that for many years they've been offering vouchers
in this situation.

And then there's this argument that the gate agent came on to the plane, and
asked for volunteers, and then having no/not enough volunteers began
involuntarily denying boarding, and the argument is that "having boarded, any
removal of a passenger is involuntary, because by definition/law, voluntary
denial doesn't involve demanding passengers give up seats after boarding or
refusing to fly the aircraft".

------
blizkreeg
Does anyone else worry from a safety perspective that the pilots flying these
"subcontracted" flights are probably paid very low? I read somewhere that even
Captain pay at some of these guys can be 60-70K. I know FAA license
requirements are stringent but I would have a hard time believing that working
for shitty, bankrupt or nearly bankrupt low-cost airlines that don't pay well
has to affect your performance to some degree?

~~~
Naritai
Are you trying to say that 60k is low?

~~~
tw04
For the amount of time and effort it takes to become a pilot? Not to mention
the constantly being away from your family, and having the lives of thousands
of people in your hands month in and month out. 60k is absolutely low.

~~~
rollingRelease
Yeah, I'm kind of inclined to agree, excepting for indirect compensation that
might not appear as part of taxable salary.

Considering how much expensing for (airline) food and (corporate rate) hotels
enters the picture, there's probably a substantial additional cost lurking
behind that salary.

Travel is a choice. That decision is made by the individual. Some people
absolutely love being away from their families, believe it or not, and love to
travel besides. You adopt that reality simply by taking the job. There's no
accounting for that. It's a reality that confronts the individual alone.

But, the 10 or 300 souls on the plane are absolutely a good reason to pay
pilots a little bit more.

But then again, teachers should be paid more for working with children. And
airplane mechanics are every bit as important as the pilots.

So I guess it comes down to how much passengers care about whether their plane
crashes, and how much they'll spend to gamble on getting somewhere faster than
by boat or train or bus. Passengers don't _have_ to fly, do they?

~~~
tw04
>Travel is a choice. That decision is made by the individual. Some people
absolutely love being away from their families, believe it or not, and love to
travel besides. You adopt that reality simply by taking the job. There's no
accounting for that. It's a reality that confronts the individual alone.

I'm sorry but that's the most ridiculous statement I've ever read in my life.
I have never once had any company ever try to pitch travel as a "perk".
There's a reason why they call out the amount of travel in the job
description, and there's a reason any job I've ever had that has a lot of
travel they make sure you realize it's part of the job due to the burden.
Furthermore, every job I've ever had that included lots of travel compensated
you _MORE_ because they understand that burden.

If you're ever in a position where you're a hiring manager and you try to fill
a travel-based position by telling candidates that they're getting a lower
salary due to the "perks" of travel, you'reg going to be searching for a
LONGGGGGGGG time.

------
ehasbrouck
FYI, I've added an update in the comments to my original article at:

[https://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/002292.html](https://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/002292.html)

I finally spoke with United Airlines spokesperson Charlie Hobart today, after
this article was published.

Mr. Hobart told me that the gate agents handling United Express flights at
O'Hare, including those who called in what Mr. Hobart described as "Chicago
Department of Aviation security officers", were employees of United and not of
Republic or a third-party contractor.

Mr. Hobart claimed not to know whether or not "CDA security officers" are
sworn law enforcement officers. That claim to ignorance strains credulity,
unless United has deliberately kept its own spokespeople in the dark. And if
United still hasn't been able to figure out, 10 days later, whether these
thugs (I use that term deliberately, in its original sense of organized gangs
that prey specifically on vulnerable travellers) were really police, how were
passengers supposed to figure that out in the moment?

"I don't have access to that level of detailed information," he said in
response to this and most of my other questions. When I asked if he could find
out, he declined. "I'm not going to get into that level of detail."

Mr. Hobart said he didn't know whether the passenger was asked to leave by
United or Republic employees, whether the "officers" were asked to remove the
passenger by United or Republic employees, whether the officers talked to the
pilots before removing the passenger, or how the officers identified
themselves to the passenger.

"They were unable to obtain the cooperation of the passenger," Mr. Hobart
said. He referred all my other questions to the City of Chicago Department of
Aviation.

------
rdtsc
> , but it was a Republic Airlines flight operated by Republic Airlines pilots
> and flight attendants and under the operational control of Republic Airlines
> management.

What's the point of mentioning that? They are wearing United Uniforms even.
However United wants to distribute its routes, how it hires its contractors,
flight attendants etc is its business.

