
United Broke Its Contract with Flyers - ColinWright
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-13/united-broke-its-contract-with-frequent-flyers
======
jnwatson
The biggest issue was that United made clear that the implicit agreement
between itself and its customers is void. Their policies and procedures
reflect a certain attitude that many potential fliers didn't realize were part
of the deal. And there's no walking that back.

~~~
13of40
> no walking that back

I don't think it's as dire as you make it sound. The reason is that the real
implicit agreement most of us have with our society is that everyone is as
helpful and congenial as possible as long as it keeps the wheels turning. Once
you run afoul of the airline, or the sheriff, or the HR department, you can be
stomped down in the blink of an eye, and even if you successfully challenge it
legally, at the end of the day you've still lost some amount of money, time,
or health fighting it.

Someone in that mindset is going to look at their Expedia search and _still
sort by price_ , because they realize that every airline is playing the same
game, and the one in a million chance of being forcibly removed from the plane
over a technicality is just one of those gambles that everyone takes whenever
they step outside their house.

(That said, if I sort by price and Delta and United come up the same, I'm
picking Delta.)

~~~
hartator
> (That said, if I sort by price and Delta and United come up the same, I'm
> picking Delta.)

Except that the Delta will probably just be the United sold via Delta!

~~~
mcv
Is that possible? That you actively try to avoid United and still end up in a
United plane?

~~~
jdeibele
If you're not paying attention, yes. I checked flights on Kayak from SF to
Vancouver and a lot of the results look like this:

Tue, May 2 Air Canada logo 10:45a – 1:01p Air Canada• Operated by United 2h
16m SFO – YVR nonstop Flight details

That's because United and Air Canada "codeshare", meaning you can book with
United or Air Canada but that flight is on a United plane.

Of course, it goes the other way: you can book an Air Canada plane but use a
United flight number.

[https://www.united.com/CMS/en-
US/Marketing/CustComm/Promotio...](https://www.united.com/CMS/en-
US/Marketing/CustComm/Promotions/Pages/AirlinePartners.aspx)

[https://www.kayak.com/flights/SFO-
YVR/2017-05-02/2017-05-07?...](https://www.kayak.com/flights/SFO-
YVR/2017-05-02/2017-05-07?fs=specificleg=SFOYVR1493719200000AC51151;providers=-AA)

~~~
FabHK
Air Canada and United are both Star Alliance (like Lufthansa, Thai, and many
others). Delta is SkyTeam. Booking Delta and flying United metal is much less
likely.

~~~
mcv
Wait, so flying Lufthansa could have me end up in United? That is something to
keep in mind when booking tickets in Europe.

------
wnevets
>The contract allows the airline to deny boarding involuntarily in case of
overbooking. But that’s not what happened; the airplane wasn’t oversold. And
Dao wasn’t denied boarding.

Every article about this story needs to repeat this line.

~~~
zdean
The article also goes on to say (in essence) that even if you assume that
United was in the wrong on this point, it constitutes a breach of contract on
United's part. At that point, Dao is free to sue for breach of contract...but
United is free to ask him to leave.

I'm not justifying United's actions (or that of the police)...just saying that
Dao unfortunately probably wouldn't have a legal argument against being asked
to leave.

~~~
gyc
I don't think that is true. If you had a valid lease with a landlord for your
apartment, your landlord can't just kick you out of your apartment before the
end of the lease if you haven't violated any of the contractual terms of the
lease.

~~~
greensoap
That is because tenancy has a depth of laws surrounding them. The only way to
kick a tenant out of his house if with an order from the Court and action by
the sheriff (at least in most states). But your right to stay on the property
of another person, outside of tenancy arrangements, do not have that body of
law.

~~~
gyc
You are absolutely correct that a whole host of laws govern the landlord-
tenant relationship. Given how regulated air travel is, as well as United's
status as a common carrier, I wouldn't be surprised that there are also
similarly restrictive laws for air travel, so I still question whether Dr. Dao
did have a duty to vacate his seat despite the breach of contract by United.

~~~
kelnos
The actual lawyer who wrote this article believes Dao did have a duty to
vacate, so I think that's a bit more authoritative than our layperson opinions
here. Of course, only a court could really answer that question, and I'm sure
United will try hard to settle this out of court.

------
UhUhUhUh
Let's just note that giving the guy a 1st class ticket or even a private jet
to his destination would have been less expensive. And could even have
enhanced UA's image and business.

