
A man wouldn’t leave an overbooked United flight, so he was dragged off - dankohn1
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2017/04/10/a-man-wouldnt-leave-an-overbooked-united-flight-so-he-was-dragged-off-battered-and-limp/
======
vwcx
The real thing to fear here is the normalization of violence.

Good perspective in the WP comments:

"The truly shocking thing here is that violence - with the real possibility of
serious injury - was viewed as appropriate in a situation that was purely
logistical. The airline wanted seats for its own employees. This was not an
emergency - such as a terrorist attack or a drunk passenger endangering
people. The lack of judgment is stunning. There is no way that violence was
justified."

~~~
67726e
So what do you do when someone refuses to leave?

I'm on the doctor's side, United should not overbook a plane and bump a
customer to get their own people on board, but when someone refuses to leave
what other options do you have? Taze him and drag him off? You'll have to use
force to remove someone.

~~~
doktrin
Like the GP said : this was a logistical problem. They needed to get 4
employees from point A to point B 300 miles away. There are several ways of
tackling this challenge :

1\. continue escalating their shitty voucher bribes : sooner or later
someone's gonna bite

2\. arrange alternate air transport for the crew : they're already in an
airport, and 2 of their competitors (American, Southwest) have multiple direct
flights between Chicago and Louisville each day

3\. arrange ground transport : otherwise known as renting a car and driving.
Not super fun, but I've had ironically had United pull that shit on me from
NYC to DC - i.e. they cancelled a flight and put us on an overnight coach bus.
If it's good enough for customers, it's good enough for the crew.

4\. suck it up and delay whatever flight that crew was scheduled for. It
sucks, but it was their mistake to overbook and this isn't a safety-critical
situation.

Bottom line, there are about 951 different ways to tackle this problem and
they chose the absolutely worst one out of the bunch. That kind of stupidity
is legitimately impressive to behold.

~~~
flukus
> 4\. suck it up and delay whatever flight that crew was scheduled for. It
> sucks, but it was their mistake to overbook and this isn't a safety-critical
> situation.

Isn't there a good chance this happened anyway? I heard the plane was grounded
for 2 hours.

------
manacit
Someone on a different message board put this situation very well: By the
letter of the law, United was correct - morally, they were not. Their
'contract of carriage' allows them to IDB (Involuntary Deny Boarding) to
passengers due to overselling, and bump people off at-will. Depending on how
delayed the passenger would be to their final destination, they would owe
compensation (up to a max of $1350) for the trouble.

Unfortunately, the way this played out was pretty terrible. My hope would be
that events like this could move United (and other airlines) to having more
transparent overbooking policies and compensating people fairly, but that's
not likely.

~~~
joelrunyon
Legally - is this considered assault?

~~~
objclxt
No. It's a federal crime to disobey instructions of the flight or the captain.
If they ask you to leave the aircraft you're required to leave. If you refuse
and need to be physically removed, tough.

Not that I'm saying this makes United's behavior acceptable - I have no idea
how they managed to load the plane before realizing they needed extra seats -
just that the law is, in this case, on their side.

~~~
kordless
I'm not trying to rationalize anyone's actions here, but if the captain told
you to kill another passenger, that is not within his right of removal of
choice for individual. i.e. The captain is only allowed to remove choice for
an individual when the group is threatened, given they are in charge, by law,
of making choices for group (perhaps for the reason of or related to in-flight
matters).

Edit: changed he to they.

~~~
phil21
That's actually not true (afaik). Certainly the command to kill another
passenger is unlawful, and you won't carry it out.

But also just as certainly he can tell you to leave the aircraft for refusing.

There literally is absolutely no legal right for you to stay on that vessel
after the captain requests you leave.

Plenty of incidents support this on a practical level - captains remove people
rarely but not unheard of for silly and discriminatory reasons. They likely
get disciplined after the fact by the company, but in the moment you have zero
recourse as a passenger who was asked to leave. Your options are to grab your
bag and walk off, or be removed and possibly go to jail. Either way you are
pleading your case on the ground.

~~~
kordless
> That's actually not true

What exactly did I say that wasn't true? If a captain removes people for
discrimination, then they are removing choice from individual based on making
choice for group. People don't want to hear a racist's rationalizations, so as
a group decision it might be a good one, especially given it is related to in-
flight matters (or the prediction it will be related to in-flight matters).
Again, I state that the captain is only allowed (legally) to remove choice for
individual when the group (all people in plane) are denied things related to
in-flight matters.

Laws are typically rational.