It seems like a way to divert blame. (United is great, it's those pesky
contractors again). Otherwise I don't see why this point is prominently put at
the very top. Maybe in a thorough analysis it is interesting to mention it,
but it would some place at the end.

~~~
smcl
If you keep reading it becomes apparent why this is actually quite shady and
not a clean dodge for united. It's an attempt to use lower-wage non-union
workers, made more interesting by the fact that Republic are going through
bankruptcy (and therefore aren't themselves being sued by the passengers,
since there's some sort of limit on the compensation they could get) and that
United are semi-OK with taking the blame to permit Republic to recover a bit

~~~
bkor
If I buy a ticket from United Airlines, I don't care if they contract it out
or code share things with some other company. Your ticket is with one company.
It's their responsibility to hold another / the contracted company
accountable, not yours.

~~~
chairmanwow
I agree with you, but I think the author was attempting to describe the subtle
incentive structures that motivated the contractors to act as they did.

------
rurounijones
It wasn't obvious to me from the title but this is a good i depth article from
obviously an industry expert. Recommended reading if you are interested in
this subkect

------
tmd83
From the DoT site

If the airline must substitute a smaller plane for the one it originally
planned to use, the carrier isn't required to pay people who are bumped as a
result. In addition, on flights using aircraft with 30 through 60 passenger
seats, compensation is not required if you were bumped due to safety-related
aircraft weight or balance constraints.

I'm not sure I understand this exception. Yes it kind of make sense that when
it becomes a safely issue the airlines don't have to pay in that they will not
play around with safety but isn't it still mostly airlines fault .. lack of
proper maintenance or planning. But even it's an accidental case with no fault
for the airlines it's also no fault of the customer and you are making
individuals pay for the incident and protecting the corporation how does that
make sense?

~~~
stult
They don't want to incentivize the airlines even a little bit to fly with
safety issues.

------
joshcrawford
Statements like this need to be backed up with something of substance "victim
of 'minor' but routine Chicago police torture who still feels the pain of my
police-inflicted injury occasionally, more than 35 years later."

~~~
ehasbrouck
The article wasn't about me or my experience. I disclosed this background fact
in case some readers might think it relevant in assessing my reporting and
analysis. I've spoken publicly before about my experiences with Chicago police
(not the Aviation Department police), including "minor" torture. (I repeat the
qualifier, although in quotation marks because no torture is truly minor.) It
hasn't risen to the top of my priorities to write about it in detail, largely
because there are so many more significant stories of Chicago police torture,
told and untold.

I wrote about my first arrest by Chicago police (not the one after which I was
tortured) here:

[https://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/002168.html](https://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/002168.html)

If you want to discuss my personal history, get in touch with me directly, or
leave a comment on my personal blog, which is probably a better place for that
personal discussion than this third-party forum.

------
rdiddly
The American economy is running on fumes and wishful thinking. Various
industries have had to cut costs, try to carry on, and try to conceal the
inherent and inevitable crappiness. This is how United does it.

~~~
brokenmachine
It's not only America, but I suspect that it's because of the expectation of
infinite growth, which is a fantasy, because nothing can grow indefinitely.

So the market becomes more competitive, but the shareholders still want their
return. So first you get the fat cut off, then you end up with corners cut
right up to and over the point of illegality.

Eventually stuff like this incident and much worse happens.

~~~
true_religion
Aha. I think in the case of airlines its more due to deregulation. Airlines
used to be tightly regulated on price, forcing them to compete instead on
things like comfort and convenience. Deregulation allowed them to compete on
price, and thus it became _unknown_ what level of service that the population
honestly expected out of an airline.

It's as if we've had airplane tech for 70+ years, but only modern airlines
since the 1980s.

We're unhappy because airlines now charge 1/3rd of their previous prices, and
carry 3x as many passengers and operate a proportionately greater number of
flights.

Being asked to do more with less money is a recipe for disaster when public
expectations of service remain the same.

~~~
briandear
And airlines used to not make a profit.
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-
explains/2014/02/ec...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-
explains/2014/02/economist-explains-5)

------
dsacco
This was a _fascinating_ read. The money quote, in summary form:

* The flight was technically a Republic Airlines flight subcontracting for United Airlines.

* Almost none of the staff involved worked directly for United Airlines; they are subcontractors required to wear United Airlines' branded uniforms.

* Republic Airlines is bankrupt, and none of the parties involved in the lawsuit has attempted to shift blame to them.