~~~
ScottBurson
They could just as easily have flown their employees to Louisville on a
private jet.

I have even seen it suggested that the employees could even have gone by taxi,
though I don't know if that was really practical.

Anyway, seems to me the best solution would have been to simply keep raising
their offer for compensation until they got enough volunteers. Whatever they
had to pay would have been far less than the $1.6B hit they took to their
stock price.

(I actually like Delta's solution the best: they ask you when you check in how
much you would accept to get bumped. It's fair and efficient.)

~~~
gshulegaard
> I actually like Delta's solution the best: they ask you when you check in
> how much you would accept to get bumped. It's fair and efficient.

This is kind of like a recruiter asking you what your current and expected
salary is. I wouldn't call it fair and it is only efficient for the airline
which can then use that information to bump customers with the lowest
thresholds, maximizing producer (the airline) surplus.

~~~
svachalek
The typical way to do it is to more or less hold an auction, increasing the
offer until enough people take it. Either way the people with the lowest
thresholds end up getting bumped. These are the people with the least urgency
and/or most need so I don't really see what's unfair about it.

~~~
Qworg
Hold a reverse auction instead - start high and lower it until you get just
enough takers.

~~~
thaumasiotes
That's a terrible idea. It would be a PR disaster each and every time you
tried to do it.

~~~
RyanCavanaugh
I've been in boarding areas where this happened. The offer started at $400 and
ended up at $1,000 by the time they got enough people to accept. No one was
outraged (and I was quite happy to get 2x$1,000 in vouchers in exchange for a
minor inconvenience).

~~~
ghaff
That's not a reverse auction.

A reverse action is offering $2K. More people than we need. OK, how about
$1500? Still too many. $1000? OK, right number.

"Wait! You offered us $2K and now you're only going to give us $1K. Lying
POSs."

At least that's what I think people are referring to as a reverse auction in
this context. I'm not sure if that's a totally accurate description or not.

------
JumpCrisscross
There is a bill in the works with a simple rule: you cannot remove seated
passengers for non-safety reasons [1]. If you care about this issue, please
call your U.S. Senators and ask them to prioritize it.

[1] [http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/328497-dem-plans-
bi...](http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/328497-dem-plans-bill-to-
prohibit-airlines-from-forcibly-removing-passengers)

~~~
kelnos
I don't think this is necessary, or even desired. United's Contract of
Carriage specifies conditions for removing someone from a plane (all of which
I think are reasonable). If they violated that contract (which it seems they
have), then they're legally liable, and Dao (and the other three passengers)
have grounds to sue. That's how it's _supposed_ to work, and I think that's
sufficient. Successful suits (or out of court settlements) and negative PR
will make it unpalatable for airlines to do this as a matter of habit.

------
mvpu
In the social era airlines (or any company for that matter) shouldn't be
worried about breaching or keeping their contracts on paper... they should be
worried about 1-click brand damage from a frustrated customer screaming on
Twitter or Facebook. Social media is unforgiving, customer experience is
everything.

~~~
cortesoft
You say social media is unforgiving, but is it really? In the short term,
sure, but you think this will have a lasting impact on United? Social media is
fickle, if nothing else. It will move on to something else soon enough, and
completely forget about this incident.

~~~
maxerickson
They've said they aren't going to call police just to remove passengers
anymore. I bet they stick with that for quite some time.

~~~
Chaebixi
Yeah. Maybe people will forget about the incident soon if nothing happens, but
they're now primed to think United is even scummier if it ever does something
similar in the foreseeable future.

------
jtrtoo
I have a idea. Well, several.

1\. Let's stop overbooking in the airline industry. The seats are already
prepaid for. Who cares if a passenger shows or not? (It'd be different if they
were losing revenue when a passenger doesn't show up; they aren't).