I will note my response was directed to the claim that if they ask you to do
something, you must do so. I'm stating that I do not believe, in all cases,
the captain has the rational right, by law, to remove choice from an
individual if they are not threatening choice for group. That's not to say the
captain can't and won't do a removal, but it is irrational to remove choice
from individual if they are not threatening group. That also implies it might
not pass the muster of law, and a passenger would not be "guilty" of breaking
a law by resisting removal. And besides, four people had to go, so the choice
to remove _that one_ individual's right to choice was removed by randomness or
judgement, both of which are irrational actions.

~~~
phil21
I think at this point we'd need a lawyer to actually tell us the law here. I
agree with you in that there _should_ be a rational reason to remove someone.
I simply disagree that there _must_ be legally speaking.

The captain (afaik) can remove you for wearing blue shoes, and you must leave.
He will face zero legal consequences for that action, but of course is subject
to company discipline. In the absurd case the captain somehow owns the airline
itself, I think there would be zero recourse available to an arbitrarily
removed passenger other than IDB compensation and a refund of the ticket.

I also think the level of force in this case can certainly be argued - but I
don't think the United crew will face any legal liability even if the officers
do. Had they used a bit more discretion I'm quite certain this guy would have
no case whatsoever even if physically removed against his will. Knocking him
out of course is excessive, and I believe that is a separate argument.

I didn't intend to call you wrong, that wasn't the greatest choice of words.
I'm simply stating this has been my understanding of the legal implications
for some time now, as explained to me by casual conversation with various
lawyers over the years since it's a curious subject for me.

------
jbeales
For comparison, Delta had a huge number of overbooked flights over the weekend
due to weather cancellations. They handled it by raising the compensation for
giving up your seat until they had the right number of passengers for the
flights.

As a result they got some great press on a weekend when they might have had
horrible press:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2017/04/09/why...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2017/04/09/why-
delta-air-lines-paid-me-11000-not-to-fly-to-florida-this-
weekend/#17504f7b4de1)

~~~
jschulenklopper
Happened to me, flying with Delta last Saturday. During online check in, so
almost 24 hours before I was at JFK for my flight, the web application offered
a choice between four levels of compensation I'd be willing to trade my ticket
for, like $100, $200, $300 and $500.

------
ryandrake
My predictions:

1\. There will be no personal consequences for any of the belligerents
involved in this, including the airline employees and police officers. Nobody
is going to get fired.

2\. The victim will receive no compensation for his injuries, instead will be
further victimized in the courts.

3\. There will be no business cost to United. They are already known as one of
the most awful airlines in the world, and people still voluntarily choose to
do business with them. People will continue to fly with them despite them now
having earned the "Beats Its Customers" badge.

~~~
r00fus
I think you're wrong about #3. Quantized at the micro-level (individuals may
not choose differently), it's certainly unlikely that people will suddenly
change their patterns in large droves immediately.

However that might also still result in people deciding not to fly or switch
loyalties where they are flexible (ie, someone having lots of miles in several
air programs without any restriction to use UA flights).

Stochastically speaking, this event will likely have an impact if anyone at UA
cares to look for it months from now.

~~~
tracker1
May be an opportunity for another airline to offer up "conversion points" for
people to switch over, with a promise, not to have you forcibly removed from a
plane after boarding for overbooking (or in this case, similar reasons).

------
pbiggar
Buried at the bottom:

> "The airline eventually cleared everyone from the plane, Bridges said, and
> did not let them back on until the man was removed a second time — in a
> stretcher."

My reading is they beat him so badly they had to put him in a stretcher. Is
that right?

~~~
helipad
I would imagine it was a form of restraining him.

~~~
eximius
Have you seen the video? It isn't clear to me if he's unconscious or just
limp.

~~~
walterbell
One article claimed that a stun gun was used, hence the need to drag him out.

Edit: it was a tweet quoted by Vanity Fair,
[http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/united-airlines-
passe...](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/united-airlines-passenger-
dragged-off-flight)

~~~
uptown
They also smashed his face against the arm rest. That seems like it may have
been a contributing factor.

~~~
Mithaldu
Y'all somehow missed the article saying he was carried out on a stretcher
AFTER he went onto the plane a SECOND time.

------
AngeloAnolin
It has been mentioned a lot in the comments that United was correct as per
their Contract of Carriage - Involuntary Deny Boarding.

But what's being missed here is that, the person who was dragged wasn't denied
to board the plane in the first place. He was already seated, a seat number
assigned to him, he is on the plane and by all means and precedents, he has
already _boarded_. You cannot anymore deny boarding for someone whom you have
already allowed passage inside the plane and seated. I assume this will be a
feast day for the lawyers of the person removed forcibly, as they have all the
angles working certainly in their favor.