* United Airlines is capable of bypassing union wage requirements by subcontracting through partner airlines, so they have a vested interest in keeping Republic afloat through its bankruptcy (and therefore, discreetly accepting blame).

* The plaintiffs have a vested interest in suing United Airlines, not Republic, because Republic would likely be shielded from paying much if anything due to its current financial standing.

~~~
ryandrake
The infuriating thing about all of this is how deliberately obfuscated and
phony everything is:

* Airline employees who aren't quite airline employees

* Cops who aren't quite cops

* Reserved seats that aren't quite reserved

Doesn't anyone honestly sell a real product that you can take at face value
anymore?

~~~
flukus
This rubbish is everywhere. Contract cleaning (offices etc) for instance, used
to be a profitable small business. Not enough to be rich, but enough for a big
house with some decent amenities and to raise a family on a single income.
Then in the 90's these gigs went into a pyramid of contracting and sub
contracting companies where the company buying the service is paying more but
the grunt doing the work is lucky to be on minimum wage.

At a time where small business software should have been making these middle
men completely useless they were getting bigger than ever.

~~~
dba7dba
I can vouch for this story. My parents went through this scenario exactly.
They had gotten into office cleaning because it was relatively well paying in
the 90's. But in the 90's middle men came into the mix.

Someone with better sales ability would win the contract for cleaning office,
and subcontract it to someone else. And even that 2nd person might subcontract
it to someone else. Eventually, the person really doing the actual cleaning
barely made above minimum wage.

What does MBA school call this? Reducing cost? Increasing efficiency? Reducing
risk?

~~~
djsumdog
Read "Debt: The First 5,000 Years." I cannot endorse this book enough. It is
the most influential non-fiction book I've ever read.

Basically it's called using money as a means to make money, and this was
frowned upon in many civilisations. Even today, in much of the Muslim world
they do not charge interest. They do have higher bank fees (no free accounts,
no free checking or electronic transfers).

Keep in mind if we travelled back in time even 100 years ago, charging 29.9%
interest would be far beyond the limit of usury.

Today in the western world, we accept the idea of being able simply move
around money as a career that is beneficial to society, versus simply using
money for trade and exchange. I really think this is one of the worst things
we could have accepted as being morally acceptable. Board executives at
JPMorgan Chase, PNC and the other banks that caused so much destruction in
2008 should have been thrown in jail next to rapists, paedophiles and murders.
Instead they destroyed thousands of lives and made off with millions in
bonuses.

~~~
fennecfoxen
> Board executives at JPMorgan Chase, PNC and the other banks that caused so
> much destruction in 2008 should have been thrown in jail next to rapists,
> paedophiles and murders.

What strange ideas of justice the world has!

In an ostensibly advanced country, America, one side of the political spectrum
would be have us remain willfully oblivious to police abuses, corrupt
prosecutors withholding or fabricating evidence, and the systematic
dehumanization not simply of prisoners, but of any peripherally involved with
the machinery criminal justice system, _especially_ for the purpose of
deporting undesirables.

(The prison guards who put an inmate in the shower and turned on the hot water
until the skin was peeling off his corpse? Normal. The immigrant detained by
ICE for months and months, given aspirin for his developing penis cancer
despite agency doctors' recommendation to get him to a proper examination
until it was far, far too late? Incredibly normal. Predates Trump.)

The other side of this political spectrum skims over meaningful questions of
actual fraudulent or unethical business practices, issuing instead a blanket
equation of the practice of _making loans to people who assumed their house
would apprecuate in value_ with crimes such as murder and child abuse.

And these aren't even extremes. Both positions are pretty mainstream, real
crowd-pleasers.

What the hell is wrong with us? Can we not aspire to build a world where there
is actual justice, and not mere retribution against our political foes and
other un-persons?

~~~
DennisP
The bankers did more than make shaky loans. In some cases they committed
actual fraud, amounting to billions of dollars, which had effects like wiping
out people's retirement accounts.

I think you're right that they deserve less punishment than murderers. But
what they got is less punishment than some people get for standing on the
wrong street corner.