2\. Let's take responsibility (the airline) if we fuck up (or an act of gawd
enables) a situation where our own staff can't get where to a destination they
need to be in per our own scheduling. This means we don't bump customers
_involuntarily_ for our fuck-up. If not enough paying customers volunteer so
be it: We'll eat the impact of our fuck-up of not properly planning how to get
our own staff from point B to point B (whether that means finding an
alternative for them to get there, delaying some other flight, whatever).

The crux is this entire situation seems to be four distinct matters:

\- Overbooking (unnecessary)

\- Staff logistics (contingency plans, accepting consequences)

\- Involuntary bumping (goes away with addressing the former two matters)

\- Security / policing efforts for matters that aren't being handled amicably
in the moment by a disagreeing party (standard police matter I presume, which
has a body of knowledge and skill associated with it which may have been
lacking here or needs to be adopted to plane boarding situations)

~~~
cgag
I might be ok with overbooking if they got rid of involuntary bumping and had
to auction off being bumped until someone accepted the price.

~~~
fshaun
I don't think introducing an unbounded liability is the solution to this (or
perhaps any) problem. Would this work for 99% of flights? Sure. But it's just
asking to be gamed.

~~~
cgag
You could counter game it by not overbooking. Or start at like 10k and auction
down.

------
williamle8300
Let's also remember that David Dao was physically assaulted, which is a
separate matter and that cop should be charged for the crime of using
excessive force.

~~~
danderino
How was he physically assaulted?

He was told he'd be removed forcefully and the man said he didn't care. He was
removed forcefully with adequate force.

~~~
srtjstjsj
you can find the answer to your question here:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=united+dao](https://www.google.com/search?q=united+dao)

~~~
danderino
I seen the video.

They literally just pull him from his seat. I don't know how else you would
forcibly remove someone whose resisting getting out of their seat.

~~~
maym86
[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assault](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/assault)

~~~
danderino
Oh cmon.

Going by literal definitions, an officer tackling a man out of the way of a
bus would technically be a "physical assault". But if your headline was
"Officer physically assaults man", people are going to have a much different
impression.

Tell me whats wrong with pulling a man out of his seat when you are ordered to
remove someone from a seat and that person refuses to leave peacefully.

------
nebabyte
Title just gave me an epiphany. Could members of that flight sue as a class
for trauma/emotional distress?

~~~
CamperBob2
They certainly can. That will be why everyone on the aircraft has been issued
a refund.

------
mnm1
"There’s nothing illegal about breaching a contract."

No there isn't. But there is something illegal about lying to police, filing
false police reports, and using such false pretenses to assault and batter
someone by proxy. There is no question United did this, it's illegal, and it's
criminal. They should be charged by the prosecutor as should the cops who did
the actual beating. They are _equally_ responsible as United. The police
failed to investigate and beat up an innocent person because of their failure
to understand the situation. They should lose their jobs and pensions; ideally
they should go to jail.

~~~
ufmace
That's pretty far off on basically every point.

There's no such thing as "using false pretenses to assault and batter someone
by proxy". If you have authority to ask someone to leave, and call the police
to enforce that, you have no control or responsibility over how they go about
doing that.

Regarding "lying to police" and "filing false police reports", all the police
need to be concerned about is that he was asked to leave by someone with
authority to do so, and refuses to leave. Airline pilots and other such
proprietors generally have broad discretion to require people to leave. If he
has a contract that requires him to be transported, then he has a civil claim
against the airline, but the order to leave by the captain is still entirely
legitimate.

It is also not the responsibility of the police to investigate the reasons
behind a request to leave and determine if they are legitimate or not
according to contracts. The law recognizes that the courts are for making real
determinations of facts, officers on a scene have broad discretion to do what
appears to be the law based on the information they have at the time. And in
this case, they were entirely right - the crew does have the authority to
demand that someone leave and does not need to justify that to anyone. Failure
to provide the service under contract is a civil claim to be addressed in
court later. Or, the short version, this classic applies - you can beat the
rap, but you can't beat the ride.

