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More dick moves and it's not even political- United Airlines

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[DHT]Osiris said:
So as long as everything is nice and legal, nothing was wrong with what happened here?
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I didn't say there was nothing wrong here, the airline security officer was out of line. Holding United responsible for the the actions of the airline security officer (City of Chicago employee) would be wrong as well.
 
Genx87 said:
I have not read it, but understand it. And in no way was this guy breaking the law. Your example was bad.
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There is still quite a bit of debate over this and its never been tested in federal court to my knowledge but there is the general "Failure to comply with crew member instructions" law. Without a court ruling its hard to say how far that extends when it comes to the demanding a passenger leave the plane but the government has given the airlines a lot of leeway when it comes to making that decision

Londo_Jowo said:
I didn't say there was nothing wrong here, the airline security officer was out of line. Holding United responsible for the the actions of the airline security officer (City of Chicago employee) would be wrong as well.
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United didn't even operate the flight. Republic Airlines did - which also operates flights for Delta and AA.
 
Londo_Jowo said:
I didn't say there was nothing wrong here, the airline security officer was out of line. Holding United responsible for the the actions of the airline security officer (City of Chicago employee) would be wrong as well.
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Then I hope he gets a payday out of the city/TSA (whoever's meatheads they were). I'm not holding my breath though.
 
[DHT]Osiris said:
No, the problem was, neither of them was breaking the law, which means whomever has more money and/or muscle wins.
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I dont think anybody here is claiming what United did was illegal. Im only pointing out his analogy of cops being called by a brick and mortar store because of a shoplifter vs what happened here is a bad example.
 
Genx87 said:
I dont think anybody here is claiming what United did was illegal. Im only pointing out his analogy of cops being called by a brick and mortar store because of a shoplifter vs what happened here is a bad example.
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It could probably be argued that what the officer did was assault, which is illegal. That would depend on how a court decided though (assuming it went that far). If it's not a united employee though, no, they wouldn't be on the hook (legally) for it. Unfortunately we generally consider law enforcement judge dredd-esque do-no-wrong paragons of legal authority, so assault is normally outside the scope of what they can be accused of.
 
Whether the actions were legal or illegal, that is one discussion and going strictly by law, nothing illegal happened here. I am sure everyone will agree to that, lawyers have already chimed in saying that what occurred was not illegal. The main discussion is whether this was right and the actions by United was on the extreme side of wrong. When they make a mistake and overbook the flight, then make the mistake of allowing passengers to board already instead of taking care of this at the gate, they should have found a solution that did not involve calling security to physically remove someone. Offer more incentives, offer more vouchers. The person who made the decision to call security to forcibly remove a passenger, even though legal, should be sacked immediately.

[DHT]Osiris said:
It could probably be argued that what the officer did was assault, which is illegal. That would depend on how a court decided though (assuming it went that far).
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It's easy for the aviation security officer to make up an excuse like in this case, saying the passenger was belligerent. Anyone who is being forced off a plane against their will can be non-cooperative, which they can easily claim as belligerent.
 
Future business school lesson:

How not to handle a viral social media crisis. The case study of United CEO's tone deaf response to a passenger being injured while being dragged off a plane because United didn't want to pay a higher price for passengers to voluntarily give up their seats.

BTW the videos are getting hundreds of millions of views in China where the reaction is very negative.
 
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DrunkenSano said:
It's easy for the aviation security officer to make up an excuse like in this case, saying the passenger was belligerent. Anyone who is being forced off a plane against their will can be non-cooperative, which they can easily claim as belligerent.
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Sure is, which can be the trouble with legality as a whole. Laws are enforced with the understanding that humans are unfeeling machines, accepting lawful input and performing the appropriate output. Anything deviating from that is to be considered unlawful and probably hostile, and is treated as such.
 
Londo_Jowo said:
Again, you need to read the federal regulations concerning overbooking of flights.
https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights
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Thanks for the link. Upon review, it appears the airline has the right to prevent someone from getting "on an oversold flight" and must provide "denied boarding compensation." Here, however, the passenger was not denied boarding, the passenger was permitted to get on the plane, which means United lost the opportunity to involuntarily bump him. At that point United was required to bump the four passengers that had not yet boarded - their employees.
 
JSt0rm said:
I bet we will see some kind of travelers rights bill because of this.
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If we do I doubt it passes. Involuntary bumps happen every day. This one was managed so poorly that the fix really belongs on the United side and it is basic economics and game theory. Keep upping the offer till you get the spots you need. Manage your business to make it a very rare occurrence and the increased payouts won't be material to the bottom line.
 
[DHT]Osiris said:
Heh, seeing citations of 830 million worth of loss so far. Wonder if that was worth it?
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the stock as of right now isn't even down 3% today and was trading lower just a few weeks ago.

only time will tell the affect this event will have on their revenues, and their stock price, if any.
 
alien42 said:
the stock as of right now isn't even down 3% today and was trading lower just a few weeks ago.

only time will tell the affect this event will have on their revenues, and their stock price, if any.
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The immediate drop is pretty sharp, and I was going off various interweb statements regarding loss. Even if it's just offsetting recent gains, loss is loss and it looks bad.
 
[DHT]Osiris said:
The immediate drop is pretty sharp, and I was going off various interweb statements regarding loss. Even if it's just offsetting recent gains, loss is loss and it looks bad.
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the immediate drop really wasn't that sharp though. here is a six month chart, today's action does not stand out and is actually pretty typical for UAL. the volume is high, but also not setting any records.

sc
 
alien42 said:
the immediate drop really wasn't that sharp though. here is a six month chart, today's action does not stand out and is actually pretty typical for UAL. the volume is high, but also not setting any records.

sc
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Not overall, no. If I were an investor though, I'd be pretty pissed that some of my money was flushed from this incident.
 
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