For details, on both the bankers and the people on street corners, see _The
Divide_ by Matt Taibbi.

~~~
zipwitch
A murder destroys a single life, or handful of lives, directly. Is a bank
executive who wilfully commits fraud that damages million of lives better or
far worse?

Regardless of how bad it is (and I do think there are arguments to be made
both ways), being allowed to effectively escape punishment because the
distributed nature of the crime makes it hard to comprehend its real impact is
both wrong and damaging to society in the long run.

------
ubernostrum
This is not a good article.

For one thing, it goes out of its way to paint fairly ordinary things (the use
of regional carriers, and the fact that there are many regional carriers, and
many of them have contracts with multiple mainline carriers) as "deceptive"
(and implying that code-sharing among partner airlines is also "deceptive").

Which says right off the bat that this is someone who doesn't know how
airlines really work, or who is deliberately trying to misrepresent how
airlines work in order to make it seem sinister.

It gets worse from there. I finally gave up when it started getting into the
trespass argument. You don't need to spin a sinister conspiracy or bring in
irrelevant side topics to get to the heart of why the airline and police were
morally (and, judging from several analyses coming from qualified people,
probably _legally_ ) in the wrong.

What's important to reiterate about the situation is:

* The flight was not oversold or overbooked at the time of the incident. Dig into DannyBee's comments in the earlier threads ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14116944](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14116944) for example) about the relevant regulations and contract clauses -- he makes a very convincing argument that the deadheading crew should have been denied boarding since the airline had a hard and fast obligation not to displace a confirmed passenger to make room for crew (particularly, his analysis of confirmed passenger reservations versus the "must-ride" privileges of crew, which suggests the crew lose that one per both regs and contract).

* The combination of the VDB offer cap (at $800 in vouchers, it's _significantly_ less than what the airline pays to forcibly bump someone, so "cap at $800 and then involuntarily bump people" is literally a policy of "lose money") and the last-minute decision to try to force the crew onto the flight deserve more examination than they're getting anywhere currently. These were the snowflakes that started the slide that became the avalanche. Sending a crew down to an already-boarded and full flight with instructions to find seats for them, without being able to offer sufficient compensation to passengers, is just an indefensible policy.

* Far too many people have shown deference to the flight's crew (the ones operating the flight, not the ones trying to take seats on it). Flight crew like to read the announcement telling you that passenger compliance is required with "all" posted signs, placards and crew member instructions, but this is a bit like the overzealous copyright warnings placed on sports broadcasts (i.e., "the accounts and descriptions of this game may not be retransmitted without express written consent..."). It is absolutely not the case that you are required to comply with _all_ crew member instructions. You can refuse to comply with unreasonable instructions (for example, if a crew member were to instruct you to dance in the aisles for their entertainment, you would be perfectly within your legal rights to refuse), and it is theoretically possible for a crew member to give you an instruction it would be unlawful to obey. Read frequent-flyer forums and you'll find that's not entirely a theoretical concern, either.

* Finally, many air crew personnel commented, in various fora shortly after the incident, that for a variety of reasons their airlines have a policy of _immediately_ escalating any onboard dispute to the police. Usually this is justified as being for the safety of crew and other passengers, and backed up by the force-of-federal-law nature of crew instructions onboard the aircraft. This is a policy which must be abandoned. United has already hinted that it may walk that back and only escalate when there's some type of actual threat or violence, but it needs to not be at the discretion of the airline; use of police to resolve non-violent disagreements between businesses and customers should simply be illegal. If any other business called police as a routine policy for resolving nonviolent customer-service disputes, the police would laugh at them. Airlines should not be an exception to that.

~~~
rkangel
> For one thing, it goes out of its way to paint fairly ordinary things (the
> use of regional carriers, and the fact that there are many regional
> carriers, and many of them have contracts with multiple mainline carriers)
> as "deceptive" (and implying that code-sharing among partner airlines is
> also "deceptive").

This process of subcontracting was something that I (as a reasonably regular
traveller) did not know. Yes I'm aware of flights being handled by an
alternate airline, but if I book a flight with Virgin Atlantic, it's because I
want the level of service I get from Virgin Atlantic.

There being factors that affect the service you get on a flight that are not
obvious to the consumer DOES feel like deception to me.

> Which says right off the bat that this is someone who doesn't know how
> airlines really work I think we can assume from the level of detail in the
> article that he does know how airlines work, he just has a very different
> opinion to you about how significant some of that is.

~~~
ubernostrum
It's more that he seizes on this "well I bet you didn't know the airline is
DECEIVING you" to spin a whole sinister thing and it just destroys his
credibility. Every industry has commonplace things that can be made to look
bad, and usually the people who try to take advantage of that are quacks.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Every industry has commonplace things that can be made to look bad, and
> usually the people who try to take advantage of that are quacks._

Every industry has commonplace things that can be made to look bad, but then
every industry has commonplace things that _are_ bad and should not be
happening. Those happen because people can't coordinate well enough to resist
them, but that doesn't mean they're OK to have.

The longer I live, the more I see that, like a smart guy wrote, "man rules
over another to his hurt".

