
United Airlines STILL using police to remove passengers in spite of promise - pm24601
http://fortune.com/2017/04/17/engaged-couple-removed-united-flight-wedding/
======
joelrunyon
Listen, I'm not a United fan, but this stuff stinks of people jumping on the
outrage train.

This is pretty clear what happened:

> Soon after moving to other, empty seats in the economy cabin a few rows up,
> flight crew denied their request to pay a supplement for the seats, which
> United sells as "economy plus", and told them to move back to their original
> seats, Hohl said.

So, they were not in their original seats when the plane was boarding. They
don't allow this while people are boarding because the flight team needs to
match people boarding to the manifest & it screws up other people who's seats
they might be taking.

They might allow you to switch seats AFTER takeoff, but that's a different
story.

The other part of the issue is they didn't move to comparable seats.

> "We thought not a big deal, it's not like we are trying to jump up into a
> first-class seat," Hohl told KHOU. "We were simply in an economy row a few
> rows above our economy seat."

From a fare standpoint, they're actually a different fare class. Just because
it's not a different cabin, doesn't mean that's a headache. I'm not 100% sure
of their policy, but United _certainly_ isn't obligated to change people's
seats and upgrade them once they're already issued a ticket & booked on the
flight. Can you imagine the nightmare that ensues after people start
requesting upgrades, exit rows, premium economy, etc when people are trying to
board with children, suitcases that don't fit in bins and all the other stuff
that happens in economy on boarding?

This article ([https://www.yahoo.com/style/united-airlines-kicks-couple-
off...](https://www.yahoo.com/style/united-airlines-kicks-couple-off-plane-en-
route-wedding-181721817.html)) is pretty clear that the sleeping man was
awakened and their seats were available for use and there's no clear reason
why they refused to return to their original ticketed seats.

Like I said, I'm not a United fan, and I do everything I can to avoid flying
them & use my points on their partner airlines internationally (which aren't
bad actually), but this stuff screams of novice flyers not knowing the rules
of the air and trying to milk the bad press train United is having.

Edit: typo

~~~
dheera
The couple "found another passenger sleeping sprawled across their seats after
they were the last to board the flight".

They moved to other empty seats. They didn't go to first class or business
class, they simply took other empty economy seats. They may not even have
known the difference between various economy seats. The majority of airlines
in the world don't differentiate economy seats.

United should have asked the sprawling passenger to unsprawl, and punish the
sprawling passenger if necessary, not the couple.

~~~
bobbytherobot
How was a man sleeping across their seats during boarding? I have a hard time
imagining a person doing this and not being told not to be a flight attendant.
They make multiple passes up and down the cabin telling people to sit up with
their bags properly away.

~~~
joelrunyon
This is probably one of those incidents where "draped across the seats" is a
guy who boarded early, sitting aisle and fell asleep with his arm on the
chair.

The people tried to get a better seat and got told no. Then they made it into
a headline story.

------
cwyers
Headline is "United Airlines Reportedly Removed an Engaged Couple from a
Flight to Their Wedding." The submitted headline would seem to violate site
guidelines.

~~~
joelrunyon
Not to mention, they're still ALLOWED to use police to remove passengers who
refuse to comply with flight attendant instructions...which is what happened
here...

EDIT: It seems it was a US Marshall...not technically police.

~~~
paulgb
It's not even "in spite of promise" (in the HN headline as of this comment);
the promise was not to do it when they are overbooked.

------
williamscales
> flight crew denied their request to pay a supplement for the seats, which
> United sells as "economy plus", and told them to move back to their original
> seats, Hohl said.

Sounds like they should have removed the guy sleeping in seats that weren't
his, not folks who were probably cooperating with the flight crew. Or there's
something missing in this story.

~~~
joelrunyon
They woke him up and moved him.

See this article - [https://www.yahoo.com/style/united-airlines-kicks-couple-
off...](https://www.yahoo.com/style/united-airlines-kicks-couple-off-plane-en-
route-wedding-181721817.html)

They refused to sit in their ticketed seats, which is why they were removed.

~~~
williamscales
Ah, I had a feeling something wasn't quite right with the account in the
article. That makes it pretty much a non-story.

~~~
joelrunyon
Yes, it's another "outrage against United" story - but in this case, it's
seems more likely that it's just a whiny customer who didn't listen to the
flight staff and who's behavior affected the flight.

------
leephillips
This story repeats the falsehood that the United flight was "overbooked".
Explanation here:

[https://www.inc.com/cynthia-than/the-controversial-united-
ai...](https://www.inc.com/cynthia-than/the-controversial-united-airlines-
flight-was-not-overbooked-and-why-that-matters.html)

------
bobbytherobot
I'm not a United fan, but there is a big point of their story that is
confusing. Why was a man napping across a row of seats during boarding?

~~~
logfromblammo
I presume that the man was already boarded from a previous segment of a multi-
segment flight, and that segment was lightly-booked enough to nap across
multiple seats.

This would be especially likely when boarding at a hub airport--like ORD. The
fully-booked portion of the flight is from the hub to the end destination, but
those passengers are coming in from N feeder routes. So 1/N of the feeder
passengers can remain on the plane instead of getting out to make a
connection.

But even so, you still need to have enough of your ass in your own seat to be
belted in during takeoffs and landings. That makes it mighty difficult to
sleep across 3 or more seats through a stop.

Looks suspicious. I suspect this couple was embellishing to surf a wave of
anti-United sentiment for a bit. The guy was probably asleep in his own seat,
and they just didn't want to climb over him and sit 3-to-a-row when other rows
were empty. I wouldn't put it past United to seat an affianced couple in
separated seats with a stranger seated between them, either.

------
Clubber
I'm afraid their culture is too far gone and it will be a long, slow descent.
They're news fodder now.

~~~
criley2
Or, this will all blow over in 1 month, like it always has before, and while
they will churn travelers temporarily, the next Delta/et al scandal will churn
them right back to United.

Plus the dollar is king and RyanAir proves you can spit on people and treat
them like trash and they will line up to fill every plane as long as the price
is right.

~~~
_delirium
How people direct their outrage at these kinds of stories is pretty fickle,
too. Right now, because of a quite egregious case, people are more skeptical
of police removing people from planes than they used to be (which is probably
good). But in a few months there will be some case of a passenger removed from
a plane in circumstances that look bad for the passenger and/or trigger common
pet peeves, and then we'll have a chorus of pro-police internet commentators
saying "FINALLY someone did something about these assholes, I hope they start
doing this regularly!!!"

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burntrelish1273
Most airlines aren't incentivized to treat customers as human beings... that's
the bargain. That's the diff between Virgin / JetBlue and United / American.

ProTip(TM): Virgin counter at LHR is probably the best on planet earth. Super
friendly and helpful.

