
United Airlines just lost $800M in value - musharofchy
http://mashable.com/2017/04/11/united-loses-hundreds-of-millions-in-value-after-man-dragged
======
atonse
Not enough. Keep going down. I am praying for some extreme form of bankruptcy
where heads roll. I also hope (and am eager to contribute to the legal fund)
the passenger sues both United, and the airport security organization for
many, many millions of dollars.

I feel like many of us American flyers have Stockholm syndrome about our the
dire situation of our domestic airline industry. We constantly pay regular
prices and more, for airlines that are sneakily become no-frills airlines.

It's especially stark when you fly just about ANY international carrier,
especially the asian and middle eastern ones. On those, you're treated like a
respected human being, fed like one, and actually feel like you got your
money's worth. And you feel like the staff actually wants to be there, rather
than absolutely hate their lives.

I get these are blanket statements for effect (especially in the case of
staff). But it is true given the especially bad quality of customer service
that these airlines are known for.

~~~
johan_larson
Could it be competitive pressure in the US airline market? Margins are low,
and have been since deregulation back in the '70s. And if people are
consistently buying the cheapest tickets available, it's not too surprising
service is nose-diving.

~~~
tuna-piano
I think its the US airline unions. Not all unions are good or bad, but it
seems to me that when people are unionized they become more hostile towards
their employer and eventually their customers. By their very existence, unions
form an us vs them mentality that seems hard to break. Unions then need to
reinforce their value to their members by always having a fight over
something.

I've had great flight attendants on US airlines, but some talk to customers in
a way that I can't imagine even McDonald's employees getting away with. Why
does United put up with surly flight attendants when McDonald's doesn't put up
with surly staff? I think it's probably the unions.

I also think customers don't care very much. Customers want cheap more than
anything else. But I've flown many low cost carriers around the world, but no
flight attendants are quite as nasty as some of the ones at US major carriers.

~~~
coolgeek
It seems to me that you have the causation backward.

Unions don't get established - especially in the last 20 years in the USA -
unless working conditions and labor relations are already bad.

There are literally enough books and scholarship on this to fill libraries.

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bogomipz
>"The man, who had been seated on the plane, was then asked to leave because
the flight had been overbooked."

According to the BBC new story yesterday the reason they needed 4 people who
were seated to leave is that they needed to make room for 4 off-duty United
employees, which makes this even more outrageous(if that's even
possible.)[1][2]

And the United/Continental merger was somehow supposed to benefit the
consumer. This video feels like a metaphor for air travel in the United
States.

I don't mean to trivialize the trauma this unfortunate person must have
experienced, this really make me angry. It's hard to "vote with your feet"
with these awful airlines as there's not much choice any more within the US.
The race to the bottom continues these carriers or maybe this video is the
conclusion.

I think what shocked me(and saddened)me the most is how un-shocking this
behavior is given how awful these carrier and the air travel experience has
become within the US.

[1] [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-
canada-39554421](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39554421)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/JayseDavid/status/851223662976004096](https://twitter.com/JayseDavid/status/851223662976004096)

~~~
dexterdog
But those 4 people were for another flight which would be cancelled if they
didn't get there. Inconvenience 4 people or cancel an entire flight?

~~~
kilotaras
They had 20 hours to get there. There were flights from other airlines as well
as ability to just drive 5 hours.

------
rmason
Today they're trying to assault the passengers character. There may sadly be a
place for that if and when they get into court but whomever is giving them
this advice to do it now is plainly wrong.

It's becoming clearer today that the incident is not just the actions of an
individual gate agent but the entire company's culture is toxic.

~~~
drspacemonkey
>Today they're trying to assault the passengers character.

Well that makes this even more sickening. Link?

~~~
p49k
[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/10/united-ceo-passenger-
disrupt...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/10/united-ceo-passenger-disruptive-
belligerent.html)

~~~
loader
but now he's apologizing. What an about face.
[http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/11/united-ceo-munoz-
apologizes-i...](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/11/united-ceo-munoz-apologizes-
in-response-to-dragged-passenger.html)

------
gk1
So?

It's still above its YTD low of $65.28 from March, and it's 31% up (!!) from
the same time last year.