~~~
ubernostrum
I don't buy the argument that regional affiliates and code-sharing are
inherently bad, though. For example, there are certainly problems with
specific ways regionals have been used by certain airlines (and United is the
biggest offender), but the flip side of it is increasing the number of places
you can reach by air. There are a lot of cities in the US that don't have
enough demand to consistently fill 150-seat mainline planes but can fill 50-
or 76-seat regionals.

------
NotSammyHagar
This is a great article, worth a read. Plus the guy has an awesome cartoon
avatar. The summary is: United on their smaller flights has lots of people
pretending to be united employees but they aren't, and they aren't as well
trained as united employees. The police in airports often aren't regular
police forces, but are special airport police who might or might not be on a
regular police force.

To me, that says there's all these people that probably have substandard pay
and training.

~~~
IIIIIIIIIIII
> and they aren't as well trained as united employees

I'm really getting (maybe needlessly) a bit irate over the endless stream of
"they didn't have the training" comments each and every time some employee
_attacks_ someone. For this incident too but also for many previous ones, in a
lot of forums from reddit to local newspaper websites I found this line of
reasoning or explanation.

I may get flak for this, but as a German who once (very happily) lived in the
US for a decade, the stories as well as the comments seem to come mostly from
this country, and I did not notice them (in this number) until this
millennium. What's happened in the US, I wonder?

Let me make my position clear: It should be obvious that not attacking people
does _not_ require "more training"! That's just being a decent average human
being. I don't know what I'm more worried about, the number of incidents
(might just be because of ubiquitous smartphones and the Internet) - or that
sooooo many people (US-Americans mostly?) seem to think that this is a
"training" issue.

To me this seems like a large culture of "it's _their_ fault", meaning
"management". Part of it really is, since so much of the work culture (service
jobs especially?) is designed to be extremely hierarchical. _" Sorry, I can't
use common sense, I have to call in a manager, he is allowed to use 1% of his
brain but I'm not."_ (The higher level management is allowed to use ever more
brain/judgement.) So it seems the success of this "education" of creating an
obedient workforce unquestionably following procedures and rules is too great,
it changed the way people think and look at _everything_ , not just those
jobs?

~~~
mike-cardwell
Presumably, the "the lack of training" is related to how to resolve situations
without resorting to force.

When people say that they lack training, it's not about being trained not to
attack somebody, it's about being trained (and more importantly empowered) to
resolve situations before they get to that point.

Because when there are no options left, you only have force.

~~~
IIIIIIIIIIII
That does not change anything I wrote.

> Because when there are no options left, you only have force.

It actually makes it worse that you try to justify it. You used your
brainpower to find a justification for what is. But there is none. This is a
non sequitur - there is no reason to use force even when people don't
cooperate! Also, the vast majority of such instances require no special level
of competence to deescalate, only common sense and decency, including a lot of
police incidents I had to read about (I myself never had an issue with US
police, even though I encountered them a lot when in my youth I crossed the US
sleeping in an old car that I had bought).

The entire "deescalation" that was required in this particular case was to
just let it be. What training do you need? Not even the next step of offering
just a tad more money needs any special training. You make it sound as if we
are talking about hostage negotiation or something requiring skills.

~~~
SilasX
What are you taking about? In Germany, to this day, if the airline decides to
remove you from a flight, based on reasons they deem justified, and you
steadfastly refuse, they don't just shrug and say "oh well, guess we're stuck
with you, let's go ahead with the flight". And once security is tasked with
removing a noncompliant person, then yes, it does take training to do it
without hurting them.

You're right that they could have avoided needing to remove someone who didn't
want to. But that's a separate issue from your blanket claim that somehow
force is never justified in these situations.

You're taking like no one gets forcibly removed from anywhere in Germany or
police are always experts in the minutiae of contract law and instantly see
through any unjustified eviction.

~~~
IIIIIIIIIIII
The numbers for police actions comparing Germany and the US speak a clear
language. Any kind of violence is on a far lower level than in the US. We
don't need to talk about the reasons - policing in the US is harder - but your
argument does not work. Nor does any of it contradicts my argument, I'm
tempted to call yours "whataboutism" (that doesn't even have a basis). We
certainly have our own issues, and things like profiling, the same (completely
innocent) people getting controlled over and over wherever they go (darker
skin, wrong haircut, etc. - who knows the criteria), but none of it pertains
to this issue.