I really don't get the need in these media sensation cases to burn everyone
involved at the stake. Isn't it bad enough what United actually did wrong,
which is to have a dumb policy for how to handle overbookings and crew
transport? For nobody to look at the situation there and step back and try to
find someone else more willing to take another flight?

There's a reason why we have due process instead of lynch mobs - the next
person to make a mistake and be the target of the internet frenzy could be
you. If you make a mistake someday and it gets blown up on the internet,
wouldn't you rather face a reasoned punishment for the actual laws it can be
proven that you actually broke, instead of having your life completely
destroyed because everyone's really pissed off?

~~~
onli
> _If you have authority to ask someone to leave, and call the police to
> enforce that, you have no control or responsibility over how they go about
> doing that._

It's actually highly questionable whether United had that authority. They are
bound by contract, they are bound by regulations. They did not have the right
to remove him or prevent boarding via overbooking regulations, as the
passenger was already seated, and the plane was not overbooked. Also, they
were not in the air, meaning the pilot does _not_ have unlimited rights to
control who is on the plane. Frankly, I see no legal means for United at all
to remove him from the plane.

They certainly did not have the authority via their own contract, the article
goes into that.

It's corporate propaganda to claim consumers have no rights. Consumers do have
rights, there are contracts, laws and regulations. It is also not at all
evident why the cops should follow the orders of United. Since United was in
the wrong and did not have the authority, it was just wrong for the cops to
follow their orders. They already got punished, and it is absolutely possible
this will have more legal consequences for them. And for United.

~~~
ufmace
> It's actually highly questionable whether United had that authority.

I was thinking about this some more, and I would think that they do. Consider
what would happen if, instead of the actual situation, the passenger was being
removed for being highly obnoxious. Maybe if he was sexually harassing flight
attendants or intentionally making a mess or something. In that case, the
commander of the aircraft might also demand that he leave, without needing to
cite an exact law that he broke and prove that he broke it.

I'm not saying that the actual removal in this case was right. I am saying
that the ability of bad actors to behave in ways that are obnoxious and
interfere with normal operations yet technically do not break any specific
laws is the reason why property owners, vehicle commanders, etc generally have
broad authority, recognized and enforced by law, to demand that anyone leave
at any time without needing a reason. The law only specifies a few minor
exceptions to this based on certain very specific types of discrimination.

I would consider United to have abused that right in this case, but that's why
the system is that if the commander says that you're off, then you're off, and
the police don't hold some mini-trial on board the plane to figure out what if
any laws were broken.

> It's corporate propaganda to claim consumers have no rights.

I don't think anybody is arguing that. It's a matter of exactly what rights do
they have, and how those rights are to be enforced. He does have the right to
either be transported or refunded his fare, but that is to be enforced by a
civil court of law at a later date, not by a snap decision by whatever cop
happens to show up.

~~~
fredophile
The case you're describing is specifically listed as a valid reason passengers
can be kicked off of flights in the relevant regulations. There is no evidence
that Dr Dao was being disruptive or causing a problem.

------
mankash666
Where's the fine print on "excessive force"? The officer(s) involved in
manhandling Dr. Dao need to be brought to justice as well!

~~~
danderino
How was he manhandled?

They used enough force to pull him out of the seat and stopped.

------
in_cahoots
Couldn't United claim that there were four fewer 'available seats' than normal
on this flight and thus it was oversold? It doesn't resolve the question of
whether he was denied boarding or involuntarily removed but it does seem to be
a reasonable interpretation of the first part of the contract.

~~~
jeltz
Maybe they could, but it seems like a weak argument to me given that they let
everyone get seated.

------
rurban
It's stronger than just "Broke Its Contract with Flyers". United explicitly
broke FAA rules, in both incidents in the last week.

Both were already seated, when someone more important to them arrived (too
late). Both of them violated not any of the FAA rules by denying to leave the
plane or change seats.

------
stuaxo
Ah, the old implicit contract of don't beat your customers.

------
hugodahl
Am I the only one who interpreted the title as breaking a contract with the
Philadelphia Flyers hockey team?

------
bostonpete
The article isn't claiming that united broke its contract with frequent flyers
-- it's discussing the contract included in _every_ ticket. The Bloomberg (and
therefore HN) title got this wrong.

