Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire United Airlines in heap of trouble

Seems United Airlines wanted 4 passengers to voluntarily give up seats to allow the airline to shuttle a crew to the destination. No one volunteered, so they picked 4 seats at random and kicked the passengers off the flight. One passenger, a physician didn't want to do, so United had Security forcibly remove him from his seat and rough him up a bit. I think there is going to be an MD that will soon own a chunk of United.

Honestly, if I was a ticketed passenger, sitting in my seat on the plane, and they drug me off, I'd be a bit angry myself. It's not my fault they don't have crew where they need them. We all can accept weather delays, mechanical delays, but to get booted because they have a staffing problem doesn't meet that level of understanding in my book.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/united-ceo-says-airline-had-210747151.html

I kinda thought the same thing. They are in the business to transport people. They screwed up and ended up with a crew without transport..you would think they could just arrange their crews transport themselves instead of causing an embarrassing and what will be an expensive incident.

By the time the lawyers are done with UA, they'll be lucky to fill up a Piper Cub - IF they even have one LEFT...

Not American Airlines - United Airlines, is in trouble.

From what I understand, the passengers were offered money for their seat. The computer randomly picked the seats to be vacated, and they start offering money for vacating the seat, plus a free ticket on a later flight. These seats were up to $1000 with not enough takers, so the aftermath is what makes the MSM...

Always hated flying united.

They will wish they had offered 10,000 a seat, I think.

Why couldn't this happen to me???

My wife says it's because they'd need a horse or mechanical means to drag me...
That and they'd have to remove all the aisle seats...

Fixed in title

United biggest growing market is China

this video is the most viral video to ever hit China with 20m people watching it every 30 minutes yesterday.

United has a bit of a PR problem.

The biggest mistake was not dealing with this in the terminal.

Once a guy is seated on a plane, with his stuff in the overhead bin, its going to take a buttload of money to convince them to get off the plane.

hindsight is 20/20. I suspect the next corporate training video will be about trying to avoid situations where bleeding disoriented paying customers are running up and down the aisle begging to go home.

So the United CEO lamely said they had to "re-accomotate" the passenger.

From now on I'm going to re-accomodate their airline. Boycott 'em whenever possible.

Buying back seats is fairly common because airlines regularly overbook. Plus, they move their crews all the time this way. They seemingly made a mistake by not allotting seats for the crew in advance but it's not always possible to predict when crew seats will be needed. It's just that on this particular flight, no one wanted to sell, which is unusual. They'd have been a lot better off to up their offer instead of getting rough.

A doctor not in first class, wearing sweats and a t shirt, screaming like he was on fire? Maybe, but not likely.

An report last night on Fox indicated he ended up back on the flight! All for nothing then???

as a business traveler, you're screwed in this because your company pays for the ticket.

In most cases you're forced to abide by a company policy that dictates you have to go with a suggested price point or carrier.

So you have little leverage in choosing or boycotting the airline and if you don't fly enough to earn points for upgrades, you're at the mercy of flying in cattle class.

Its a bad situation for consumers that airlines take advantage of - in both loyalty programs and knowing you have little say in what you'll tolerate.

he ran back on the flight, bloody and disoriented when he escaped from security.

He left on a stretcher after that though.

I hate to see thing like this happen, but it can be to your advantage, if you're not in a hurry.

Back in the days when Southwest still sold round-trip-tickets, I had finished a job in NH and was headed back home. Flying out of Manchester, NH headed to New Orleans, La., with a stop in Baltimore, Md.


It was Thanksgiving weekend and they were overbooked. I was left behind in Baltimore because of a gate clerk. I raised a fuss, so they paid me in cash for the round-trip ticket, put me in a motel for the night, bought my meal that night and breakfast the next morning, and paid taxi fares. Just over $600 in cash, for the ticket. Paid for the hotel, meals, and taxi with vouchers.

Next morning I board a plane in Baltimore headed to Birmingham, Al. then onto NO. Got to Birmingham and it was one of those quick stops, don't get off plane, but they were overbooked and asked for 1 volunteer to give up their seat. They would give equal 'air dollars' for you ticket and get you on a flight latter that afternoon for NO.

I volunteered, and some young fellow got my seat. The gave me just over 600 'air dollars' and I volunteered to stay longer if they were overbooked on the next flight, if they would buy my ticket again. The agent saw where they had paid cash for the ticket once and now 'air dollars' for the ticket again, and guaranteed me that they would have a seat for me on the next plane, and they did.

They should have known the situation before the boarded the plane & addressed it then with compensation high enough to get the number of takers required.

Really, really bad PR & they will pay in the end.

I try really hard to avoid United...........they are always my last choice in airlines. Their service has been piss-poor forever. Others aren't great, just not quite as bad as UA.

MM

I had former co-workers in FL last week trying to travel home. I know one of them didn't get home until Sunday. This was due to all the snarl-ups created by the crappy weather last THURSDAY. 5 of the 8 ended up renting cars and driving 3-7hrs rather than waiting in the airport for their final legs home.

Wonder if the guy dragged off the plane could also have been trying for days to get home? There's a chance that's why nobody wanted to give up seats either, could've been many passengers just trying to get home.

Then they should have offered more money. It just shows you how fricked up this country is that they thought they could do that and that they found a cop/security guard who would.

We routinely put up with schit nowadays that would have horrified people in some of the harshest regimes imaginable 75 years ago.