"Overbooked" United Flight

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

According to United and the city officials the airport resides it's no longer aloud.

Yes, they'd do it quietly next time

[Otto Phocus]

If anyone is interested in reading the United Airlines rules, they can be found at

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx

Two sections are of interest in this context

Rule 21 - Refusal of Transport
Rule 25 - Denied Boarding Compensation

Since the passenger was already seated, it appears that rule 21 applies.

There are lots of reasons why an airline can boot you off the flight.  Too many in my opinion.   

As for the police/security getting involved.  If the airline crew decides that a passenger is in violation of rule 21 and "intimidating a flight crew member or flight attendant of the aircraft", the passenger may be in violation of 49 U.S.C. section 46504 which states

"An individual on an aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States who, by assaulting or intimidating a flight crew member or flight attendant of the aircraft, interferes with the performance of the duties of the member or attendant or lessens the ability of the member or attendant to perform those duties, or attempts or conspires to do such an act, shall be fined under title 18, imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both. However, if a dangerous weapon is used in assaulting or intimidating the member or attendant, the individual shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life."

Unfortunately, post 911, the threshold for 46504 violations has been relaxed.  In any case, if the crew could reasonably feel that the passenger was in violation of 46504 (even if demonstrated that the passenger was not), the use of police force would be authorized.

It will be an interesting court case.  I hope that they don't settle out of court.  These types of cases need to go to trial. Things don't change when corporations settle out of court.

[Alan Klein]

If anyone is interested in reading the United Airlines rules, they can be found at

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriage.aspx

Two sections are of interest in this context

Rule 21 - Refusal of Transport
Rule 25 - Denied Boarding Compensation

Since the passenger was already seated, it appears that rule 21 applies.

There are lots of reasons why an airline can boot you off the flight.  Too many in my opinion.   

As for the police/security getting involved.  If the airline crew decides that a passenger is in violation of rule 21 and "intimidating a flight crew member or flight attendant of the aircraft", the passenger may be in violation of 49 U.S.C. section 46504 which states

"An individual on an aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States who, by assaulting or intimidating a flight crew member or flight attendant of the aircraft, interferes with the performance of the duties of the member or attendant or lessens the ability of the member or attendant to perform those duties, or attempts or conspires to do such an act, shall be fined under title 18, imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both. However, if a dangerous weapon is used in assaulting or intimidating the member or attendant, the individual shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life."

Unfortunately, post 911, the threshold for 46504 violations has been relaxed.  In any case, if the crew could reasonably feel that the passenger was in violation of 46504 (even if demonstrated that the passenger was not), the use of police force would be authorized.

It will be an interesting court case.  I hope that they don't settle out of court.  These types of cases need to go to trial. Things don't change when corporations settle out of court.

Rule 21 Refusal of Transport does not apply because the passenger did not violate any of them.  The airline told the police he was unruly, but that was a lie.  There was no issue until the police tried to drag him off the plane.  He may have at that point violated law by not following a policeman's order, but that's a separate issue.  I'm not sure what authority the "police" had in any case as it was not a regular policeman, I don't think. 

This will never go to court.  United admitted they were wrong.  All that has to be decided is how much they're going to pay him. 

[Tim Lookingbill]

Yes, they'd do it quietly next time

Yeah, I misspelled the word "allowed"-(from aloud).

I've been doing this lately after noticing the weird caffeine effects on my memory after switching to a local gourmet coffee bean roaster's organic coffee bean brand. The owner of the new local business I talked with on the phone indicates it has magical powers for losing weight and now I'm assuming one's mind. I wonder how much mental memory weighs.

[MBehrens]

Um, the situation was NOT an overbooking issue. It was United Crew that needed to be on the flight, only for the convenience to United. Had this been a typical overbooking issue it would have been handled at the gate and never gotten to this point.

The fact that this was United exercising their "right" to bump paying passengers for their own convenience makes this orders of magnitude worse than the overbooking fiasco it is portrayed as. Yet another case of the media getting it wrong... another rant for another day..

[degrub]

Yeah, I misspelled the word "allowed"-(from aloud).

I've been doing this lately after noticing the weird caffeine effects on my memory after switching to a local gourmet coffee bean roaster's organic coffee bean brand. The owner of the new local business I talked with on the phone indicates it has magical powers for losing weight and now I'm assuming one's mind. I wonder how much mental memory weighs.

Autocorrect or autotype  (T9) gets me all the time on my phone.

[owinthomas]

It'd be interesting to find out the cost of flying the four crew to their destination via a privately chartered jet. Significantly less than the cost United now face I bet.

[Joe Towner]

It'd be interesting to find out the cost of flying the four crew to their destination via a privately chartered jet. Significantly less than the cost United now face I bet.

Local Louisville charter company lists $1,200 - $1,800 per hour for a turboprop.  Figure 1.5 hours flight time?

https://www.evojets.com/private-jet-charter-flights-to-louisville-ky_133.html

[Otto Phocus]

Some of the many things I don't understand about this incident.  Everything concerning boarding, seat assignments and the like is done via computers.  Unless the deadhead crew just showed up, unannounced at the very last moment, why was this issue not solved before boarding?

Gate Agent gets the notification that there will be four deadhead crew members and the computer shows that there are no seats for them.  Prior to boarding, make the announcement and start the bidding (here I think United tried to go cheap).  If no takers and the rules allow involuntary bumping, then the bumping is done prior to boarding. The only people to be allowed to board the aircraft are those people who will have seats.  To bring customers on board and then remove them after they are seated, shows poor planning.  Unless it was truly a last minute change, which I doubt.

But in the age of computers, this should never have happened in the first place.

How far in advance did United know they needed a crew at the other end?  I doubt they found this out 5 minutes before take off.  There is a lot of steps in flight crew scheduling.

Another thing I don't understand.  For what ever reason, United decided to involuntarily bump four people and three of them agreed.  One of the selected passengers refused.  Why did not United try to find another passenger that would be willing to be bumped?  Did they even ask?  Maybe if they increased the bid, they could have gotten someone else to leave and there is no problem.

It seemed like the crew, once deciding on those four, were locked into their decision.

Unfortunately, neither side is especially motivated to tell the truth so we may never know what really happened and why.

But strategically it was handled poorly for United... and it did not need to be handled poorly.

[Alan Klein]

I heard that the 4 crew requested the seats after the boarding was completed.  So United now changed that procedure and will no longer allow bumping to occur once you've boarded. 

I agree that others should have been asked and the offered amount raised until they got someone to accept it.   Maybe they were rushed because the plane was now late from taking off and already behind schedule.  So they made an unfeeling, rushed decision to throw the guy off even claiming to the police that the guy was unruly when he wasn't. 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

If it makes any difference, it appears that both the flight and the must-fly crew were from United's regional affiliate Republic Airlines.