~~~
dang
Good point. s/Frequent//.

------
slapshot
[Deleted]

~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
>The only person who should go to jail is the person who thought he was so
much more important than everyone else on his plane that he was the only one
who refused to leave when asked, legally, by a police officer. Not only did he
think he was more important than everyone on HIS plane, he thought he was more
important than the people on the plane that was going to get cancelled because
it didn't have a flight crew. Running back onto a plane, screaming, after
being removed by law enforcement is a crime. He should go to jail.

This is such a crazy level of corporate apology that it's got to be sarcastic.
United was not in the right to remove him. He stood up to that. If United
really wanted to make room they should go for the market-based solution of
just continuing to increase the price they were willing to pay for you to
vacate your seat.

~~~
slapshot
[Deleted]

~~~
orf
Screaming and bleeding, don't forget. You didn't answer his comment though,
why didn't they offer more money?

Where is your compassion?

~~~
wfunction
And did they offer cash, or just a voucher?

~~~
connorcpu
They were offering $800 worth of vouchers, but it's multiple vouchers where
you can only use 1 at a time and they expire in a year.

~~~
wfunction
God... vouchers are useless unless you travel and want to do it with United.
If they really care to avoid messing up their image they need to give cash...

------
pasbesoin
Ok, here it is, basically, as I heard it in some reasoned reporting the other
day:

The contract allows them to reschedule you. Period. You can be at the gate --
or even boarded -- with your "normal" fare, and a passenger can show up and
pay full fare -- say a grand or two versus your $200 ticket.

It's economically advantageous for the airline to bump you and give your seat
to the last-minute, full fare passenger. Even after comping you say $400 (and
that's often in their script, not in actually, fungible dollars) for your
inconvenience.

And, per the report, they will! Big surprise.

In short (in my words), you don't really have a ride until the plane is in the
air.

If you think this is "unfair", might I suggest... gasp, some regulation?

~~~
tyingq
It's not that simple, as is usually the case when law and contracts are
involved.

I suspect this will take some actual legal proceeding for there to be broad
agreement.

Things that make it complex:

\- Airlines are "common carriers". So they are subject to laws above and
beyond a mom-and-pop restaurant on issues like refusal of service.

\- They publish a "contract of carriage".

\- Overbooking didn't happen, so those laws don't offer any protection

\- They can't have multiple meanings of the term "boarded" and switch meanings
to use it to their advantage depending on the sitation. Denied boarding has to
happen before boarding.

\- The door wasn't shut, and the passenger did not assault or intimidate the
crew. So "interfering with a flight crew" isn't on the table.

~~~
pasbesoin
Well, then, looks like I have to pay attention to this again and update my
understanding.

At the same time, this sounds like... regulation! Some form of restriction on
how the terms may be interpreted and executed.

I am not entirely happy with the situation. I want to know that when I
purchase a ticket to go somewhere, I'm going -- absent equipment failure or
some act of God. (Or, the occasional drunken pilot...)

But, it is what it is. And I get a bit tired of all the outcry when much of
such is basically coming from the people who made it this way -- through the
governments they've voted for, or not voted for, as the case may be.

~~~
kelnos
> _And I get a bit tired of all the outcry when much of such is basically
> coming from the people who made it this way -- through the governments they
> 've voted for, or not voted for, as the case may be._

Not even so much that: we, as passengers, are in part responsible as well, due
to the vast majority of us picking flights through only one metric: ticket
price. Economy passengers are not willing to pay higher ticket prices for
better service, and yet still complain about baggage, food, and entertainment
fees, and fewer route choices and consolidation. Economy fares have been a
race to the bottom for decades now. You get what you pay for. If you want to
pay less, you'll get less.

That doesn't excuse United breaking their contract, and it doesn't excuse the
excessive use of force, but it does put it in context.

------
vivekd
This is one of the cases in law where everyone wants to argue about the
contract but no one wants to sit down and read the thing.

