
United Airlines made passenger abandon mobility device at gate before honeymoon - masnick
https://medium.com/@treyharris/united-airlines-made-me-abandon-my-mobility-device-at-the-gate-before-my-honeymoon-8d74eee04038
======
coldcode
Given how well United handles anything (or Republic for that matter) soon you
will be required to beg for mercy before boarding. Why would anyone in their
right mind fly United any more? An airline with no clue about customer service
whatsoever, nor for that matter even following their own procedures. If the
TSA and your own airline department in charge of such things says its OK you
really don't have a leg to stand on when you get sued. Much less the court of
public opinion.

~~~
brandon272
> Why would anyone in their right mind fly United any more?

If they're like me and they don't live in a major metropolitan area,
oftentimes the choice of airlines is limited and one airline might
consistently be a lot cheaper than the other choices you might have depending
on the airline network and required flight connections.

That's why when I see things like this happen I view it as obviously bad PR
for United but it seems like consumers don't have much choice in many
scenarios unless they want to pay substantially more per ticket.

~~~
bmh_ca
The price just isn't on the ticket.

------
ubernostrum
So, at this point what does it take? Before you fly, do you need to go to a
federal court and get an order to be allowed to board and take your flight,
and bring a couple US Marshals to the gate with you for enforcement? Would air
crew still insist that they possess an absolute authority taking precedence
over it? Could the pilot be arrested and dragged off for contempt?

When people defend airline crew making up policies on the spur of the moment
with "well, you have to comply, nothing bad happens until you don't comply",
do they _think_ about the extremes they're going to push people to sooner or
later? Or does this kind of stuff just not enter their minds?

~~~
metaphorm
they have adopted a fully authoritarian mentality because they have been given
arbitrary authority with zero accountability. this is the Stanfrod Prison
Experiment except in real life and in a crucial service industry. we're
fucked.

~~~
lokedhs
The US airline industry seems remarkably similar to the US ISP industry.

In both cases there is no real competition, and new competitors are legally
prevented from entering the market.

As a result the US are terrible in both categories by international standards.

~~~
metaphorm
there's a big difference between "terrible business" (as the ISPs are) and
"creeping towards totalitarianism" (as the airlines are). I wouldn't use this
as a case for market deregulation or whatever it is you imagine might improve
things. This is really fundamentally a cultural issue and not an economic one.

The problem isn't that United Airlines has insufficient competition (probably
true). The problem is that United staff and airport security staff are given
inappropriate amounts of power with no checks and balances when things get out
of hand and that our society has become so deranged and paranoiac that we let
them get away with it.

------
pasbesoin
I suspect this violates one or another aspect of the ADA. Especially as the OP
followed the carrier's and the TSA's instructions and was given (verbal, but
apparently authoritative) approval in advance.

If we had an Administration actually interested in these things: A first step
would be to _require_ the carrier to transmit written, authoritatively-signed
approval in advance for all such accommodations granted. Yes, this will cost
them something. At this point, let them eat that cost. If it were possible,
I'd require them to create a separate accounting bucket for such expenses that
can only be charged against gross profit and, to the best extent possible,
cannot be charged back to ticket prices and therefore other customers' fares.

If their institution is so fucked up that they cannot properly and accurately
accommodate legally-mandated behavior, then they should pay for this -- out of
their own pocket, not the customers'.

This is a case where "hit them in the pocket" is quite appropriate. And, maybe
it will have to come out of customers' pockets, ultimately. I see it as akin
to Walmart, where the workforce is only sustainable because of substantial
government program payouts -- tax dollars -- that subsidize it.

If United, et al.'s making money requires this level of disfunctional
organization, then they need to find a better business model.

------
umanwizard
> We don’t even allow Samsung phones, we definitely won’t allow that.

This is pure gibberish to me: what does a policy on Samsung phones have
anything at all to do with Segways?

~~~
applecrazy
The battery. Federal regulations prohibit open, unsealed batteries in
passenger flights. Plus some Samsung phones have an, ahem, bad habit of
blowing up.

~~~
bunderbunder
Seems ridiculous, though, to use Samsung phones as an excuse to specifically
ban Segways, but the not do the same for every other piece of consumer
electronics that contains a rechargeable lithium battery.

I think what was really going on there was a combination of confirmation bias
and groupthink - everyone settled on a convenient, if specious, excuse, and at
that point none of the United staff really cared if it made any sense, because
they didn't want to have to stop and think about wtf they were doing.

------
mankash666
Is it just me or does those post read like an advertisement for the cruise and
the segway-like device?

For someone complaining, the post goes on and on into the minutiae of
features!! Suspicious

~~~
glenra
They needed to describe the features of the device to explain why it was
important they be able to keep _that particular device_ with them - that they
were being deprived of something more critical than the mere inconvenience of
"just rent a substitute vehicle".