~~~
tedmiston
Their technical definition of boarding may include everything up to until
taxing for takeoff. They definitely are able to remove people between boarding
and takeoff, whether through IDB or another clause.

~~~
vijayr
We are sitting here debating the "technical" definition of a simple thing such
as boarding a plane :( In modern society (business especially), anything and
everything seems to be centered around legality rather than common sense and
being nice to fellow humans

~~~
FabHK
The nice and altruistic thing would have been to get off the damn plane when
the flight crew and airline managers ask you to do. Supererogatory niceness
would have been for someone else to take the 800 USD and hotel room and
volunteer.

------
adekok
Legalities and contracts aside, I don't see why an airline would allow someone
to board, and then remove them. That just can't end well.

~~~
problems
Sounds like it wasn't the normal overbooking procedure - it was overfull
because of united employees.

~~~
ww520
United employees taking passenger's seats? That's not overbooked. That's
robbery.

~~~
rhino369
Not like united employees going on vacation or to a meeting. But a flight crew
going to where they need to be. It's part and parcel of an airline service. If
they can't get to where they need to be a flight will have to be delayed or
canceled.

~~~
djsumdog
It comes down to the balance I guess. We can kick four people off and offer
them each shitty compensation (usually a first class ticket for the next
flight and worthless $200 vouchers for the same shitty airline that expire in
less than 6 months) or cancel the flight this crew is for and lose an entire
plane load worth of income.

I understand the economics, but it's still bullshit. Those customers want to
get home and they're boarded. I think everyone should do what this guy did in
this situation. He paid for a flight. He didn't read through the 10 pages of
bullshit EULA (no one does) and then they assaulted him to remove him from a
flight. The whole plane looked angry. Now United has a PR nightmare .. that
will last 3 days before everyone forgets. People keep flying United and
nothing really happens.

~~~
problems
You have to understand why they overbook - jetfuel is extremely expensive and
produces a massive amount of carbon pollution - most of the airlines barely
operate at margin as it is. Cargo is cheaper to fly than passengers and many
of them are converting more and more towards cargo for that reason. You don't
want to be flying around in jets which aren't at capacity, it's an enormous
waste of money and fuel - your tickets would cost significantly more and
they'd have to run more flights resulting in more pollution.

Their estimates are pretty good even - your odds of being overbooked - even on
United, one of the worst offenders here - are about 1/1000\. From what I've
heard, you can sort of bargain with them from what I've heard, free food and
drink, hotel accommodations, a partial refund even are commonly obtainable if
you get delayed - though that kind of thing may depend on the airline.
According to [https://lifehacker.com/if-your-flight-is-overbooked-dont-
vol...](https://lifehacker.com/if-your-flight-is-overbooked-dont-volunteer-to-
get-bum-1722036179) you can actually get 2-4x the ticket price if you deny
getting bumped. I'd take that kind of cash in many situations.

This was severely mishandled - the big mistake here was boarding the
passengers before knowing the final count with the employees. It caused them
not be able to bargain with individual customers to find someone who was
willing to give up their seat for some perks or cash.

~~~
syshum
> jetfuel is extremely expensive and produces a massive amount of carbon
> pollution

Which is not relevant to over booking,

>most of the airlines barely operate at margin as it is.

False, extremely false

>You don't want to be flying around in jets which aren't at capacity,

you do not want to be flying around jets that have UNSOLD seats, you do want
to be flying around jets that have SOLD but unoccupied seats, it costs far
less in jet fuel the fly an empty seat than a 150-250lbs human with all their
luggage.

this is why the whole overbooking justification is bullshit.

They lose money when they have to fly a UNDER SOLD flight, meaning the seats
are empty because no one bought a ticket. They DO NOT lose money when they
sell a ticket and no one shows up. The Rebooking fees, and various other fees
more and compensate for the no-shows, and in some cases the fare is non-
changeable non-refundable, so the person that does not show up has to buy a
new ticket at full value.

There is no ethical, economical, or any other justification for Overselling
flights than Greed.. Pure and simple

It should be considered fraud and should be illegal

~~~
Scea91
If they need to make some ammount from tickets, lets say $10000. Then your
ticket can cost either $35 or $32 if they overbook.

Parent is right you are wrong. It is economical to sell as many tickets as
possible and ecological to try to fit in as many people as possible to a
single flight. Overbooking is good and helps with both.

------
smdz
Law is intended to, at a fundamental level, reflect and enforce the moral and
ethical standards of a civilised society.

But when law becomes a reason to induce immoral and/or unethical (but legal)
behavior - the civilization collapses.

Good luck to us all!