It would be just as accurate to say "United Airlines gained $6.9 Billion in
value since last year," but of course that wouldn't give people the
satisfaction of saying "Hah! Take that, United!"

~~~
creaghpatr
Will they do a followup article in about a week when the stock inevitably
bounces back? "United regains $800 million in value".

That they badly botched a single customer service incident is not likely to
affect the long term financial outlook of the company.

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tropo
Overbooking should just be illegal.

Making things worse, airlines pick "less valuable" passengers to remove. These
of course are the inexperienced fliers who are having trouble to begin with.
They may have shown up 5 hours or 5 minutes in advance, they struggle to
figure out how car rental works, they might have never purchased a hotel stay
in their life, they are struggling to calculate time zone conversions, they
are just learning about concourses/terminals/gates, they have never used a
baggage claim, and they are confused about boarding.

Not that it should normally happen, but if an airline does need to remove
somebody, they should be required to pay whatever compensation is required to
get a volunteer. If that causes a huge loss, oh well -- try not to end up in
that situation.

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kevin_b_er
People will still go for the cheapest base ticket price. For all the outrage,
nothing has changed.

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jesuslop
A time as good as any to revisit the "United breaks guitars" song and
videoclip :-) at
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo)

------
danielcampos93
View from the outside is at every fork in the road they chose the more
aggressive practice that makes them look super terrible. The question is will
people stop flying united or will this just be a business as usual blip?

~~~
gk1
> will people stop flying united

Considering how few options there are for air travel in the US, probably not.

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self-diversity
The heated rhetoric around this outrage o' the moment is disguising the fact
that United isn't culpable for the brutality the person underwent.

I suspect that the imminent next outrage o' the moment will supplant this in
people's minds, and some savvy folks will snap up United at a bargain price
and make a tidy profit from this affair.

~~~
calbear81
Sure, they weren't the ones who employed the officers who removed the
passenger from the plane but things didn't have to work out that way if United
had considered that the passenger did nothing wrong to expect to be bumped
from a flight. In fact, United had many options at it's disposable that didn't
need to involve forceful removal of passengers such as:

1) Upping the compensation considerably beyond $800. To be honest, that's just
not enough considering that people routinely get $400+ for moving to a flight
2 hours later and this was moving to 3PM the following day.

2) Not accommodating United employees who they wanted to get on board this
flight. That should be only when you have EXCESS seats, not so you can bump
off paid passengers. Here's an idea, book them on another airline's flight. If
that was not possible, then that's poor planning on your part, find a way to
deal with it that doesn't involve bumping passengers involuntarily.

Overbooking flights is going to be norm, a small price we pay to get lower
fares. The response when it happens is the problem that is completely in the
control of the airlines.

~~~
self-diversity
I can't disagree with anything you said but I don't see a single word that
makes United culpable for law enforcement overstepping the needs of the
situation. Given how the outrage cycle regularly crucifies and then moves on
completely inside of a week, United would be best served to hold tight and let
the courts and the basic facts of the situation dictate the outcome, not the
fickle waves of anger expressed on social media.

~~~
calbear81
I am in agreement generally that people are conflating the actions of the
officers (excessive force) vs. what United is responsible for (poor business
practices, lack of consideration, poor judgement). It would be interesting to
know under what specific statute were they allowed to use force to remove a
passenger from an airplane? Is this covered under Trespassing or part of FAA
regulations that you must obey everything the crew says no matter how
legitimate the command is? Where do we draw the line?

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aresant
Barely a 2% move @ the moment from last week.

And it's up ~20% for the year.

Or about dead even for the last 30 days.

[https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UAL?p=UAL](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UAL?p=UAL)

~~~
mcphage
So what you're saying is, had they not had this problem, they'd be doing a
whole lot better than they are?

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johan_larson
This is click-bait about a blip. Look at the one-year trend. UAL rose in value
sharply in Nov 2016 and has since then been flat +/\- noise.

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Bombthecat
Time to buy shares I guess?

In a few month we will be back to normal.

~~~
mikestew
I bought some, with a tight stop in case I'm wrong. I don't think it'll even
take a few months. I'd be willing to bet it's back to normal by EOW. That
prediction depends greatly on how much stock you put in the saying "gaps
always get filled".

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gorbachev
Someone made a lot of money. It was down 4% at some point.