Here contract of carriage [https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-
of-carriag...](https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-
carriage.aspx#sec25)

We can read the definitions section of the contract where it defines oversold

>Oversold Flight means a flight where there are more Passengers holding valid
confirmed Tickets that check-in for the flight within the prescribed check-in
time than there are available seats.

So does this apply to this case - yes, even though this individual was removed
to accommodate UA employees the fact was there were more passengers holding
valid tickets than there were available seats

Now scroll down to Rule 25 which gives the provisions for what would happen in
the case of oversold flights - one of which allows for involuntarily denying
passengers

>Boarding Priorities - If a flight is Oversold, no one may be denied boarding
against his/her will until UA or other carrier personnel first ask for
volunteers who will give up their reservations willingly in exchange for
compensation as determined by UA. If there are not enough volunteers, other
Passengers may be denied boarding involuntarily in accordance with UA’s
boarding priority

The article may have one valid argument - that the language of the contract
says "boarding" not "leaving once already seated" but I don't know how much of
a difference that would make in legal terms. Is there really a world of
difference between not being let on the plane and being asked to leave once
you've taken your seat. I don't think there is.

It's possible that you might get this in front of a sympathetic jury and get
an award. But as a lawyer, under the law it's pretty clear that United did not
breach any contract. And This remains true no matter what talking heads on TV
are saying.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
> So does this apply to this case - yes, even though this individual was
> removed to accommodate UA employees the fact was there were more passengers
> holding valid tickets than there were available seats

There were an equal number of passengers holding valid, confirmed tickets and
available seats. Until United decided to reduce the number of available seats
to make room for employees who did not hold valid, confirmed tickets.

> the language of the contract says "boarding" ... Is there really a world of
> difference between not being let on the plane and being asked to leave once
> you've taken your seat. I don't think there is.

That is ridiculous. The act of getting on the plane and taking a seat is
literally the definition of the word "boarding". Once you have boarded, you
can no longer be denied boarding because you've already done it. They didn't
redefine the term to mean something weird in the Rule 1 - Definitions section,
so they need to abide by the normal meaning of the term.

~~~
vivekd
You are defining "boarding" narrowly as the act of getting onto a plane. I
think it's clear that wasn't what's meant by the contract and it is only being
interpreted in this narrow way because people are angry with United. Reading
boarding in the contract suggests that it it intended to refer to the whole
process before the flight.

The contract says "more passengers than available seats" not "more passengers
than seats" if it were the latter your argument would be valid, in this case,
seats may be unavailable for any number of reasons including there were other
passengers or employees who took priority - not great customer service and I
won't be flying United anytime soon - but from a standpoint of legal
liability, it is well within the wording of the contract.

~~~
xenadu02
You're wrong. "boarding" comes from the nautical world and has a specific
meaning. This is one of the times where the colloquial meaning and legal
meaning are identical. You "board" when you enter the vessel/aircraft. There
is a reason they check your ticket at the gate: because that's the legally
accepted procedure for verifying you are a paying passenger and transitioning
from the "not-boarded" to "boarded" state. Different rules kick in (both by
contract and by law) once they scan your ticket and let you climb __aboard
__the craft.

The Dr in this case had boarded the plane.

If United wanted to bump passengers to make room for crew (ignoring whether
that was permissible under the "overbooked" definition), they needed to do it
_before_ they let the passengers on the plane.

Furthermore that was an entirely knowable event. The moment they started
letting people on the plane they already knew the crew members were running
late. They could have had the gate agents ask for volunteers before anyone got
on. They screwed up twice.

There is no defense of United to be had here. Everyone can stop apologizing
for them now.

------
ghaff
So many armchair lawyers who have suddenly become so expert in the fine print
of contracts of carriage.

Yes, United should have done anything reasonable to get a volunteer to get out
of their seat and leave the flight. But this fine parsing around when an
airline is allowed to deplane someone is pretty silly. What if the captain
determined that he needed to take some weight off the flight? Would the
airline be allowed to involuntarily deplane someone in that case?