~~~
aaln
"An unjust law is no law at all"

------
bello
They messed up and overbooked the flight, sure. But why on earth would they
forcefully drag people out of the plane, while they could just find
volunteers?

They could offer cash/miles to whoever volunteered, increasing the offer until
someone accepted. I've seen other airlines do this on several occasions. They
couldn't have handled it worse than they did.

~~~
Flammy
> They messed up and overbooked the flight, sure.

To be clear, every flight is overbooked.

The airlines have run the numbers, and it is clearly more profitable to sell
(for example) 105% of the plane, and then if more than 100% show up, pay
people off to take a different flight.

~~~
lightbyte
That's a horrible reason in my opinion. What other industry could get away
with doing this? If someone sold 105% capacity for a concert or sports game
and just told the last 5% who arrived "sorry, no more room" people would be
extremely upset.

~~~
tunap
The Telecoms have been selling > capacity for... ever(?). When a major event
occurs & everyone picks up a phone to call in/out you get "all circuits are
busy". Ever notice the hit to your inet speeds on holidays when all your
neighborhood is home & idle?

On one hand, infrastructure costs for idle capacity would/could become cost
prohibitive. On the other hand, the provider should be held aaccountable for
their failing to provide reasonable uptime/service.

~~~
mthoms
That's not really a fair analogy. It's difficult (or impossible) to predict
major events like terrorist attacks or weather phenomena that cause phone
circuits to overload. And when these events occur, telecom companies _lose_
money.

But flights fill up every day. When they do, airlines _maximize_ profit.

~~~
tunap
Agreed, major phenomena are exceptions to the norm, did not intend to convey
any judgement on the practice. Those same phenomena affect airlines too. In
fact, weather delays had hampered United's ops leading up to the ejection
event in the news. My point was airlines are not the only ones who sell >
capacity.

------
milesf
This was such a simple problem to fix for United. They offered vouchers for
people to volunteer. No one accepted. So keep raising the offer until 4 people
accepted. Problem solved.

Instead they chose violence.

I will never fly United Airlines again.

~~~
colmvp
I'm honestly flabbergasted by how idiotic United was in this situation. Was a
few hundred/thousand dollars in savings worth the negative PR they got out of
this whole ordeal? Every consumer knows how shitty economy flying is,
especially on United, and would easily sympathize with the consumer who bought
their ticket fair and square.

------
username223
What really gets me is the PR flack smirking and waving his middle finger:

> [Charlie] Hobart said in the statement. "We apologize for the overbook
> situation."

In other words, "sorry about selling more seats than there were on the plane,
but yeah, we had that guy beaten and dragged off. Deal with it."

------
gargravarr
I feel the need to add my feeling of horror and revulsion at what United did
here. I'm British and cannot think of a single justifiable reason to violently
remove a passenger who has paid for the right to fly, and is obeying the
rules.

Purchasing a ticket creates a contract between the individual and the airline;
so long as the passenger upholds their end, which from what I can tell this
passenger did, the airline is violating their end of the contract, and worse
is getting the police involved in what is essentially a contractual matter.
This is dangerously totalitarian, getting officers who are employed to protect
the population to enforce the whims of the corporation. I simply cannot
believe anyone along the chain of communication here didn't stop and say,
'this is wrong'. The lack of humanity is simply astounding - I am at a loss
for words.

I sincerely hope he sues both the airline and the police for this, it's
assault and breach of contract. I'll echo what others are saying, this is a
dangerous situation to allow to quiet down. We need to keep pressure on United
until the responsible parties are made to answer for their decisions.

------
justin66
From a purely customer service conflict resolution standpoint, the fact that
the guy claimed to be a doctor gave whoever was handling the situation for
United a very easy out and a way to move on to the next person. I wonder why
they didn't take it.

~~~
vijayr
Why does it matter if the person is a doctor or a janitor? He had a valid
ticket, was assigned a seat and was already on the plane. They could've simply
offered more money and there would've been takers, instead of all this
nastiness

~~~
justin66
> Why does it matter if the person is a doctor or a janitor?

If I were in a customer service position where policy dictated I kick the guy
off the plane, and he did not cooperate, I'd honestly look for any way to
avoid the whole police ejection bullshit. The passenger being a doctor gave
those customer service people a pretty good out, in case they needed to defend
their actions (to defend skipping over the guy who refused to get up and
leave, specifically) to either their management or to the next person in the
crowd to be picked to give up a seat. I am surprised they didn't take it.

