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Comment by rhino369 | Hacker News Reader

The outrage mob is pushing this pretty hard.

Booting people off a plane is pretty shitty behavior for an airline. It's bad customer service and they should dealt with it earlier than after boarding.

But if they have to do it, the passenger shouldn't be allowed to just refuse.

This guy did. And he had to get dragged off the plane. I don't really see an alternative other than just letting anyone willing to scream to stay and then boot off another customer with dignity.

This is shitty service by united escalated unreasonably by the passenger.

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I think you're wrong. They should have upped their monetary incentive until someone left voluntarily. It was their business fuckup, not the passenger's, and they should pay for it.

It's hilarious to me people engage in blaming the victim over this.

At a particular moment it's $800 and voluntary. At the very next moment passenger is subject to forced removal.

This makes no sense. And I also see nothing in the contract of carriage that permits it.

The airline can deny boarding, but this person is physically inside the airplane having used his boarding pass for the purpose for which it exists: to facilitate boarding the plane. He is boarded. He was not in any way denied boarding. Rescinding that status is not listed at all in the contract of service.

Second, this is deeply uncivilized. The airline invited violence for a civil, non-criminal dispute resulting from their own planning negligence, and their own unwillingness to provide monetary compensation that anyone on board thought was reasonable.

And the police have liability here as well for agreeing to become violently involved in what is ultimately a monetary dispute.

Shame, shame, shame.

This. Chicago to Louisville is a 300-mile drive. Someone would surely have been willing to get off the plane in exchange for $1k and either a rental car, or a hotel for the night. I still enjoy flying itself, but everything around it, from "security" rent-a-cops fondling you and stealing your toothepaste, to airline employees treating you like cattle, makes me dread having to fly somewhere.

Book the employees you forgot to reserve seats for on another airline. This wasn't a situation of one person leaving or an entire flight, down the line, being delayed for want of crew. It was between a paying passenger leaving or the airline having to pay more to ship their crew around.

The passenger fucked up by refusing to leave. That is forcing a physical confrontation when it isn't needed.

I can't believe you're defending United's actions. In short, you're saying that the passenger asked for it. He maintained his dignity as a human being by not acquiescing to unethical actions taken against him. United may have the legal right to do this, but they are certainly unethical in doing so. I fully support this man's behavior.

He did ask for it when he refused to get off the plane. His motivation was richetous but his tactics weren't.

And by I mean getting dragged off the plane. Some are spectulating he was beat off camera. Nothing would justify that.

But if you force someone to drag you off a plan, you are asking for the natural consequences.

You're free to hold your own views. I think yours are unethical.

Yeah, the mistake was United's. But the passenger also acted unreasonably. If you act like a two-year-old - even in a situation that, initially, totally isn't your fault - then you may get treated like a two-year-old. And if you act like a two-year-old after the cops start telling you to leave, they're typically going to make you leave - using whatever level of force is required to do so.

So, yes, the initial fault is United's. But there's blame enough to go around.

I'm glad he did act out, though. Ultimately, he's doing so on our behalf as passengers. When United freaks out about negative PR they're conditioned to be more wary about pushing customers around.

If I were in his position I'd quietly fume about it and United would get more comfortable about booting people who have boarded without repercussions. It's pretty rare that passengers' cases get brought to light so it's kind of refreshing.

Exactly. 100% this.

If he had just left when the police arrived, as commenters above you are suggesting, then that would mean that the threat of violence was a successful solution to United's mistake, and we'd never have heard about it.

I agree. Someone who has committed no crime, and no breach of the contract of carriage, has the right if not the responsibility to resist police power. It's a misuse of power. United should not have requested police presence and the police should have refused to intervene.

Otherwise this becomes might makes right.

I don't think the passenger acted unreasonably. It's human nature to tell someone to "fuck off" when treated unethically, and it's fine to do so.

Since when is it acceptable to knock out a two-year old?

But if he had the right to his seat, then why should he leave?

He didn't have the right to his seat. He had a carriage contract. Even if United breached the contract that doesn't allow you to trespass.