And guess what. I have been bumped off a flight after I was sitting down for
unknown reasons. (It was quite a while ago.) And I managed to avoid getting
into a tussle with airport security over it.

~~~
tyingq
You're playing armchair lawyer as well though.

There are valid reasons an airline can forcibly remove boarded passengers.
It's not clear that the United situation(s) were valid though.

It's fairly complex due to "common carrier" laws, airport city laws, as well
as United's own contract of carriage. I can't claim 100% that they weren't
technically allowed to do what they did. But there is more than one aviation
attorney chiming in and claiming they had no legal standing.

United's CEO said as much himself.

 _" We are not going to put a law enforcement official to take them off, to
remove a booked, paid, seated passenger -- we can't do that."_

The word "can't" versus "won't" seems deliberate.

Edit: Also, a pet peeve of mine. You've probably heard a flight attendant tell
someone something along the lines of "It's illegal to disobey instructions
from a flight crew." That's complete bullshit. There is a federal law about
"interfering with a flight crew". But it only applies after the doors are
closed, and only applies in situations that involve "assaulting or
intimidating a flight crew".

~~~
phil21
> But it only applies after the doors are closed

Ding ding ding. Which means all the stupid pontification over whether or not
the flight was "boarded" is borderline ridiculous and likely disingenuous at
best.

If this flight had closed the doors and then came back to the gate to remove
the passenger? All these arguments would have weight. But it's quite clear to
me that he was IDB'ed like any myriad other situations I've witnessed. Being
IDB'ed makes no difference if you're at the gate or on the plane - shit
happens after you board as well. Has no one here been on a flight that had to
IDB someone prior to the door closing due to weight issues?

Thus, it's simple trespass once he refused to leave. Either the flight was a
flight and subject to all those rules, or it was just a piece of private
property sitting on the ground.

I can see no way for someone to make a successful argument that once your feet
move past the threshold of the aircraft you have an inviolable right to be
there regardless of the wishes of the aircraft owner.

~~~
ghaff
>Has no one here been on a flight that had to IDB someone prior to the door
closing due to weight issues?

In fact, on a United flight just a few months ago the captain got on the
intercom and said they had weight issues because of headwinds on the flight
path and they might have to deplane some people. As it turned out, they were
able to remove some cargo and otherwise get the numbers to work so everyone
could stay.

I have no idea about trespass etc. but flights have legitimate reasons why
they _have to_ deplane some people. Now it's _much_ better if they can get
people to agree to do so voluntarily with compensation. But one way or the
other, they sometimes have to get some people to leave a plane and making a
fuss vs. not making a fuss isn't a very good criterion.

~~~
tyingq
They do have detailed criteria for when it's okay to deplane someone. It's
their "Rule 21" [https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-
carriag...](https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-
carriage.aspx#sec21)

This case doesn't meet that criteria.

That, and the US "common carrier" laws that put more onus on their ability to
refuse service is exactly why this is so grey.

Hopefully some news organization will convene a panel of aviation attorneys so
we can hear from experts. I suspect United will settle out of court, which
would keep us from hearing what the real answer is.

~~~
ghaff
Yes, but that doesn't seem to cover "Oops. We don't have available seats."
Surely no one is suggesting that an airline can't deplane a passenger because
there's a broken seat or because some condition means the plane will be
overweight if they fill all the seats. There are circumstances where an
airline has to reduce the number of passengers one way or the other. (Of
course, there are reasonable ways and decidedly less reasonable ways to do
that.)

~~~
tyingq
I'd throw that into the "you made your own bed" category. Either change the
carriage of contract (if you can, being a common carrier) to account for it in
the future, or make offers until you get a volunteer. Everyone has a price.

Certainly when the situation is reversed, airlines have no problem with you
losing your unrefundable/non-transferable ticket price when unforeseen
circumstances force you to cancel plans. And they cite the contract if you
complain.

~~~
ghaff
In practice, offering more money is often going to be the right answer.
(Unless the plane is full of multi-millionaires, offers in the low $Ks are
going to find takers pretty quickly.) Of course, there does come a point where
you say we're just going to sit at the gate until someone gets off and cancel
the flight if no one does.