I wasn't commenting on the wisdom of the policy.

------
nbanks
From the doctor's perspective, refusing to leave was probably the best way to
publicize United's bad customer service. It reminds me of the country singer
who wrote "United Breaks Guitars" seven years ago: youtu.be/5YGc4zOqozo

------
PuffinBlue
I feel like this is going to make it into PR textbooks as a perfect example of
how not to manage a developing situation.

Right from the pre-boarding request for volunteers yielding no results, to
then letting passengers board, to 'randomly' selecting 4 people to 'volunteer'
after failing to increase the incentive bounty above $800, to calling in the
cops, to patronising responses on Twitter, to refusing to comment when major
news outlets get in touch and on to the CEO failing to apologise for the harm
to the guy but instead for having to 're-accommodate these customers'.

Nothing about this was handled well but you wouldn't expect it to be because
it required a series of damaging institutional/cultural practices to be in
place already to let the situation develop in the first place - so the
response was always going to be sub-par.

~~~
Jayakumark
Ironically, this CEO is being awarded the best communicator of the year by
PRNews tonight :-)

[http://newsroom.united.com/2017-03-17-United-Airlines-CEO-
Os...](http://newsroom.united.com/2017-03-17-United-Airlines-CEO-Oscar-Munoz-
Named-PRWeeks-Communicator-of-the-Year)

~~~
jaredsohn
It looks like that happened in March. (It says "Last night" and the date of
the article is March 17.)

------
fantasticsid
This post has over 470 comments and was posted 14 hours ago, yet I wasn't able
to find it on HN from the first 3 pages.

On the third page I see lots of posts with lower number of comments and an
earlier post time.

I had to use the search at the bottom to find this story.

Why?

------
Twirrim
Today must be a fun day to be on United's PR team.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Tough day for them, but now tomorrow I'm sure customers will be a lot more
compliant and willing to take arbitrary orders to save the airline money, and
that will make everyone's job easier. #WorthIt

~~~
jessaustin
Sadly, you're probably right. One suspects there have been several memos from
corporate directing gate agents to reduce voucher spending by any means
necessary. It isn't shocking that the obvious solution to this gate agent was
to beat up a random Chinese guy.

~~~
TallGuyShort
And if people doubt this, I'd refer them to the written apology issued by the
CEO. He's very sorry that the passenger made them do this.

------
huangc10
This is just a guess...United needed to get a couple of pilots on the flight
from Chicago to Louisville or else another flight would be delayed/canceled.

Only reason I can think of an employee would take precedence over passenger.

~~~
panzagl
Why didn't they figure this out before boarding everyone? It's much easier to
deny boarding than to pull someone off of a plane.

~~~
huangc10
I don't know. Last minute logistical changes based on timetables, planes,
weather, etc. The reason why I guessed this is because my brother is a pilot.

~~~
panzagl
That's not overbooking then, do the same rules apply?

~~~
tedmiston
Whether or not they do, the airline is still able to remove any customer and
offer customers money to volunteer to be bumped.

------
Oras
I think the best reaction should come from consumers to boycott United
airlines for a while and this will teach it a good lesson in customer service
and behaviour.

------
DiabloD3
Some versions of this story state the man that was beaten was a doctor (a
specialist) that needed to be somewhere to see patients in an emergency
situation.

So, yeah, I'd hate to be United's CEO at the moment, this is now too big to
sweep under the rug and blindly quote IDB and other such laws.

------
tdb7893
Airlines operate in very uncertain and variable environments (weather isn't
always what it is predicted, mechanical issues are pretty common, and pilots
can get sick and other stuff) and having planes or pilots on call everywhere
is prohibitive expensive so it's really not surprising that they have to do
stuff like this sometimes. Airlines need to be more up front about their
policies but there doesn't seem to be a good way to fix it without increasing
prices, which they can't really do because people flying are generally so
price sensitive.

~~~
djsumdog
Or they can just take the hit. In this case, they decided to comp four people
so they didn't have to cancel a plane load. Seems like good economics, but no
one wanted to give up their seats. I mean why would you. It's bad enough you
have to get molested by the TSA once. Twice? Fuck that. I want to go home. No
I don't want a voucher for $200 of my next flight with the same shitty airline
that will expire before I can use it.

They should have just realized they can get a crew to that plane and canceled
that flight; take the hit. Those passengers haven't boarded yet and would be
easier to deal with.

~~~
tedmiston
You are legally entitled to cash compensation over an airline voucher -- you
just have to ask for it and a lot of people either don't know that or just
don't do it.