I was on the Jococruise so I can confirm that both port stops were tendered -
I imagine what a pain it would be to get a standard motorized cart on and off
the tender boats - they don't seem designed to handle that use case at all
well.

------
late2part
OP from Medium should sue airline pilot for ADA Violations.

OP from Medium should name and shame the fools that caused this problem.

~~~
ubernostrum
Due to some historical quirks, the ADA doesn't actually apply to airlines the
way you're expecting it to. There _is_ federal law which applies, it's just
not the ADA.

The basic history here is:

* In 1973 Congress passed the Rehabilitation Act. This is an ADA-like law which applies to federal agencies, contractors and some entities which receive federal funding.

* In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled that the manner in which airlines benefit from federal funding is too indirect to cause them to be covered under the Rehabilitation Act.

* In response, Congress passed the Air Carrier Access Act, which applied Rehabilitation-Act-type standards to airlines.

* Later on in 1990, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, which went further in which types of entities it applied to.

The result is that for something that happens to you at an airport, you need
someone familiar with the above laws to figure out which one applies to the
particular people or entities who caused your problem. If it's the TSA or the
airport itself, you use the Rehabilitation Act; if it's the airline, it's the
Air Carrier Access Act; if it's someone else you probably use the ADA.

This is why, for example, this guy is working to slowly crack open the TSA
using the Rehabilitation Act instead of the ADA, since the ADA isn't the law
that applies to the TSA:

[https://s.ai/tsa/legal/rehab_act/](https://s.ai/tsa/legal/rehab_act/)

------
pmorici
The ghost of continental strikes again

------
colmvp
I have to say, a company has to try really hard to somehow come out worse than
the TSA in a customer dissatisfaction story.

The customer does research online and contacts both United and the TSA to get
pre-approval of bringing the device onboard.

At the airport, the TSA allowed it through their checkpoint. But he gets
stopped at the gate because his itinerary actually reads: "passenger was
advised he would NOT be allowed to board with device, and the device will not
have to be checked, provided he can place device in overhead without crew
assistance. Transferred passenger to TSA for clearance of device through
security." As the author noted, one could read the itinerary note and work
through the logic to recognize that it was likely a typo.

Now, I can understand the gate agent being somewhat skeptical. After all, he
deals with dozens of cases each day and doesn't have all the context of every
situation so he probably falls back on past decisions to deny approval. So the
author gets United's Special Needs Services on the phone to reaffirm that the
device was fine and that he should be let on. The gate agent delegates to the
manager. Again, without full context, the manager simply assumes the item
can't be brought on despite what was mentioned by Special Needs Services.

So in hopes of getting the answer he wanted, the manager contacts the TSA, and
the TSA representative says device is perfectly fine. At this point, anyone
could think to themselves, "okay those are two authorities who give the green
light. I think that's perfectly fine."

But no! The manager then elevates it to the authority of the pilot, who acts
all polite in person but then eventually communicates that he won't allow the
device onboard. Manager gets the verdict he desires and the author is screwed.

First of, I would imagine that a special needs representative is far more
adept at know which electronic devices would be safe onboard a vehicle than a
pilot who is probably unlikely to know about every single new assistive device
out there. But even if that were not 100% true, I think getting approval from
the first two sources should've been good enough.

Secondly, life is already really hard for those with physical disabilities.
Especially when traveling, where there's a lot of stress on top of the
unpredictabilities of the environment. So to be humiliated and endure
additional physical pain for spurious reasons is quite inhumane, even for an
airline.

Third, before the topic gets onto the economics of airlines (as it always gets
to when it comes to customer experiences), I'd like to underline that the
manager literally had to go out of his way to find a reason to deny the
special needs of this individual. This isn't a case where the manager had to
make a quick decision and had go with previous experiences, this is a person
who disregarded explicit approvals from other agencies in order to validate
their own belief.

------
chatman
I think he was discriminated against because he was gay.

~~~
late2part
Why do you think this is so?