~~~
SilasX
Still not seeing how any of that substantiates your earlier claim that "no one
is ever forcibly removed by police and if they needed to be, it wouldn't
require training". You're just changing the topic to something more
defensible.

~~~
acqq
I don't see the claim you have put inside the quotes as being made by
IIIIIIIIIIII, therefore your argument seems fake.

~~~
SilasX
Well, I'm trying to parse it, but as best I can tell, III...'s claim is just
"Americans suck at this" combined with implausible claims and explicit
rejections of any plausible ones.

Somehow, the mere act of evicting someone is evidence of needing to de-
escalate more, as if that could somehow avoid needing to ever remove someone.
Or even if you did, you could somehow do it both without training and without
attacking, since everyone learns how to remove someone without hurting them
sometime shortly after the crying and nursing instincts kick in?

Or, if the eviction wasn't justified, all police are somehow experts on
contract law to the point that they could know this?

And then when called on these questionable claims, III... just retreats to,
"well look at the stats" (and various other poisoning-the-well unrelated to
this specific circumstance).

If there's a coherent claim here, I'd appreciate the correction on what that
claim is.

It's easy to say "someone screwed up here", but III...'s attempt to explain
_what that was_ ends up making its own dubious claims.

~~~
IIIIIIIIIIII
From your previous comment, above, that I didn't respond to:

> that substantiates your earlier claim that "no one is ever forcibly removed
> by police and if they needed to be, it wouldn't require training".

Fortunately anyone can easily see what I wrote. Your style disgusts me.

~~~
SilasX
Everyone can see the text. No one can see a plausible diagnosis of what went
wrong relative to Germany, since you ruled out the possibility of removing
anyone or removal needing training to be done safely.

------
sparkpeasy
Capitalism was a game in which the most clever Baby Boomers found a way to
profit without recompense.

------
losteverything
To me, the overarching point is we would not be talking about this if phones
with cameras (and feeling it's okay to film another human without their
permission)

We always seem to whip out our phones as novice reporters anytime we feel like
it.

It's not privacy that matters it anonymity.

~~~
dpark
> _It 's not privacy that matters it anonymity._

Anonymity is a form of privacy.

And in this case, the recording eliminated both privacy and anonymity, neither
of which are guaranteed or expected in a public setting.

~~~
losteverything
Before phones I expected to never be photographed. I could go anywhere and
think nobody knows I'm here.

It's a different world, that's all. We can't turn back.

At any instant you could become an innocent photo-revealee.

Just avoid being in sight of the vertically held phone..

------
chrischen
Sounds like United used a contractor to operate a flight like Lyft or Uber
uses contractors to operate cars.

~~~
colmvp
That true, though I think that there is a difference.

Most, if not all people realize that Lyft and Uber are mostly just middlemen.
That's what make it 'easy' for people looking for a part-time gig to jump in
and start temporary work. Regardless of the ethics of having a large group of
contractors, I think it's pretty evident to most users of the app of what the
situation is, especially since customers will sometimes talk to the driver
about their experience with being an Uber/Lyft driver.

On the flipside, I would be positively surprised if the majority of United
passengers knew that Republic was a contractor working on behalf of United,
what with the branding and all.

------
masondixon
I don't get it.

Airline bumping is legislated. You get bumped involuntarily, you get $800. He
got bumped, he can get the money.

If he doesn't get off the plane what else are they suppose to do?

I don't know how a grown adult can get into a situation where they need to be
physically carried off a plane.

His behaviour was childish, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable.

~~~
parenthephobia
> If he doesn't get off the plane what else are they supposed to do?

Refuse booking at the gate.

Not give seats that paying customers are already occupying to their staff.

Not remove paying customers using so much reckless force that they break their
nose and teeth in the process.

Accept that they've made a mistake and send their staff in another vehicle.

~~~
masondixon
I mean once they decide someone should not be on the flight. Most people would
just do as they are told and seek compensation or pursue in courts. Mistakes
happen, but most people don't seek physical confrontation. Society doesn't
function if people seek physical confrontation with law enforcement.

This man was different for some reason. I hope he is a rare case.

~~~
Noseshine
> but most people don't seek physical confrontation.

Like that passenger, who did NOTHING. We even have a video (not the first one
that was published, a later one) that shows wat he did: NOTHING.

No, the real problem are people like you. _You_ should be removed - from
everything. Do you wat to see an asshole? Do you have a mirror?