Also the rebooking is not necessarily on the same airline if they don't have a
similar flight available that day but others do.

~~~
tarlinian
This is only true if you are involuntarily kicked off...if you volunteer you
get whatever they agreed to give you.

~~~
tedmiston
Yeah, good point that cash must be explicitly requested _in advance_ for
voluntary denied boarding vs involuntary. The Points Guy has a pretty good
guide for VDB.

[https://thepointsguy.com/2010/08/points-guy-pointer-
anatomy-...](https://thepointsguy.com/2010/08/points-guy-pointer-anatomy-of-
an-airline-bump-and-tips-for-success/)

------
tty7
I think its interesting this has been completely removed from the front page

~~~
huac
About half of the comments blame the victim!

~~~
FabHK
Or perpetrator, depending on how you look at it. It's not a clear-cut case.

------
darth_mastah
Horrifying. Watching videos like that makes you think: "is it safe to go to
the U.S. for holidays"?

~~~
nojvek
TSA took 30 mins when I opted out to do a pat. Be prepared for a lot of time
wasted on absolutely stupid things. Its like Americans pay so much tax that
Govt has no idea what to do with it.

------
JohnLeTigre
Some observations

\- Surely there is a difference between overbooking and diminishing the number
of available seats after the fact.

\- Also, I would like to see how their "random computer pick" complies with
their legal obligation of having IDB priority criterions.

\- That was excessive force without any doubt. I mean, they had to clean up
the blood afterwards.

\- The doctor had to meet patients the next day, he had to uphold his
hypocratic oath, I'm not sure this constitutes a "refusal" to vacate the plane
in the legal sense.

~~~
talmand
"Your honor, the reason I committed trespass was because I had to meet
patients then next day and I should be absolved of these charges."

Yep, that should work.

~~~
JohnLeTigre
lol, good point

I suspect it wasn't tresspass though, more like a bought-pass

------
abandonliberty
Based on my experience with United this is corporate culture, rather than 'one
bad decision'. A culture that focuses on maximizing profits per transaction
with little left for human dignity or compassion - let alone relationship
building.

On the bright side, "United breaks guitars" is a really catchy tune.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo)

------
panzagl
So the questions I still have- What's the legal difference between 'Denying
Boarding' and kicking someone off?

Can you legally kick someone off an airplane 'just because' (i.e. not
oversold/security/safety)?

Who did the removing- law enforcement or United employees?

What's the legality of private employees assaulting someone?

This is all about level of outrage though- whether the guy should sue for
civil damages or should file criminal complaints.

~~~
tedmiston
> Can you legally kick someone off an airplane 'just because' (i.e. not
> oversold/security/safety)?

Yes, see Rule 21 in [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#sec21). One of the subpoints is that they can remove
you for noncompliance with crew requests, and also, "disorderly conduct".

They can even remove you just for smelling bad (H-16).

------
heifetz
Militarization of our society. Airports are like warzones, with warzone like
police and military and security process. Whenever there is a security issue
at the airport or the plane, it's taken to the extreme. Where is the common
sense in this case? Has the airliners lost their minds? If something like this
happens again in the future, I hope other passengers would rise up and prevent
security from doing this.

------
blizkreeg
The depraved part here is that none of United's employees (flight attendants
and/or pilots) on board the aircraft stopped law enforcement or whoever it was
from forcibly ejecting this guy.

The law may be on United's side but United's employees on board could have
been more human about it and not let this happen once the passenger refused to
be booted off the plane. Since when is use of force the norm?

~~~
SamBam
Once they called the cops, they had every expectation that force may result.
It was their decision to escalate to that point.

------
Myrmornis
Did they arrest him before removing him? Surely that would be the right thing
to do. If they do not have a reason for arresting him then they can't just
beat people up to act as "security" for the airline. If they had arrested him
and read him his rights I'm sure he'd have understood that the gravity of the
situation was such that he really had to stand up and leave.

------
Myrmornis
So many American police officers are violent thugs under a very thin veneer.

~~~
nojvek
Well no one polices the police and there is no repercussion. Its not like the
public has any choice. Its a monopoly and will get paid with tax money anyway.

~~~
Myrmornis
You wouldn't see police acting like that in, say, Germany. So it's not just
the structural situation that you describe because that obtains in any
country. You would see a scene like that in, say, America, or the Philippines,
or many "non-Western" countries.

------
yellowapple
Is there some reason why overbooking isn't classified as fraud?

------
tyingq
Betting this doesn't end well for United.

It's not 100% clear that they exhausted other reasonable options. They don't
say if the 4 employees were a flight crew that NEEDED to be somewhere. There's
no indication if there were other employees (not in uniform) that could have
been deplaned first. There are other flights, on Sundays, that leave after
this one (one at 9pm).

The judgement to go with violence after offering $400, then $800 is odd as
well. Surely someone would give up a seat after the next one or two bumps in
the offer. The onus is on United, since they didn't identify the issue until
after passengers were boarded.

------
HenryBemis
United sucks! I've been lucky/unlucky in my life to fly with them ONCE and
they are THE-WORSE!! I prefer flying some shady cheap company, at least then
they "meet my expectations" while I've never heard anyone ever saying a good
thing about United.

I know my input offers nothing to anyone here, apart the "poor" United
employee that will have to go through all our "hate" and think "oops this is a
forum for people with brains and skills and they are trashing us big time..
now HERE is a pack of skilled people that would never fly with us OR work for
us!!"

------
ArtDev
I hope he sues the pants off them.

There is a racist angle here too. Why target the Chinese guy?

~~~
WillyOnWheels
A Computer randomly selected 4 passengers for removal.

~~~
strictnein
And probably eliminates everyone flying with multiple people on the same
reservation.

~~~
metasean
The article mentions the first two people asked to leave were a couple flying
together.

~~~
strictnein
Oh, interesting. I just kept picturing them requesting a child to leave on
their own, or some other insanity.

------
mattsfrey
Sure it was a dumb/unethical thing to do on behalf of the airline and should
have been handled differently etc. I'm wondering why nobody is commenting on
the absurd behavior of the passenger however - insisting on forcing police to
physically drag him from the plane. Once it was decided and the guys in
uniforms with guns show up, what sane person is honestly going to do that? The
decision to remove the passenger we can all rightly agree was wrong, but the
graphic nature of how events unfolded at that point is really on the
passenger.

~~~
cmurf
I think this is milquetoast logic. You acknowledge the airlines' mistakes, and
then with exactly zero logic you shift the burden of consequence entirely to
the victim.

Shit airline policy, shit airline decision making prior to boarding to avoid
an altercation, shit airline decision making after the boarding process by
being too cheap to bribe literally _anyone_ off the plane, shit airline
decision to have a "random" person forcibly removed. Yeah that's all bad but
in the end it was the passengers fault for what happened? Ummm, yeah, that's
shit logic. How did you just get from Exhibits A, B, C, D, and E to conclusion
Z with no dots connected?

I also call bullshit on "the computer" picking someone randomly to be removed.
I will eat my hat if the computer really has a random function for this
purpose, rather than one based on seniority (miles status) or yet another shit
decision on part of the airline shifting a personal choice to that of the
computer, i.e. lying.

I'm glad this guy stuck to his decision. Even better there's video for his
future lawsuit. The only thing they understand is money. And he should take as
much of their money as his lawyer can possibly extract out of the airline.
It's the only way airline employes who made bad decisions at literally every
step along this sequence will make adjustments. Had he merely complied, it
would have secured the policies as just and reasonable in the eyes of the
airline, even though they aren't just or reasonable.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> and then with exactly zero logic you shift the burden of consequence
> entirely to the victim.

When did mattsfrey say anything of the sort? Seems to me that he said that,
essentially, the passenger made a bad situation worse. And I think that his
claim is objectively true. The passenger would not leave the plane, even when
told to do so by the police. Does that lead to physical force? In the real
world, yes, it does. Does the passenger bear some (not all!) responsibility
for that? Yes, he does.

~~~
grasshopperpurp
Absolutely not. The airline made a bad situation worse by refusing to offer
adequate compensation, and they made it even worse by introducing violence.
This man saw that he was being wronged, and he refused to allow them to wrong
him without some type of protest. If he had left and said, 'Well, this isn't
right,' nothing would have come of it. He would have received no justice. Now,
there's a good chance that he'll be adequately compensated for his trouble,
and United will be adequately shamed/penalized by would-be customers.

------
dragonwriter
This should never happen; regardless of how you feel about the practice of
overbooking or bumping passengers for staff, if there aren't seats available,
a pre-sold ticket shouldn't be convertible into a boarding pass, and the
passenger should never have been able to get onto the plane or even into the
secured area of the airport (and doing this is the only sane and efficient
thing to do if airlines are going to allow checked baggage at all, given
positive bag matching rules.)

------
cozzyd
United could have had someone drive the passengers in a van or something at
least...

------
tutufan
"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

(since no one else has said it yet)

------
grizzles
Oh man. If I was United's competition, I'd be looking to do a major ad buy
right now. I'd never let them live this down. First ad: A United plane filled
with Punching Bags instead of passengers.

------
someone1222
Everyone should have left the plane and stopped flying United in the future.

These things could be so simple and self-correcting if everyone _acted_
instead of screaming _oh my god_.

~~~
nojvek
I think its a classic case of herd behaviour. If no one is standing up and
stopping it why should I? Just needed one person to stand up and fight the
stupidy. Then the entire flight would have gone into a resistance.

------
KyleBerezin
I can't view this article. It just tells me to subscribe to the Washington
post. I thought it was taboo to put paid articles on hacker news.

------
woogiewonka
I knew there was a reason I've been avoiding United like the plague.

------
losteverything
" I had lasagna"

Sometimes you want news to be fake news.

------
ed_balls
Why not use the jump seats?

~~~
rtkwe
Then the flight attendants wouldn't have had seats in the case of an emergency
which I'm willing to bet isn't allowed.

~~~
ed_balls
A friend that works for Emirates managed to get this way to home on Christmas.
There are usually 2 spare jump seats. You put 2 pilots there and 2 where the
couple was. The flight is quite short.

~~~
rtkwe
Hmm, maybe the plane they were flying has fewer spares or they'd already
filled any spares with other crew they were shuffling around?

------
duglauk
lawsuit is waiting for you united

------
dudul
Well, the good thing is that they may not have to worry about overbooking for
a while now :)

------
pfortuny
The fact is that you agree to lots of things when boarding a plane (buying a
ticket). Not knowing the law is not an excuse. So...

It is annoying and terrible but it is ehat it is.

~~~
eximius
It is not possible to know the full body of law and read every ToS for every
interaction. That is a terribly cynical attitude.

------
rhino369
The outrage mob is pushing this pretty hard.

Booting people off a plane is pretty shitty behavior for an airline. It's bad
customer service and they should dealt with it earlier than after boarding.

But if they have to do it, the passenger shouldn't be allowed to just refuse.

This guy did. And he had to get dragged off the plane. I don't really see an
alternative other than just letting anyone willing to scream to stay and then
boot off another customer with dignity.

This is shitty service by united escalated unreasonably by the passenger.

~~~
whitepoplar
I think you're wrong. They should have upped their monetary incentive until
someone left voluntarily. It was their business fuckup, not the passenger's,
and they should pay for it.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Yeah, the mistake was United's. But the passenger also acted unreasonably. If
you act like a two-year-old - even in a situation that, initially, totally
isn't your fault - then you may get treated like a two-year-old. And if you
act like a two-year-old after the cops start telling you to leave, they're
typically going to _make_ you leave - using whatever level of force is
required to do so.

So, yes, the initial fault is United's. But there's blame enough to go around.

~~~
denom
But if he had the right to his seat, then why should he leave?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Once the cops show up and tell him to? _Because the cops told him to_ , that's
why.

Note well: I am not saying that the cops are always right. I am not saying
that we should all be good little citizens and obey whatever the authority
figures tell us to do. I _am_ saying that, in the actual world we live in,
disobeying police orders will often involve painful physical consequences,
almost immediately. You can argue about whether that should be. Fine. I'm
saying that it _is_ that way, though, and you'd better plan on it being that
way in your situation before you decide to ignore what the cops tell you to
do.

~~~
FireBeyond
> I am not saying that we should all be good little citizens and obey whatever
> the authority figures tell us to do. I am saying that, in the actual world
> we live in, disobeying police orders will often involve painful physical
> consequences, almost immediately.

> Because the cops told him to, that's why.

"I am not saying obey authority figures whenever they tell us to do something.
Even though I said in the previous sentence, 'because the cops told him to,
that's why'."

Your note completely and utterly contradicts your previous statement. There is
no way to reconcile them.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
OK, let's try this again. I'm not saying that you should obey the police
because they're authority figures, even if they're wrong. I'm saying that you
should obey the police because they're going to physically hurt you (at least)
if you don't.

That is, when the authority figures are morally in the wrong, you can make a
case that the moral thing to do is to disobey them. But just in terms of the
actual way things work in this less than perfect world, you'd better think
seriously about the price you're going to pay for doing so. You can say "they
shouldn't use force". Fine. But in the real world, _they 're going to use
force_.

So, no, I'm not contradicting myself. I'm speaking in two different senses.
There's the ideal world, and there's the practical way things actually work.
In the real world, if you disobey an order from the cops, _it 's going to hurt
you_, no matter how morally right you are.