Trying to solve business disputes by force, which is what the passenger did by refusing to leaves, is bad policy.

I completely disagree. It was United and the police who tried to solve this with force. As I saw the video, there is no violent act from him and he should have been left alone.

It's amazing how Americans can justify the most extreme violence for the most petty of reasons. This incident was absolutely meaningless _until_ this man had his face bloodied.

There were a thousand different options, besides force. Do that instead!

Once the cops show up and tell him to? Because the cops told him to, that's why.

Note well: I am not saying that the cops are always right. I am not saying that we should all be good little citizens and obey whatever the authority figures tell us to do. I am saying that, in the actual world we live in, disobeying police orders will often involve painful physical consequences, almost immediately. You can argue about whether that should be. Fine. I'm saying that it is that way, though, and you'd better plan on it being that way in your situation before you decide to ignore what the cops tell you to do.

> I am not saying that we should all be good little citizens and obey whatever the authority figures tell us to do. I am saying that, in the actual world we live in, disobeying police orders will often involve painful physical consequences, almost immediately.

> Because the cops told him to, that's why.

"I am not saying obey authority figures whenever they tell us to do something. Even though I said in the previous sentence, 'because the cops told him to, that's why'."

Your note completely and utterly contradicts your previous statement. There is no way to reconcile them.

OK, let's try this again. I'm not saying that you should obey the police because they're authority figures, even if they're wrong. I'm saying that you should obey the police because they're going to physically hurt you (at least) if you don't.

That is, when the authority figures are morally in the wrong, you can make a case that the moral thing to do is to disobey them. But just in terms of the actual way things work in this less than perfect world, you'd better think seriously about the price you're going to pay for doing so. You can say "they shouldn't use force". Fine. But in the real world, they're going to use force.

So, no, I'm not contradicting myself. I'm speaking in two different senses. There's the ideal world, and there's the practical way things actually work. In the real world, if you disobey an order from the cops, it's going to hurt you, no matter how morally right you are.

You have what's called a cognitive dissonance.

but still, in the face of a passenger trespassing, you call cops and have it removed, not a burly man and have him beaten.

They could have gotten someone who looked more like a cop to do the beating, but that would be the only difference. Cops are often poorly trained, out of practice, and in bad health. It's easiest for them to fall back on beating you with whatever tools they have available until they are satisfied that you will comply (or that the question of compliance is no longer relevant.)

The current claim is that the passenger was a doctor and had appointments he had to make the next day. So I can't say that this was unreasonably escalated at all.

Actually, scratch that - the profession does not matter. Flying is an expensive form of travel and most people travelling do have a schedule to meet. Military can get very severely punished, businesspeople can lose critical deals, tourists can't get on connecting flights or get fired for being late back from vacation, and so on.

United just handled it completely wrong - instead of raising the offer as long as necessary, their staff decided that it would be simpler and cheaper to forcibly remove someone from the flight. It went wrong and now they must face the consequences.

The passenger didn't unreasonably escalate. If the airline screws up, they need to pay the price. And physically harming the customer crossed several lines.

Also, it looks like United violated their own rules: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...

Reasonableness is what faceless bureaucracies use to keep everyone in line. In the modern world, half the time an individual is wronged, there is literally no recourse but to speak to an endless string of "agents" who in fact bear no agency and no responsibility. It's a daily occurrence that we get thrust into these kafkaesque situations, and by no means is it our responsibility to take this bullshit with a happy shit-eating smile.

So no, no the passenger was not unreasonable, this is the only type of thing that gets their leadership far above the rank and file to take enough notice to actually change policies to something reasonable which is this: pay enough for volunteers. You overbooked the flight, you pay the price, simple as that.

For the love of god, don't side with corporations where the ones setting the policies and profiting are far removed from both the enforcers of those policies, and the customers suffering at their hands. This is probably the number one source of social problems in the modern age: lack of individual accountability.

The responsible action, is for the business to accept the overbooking as their fault, and arrange alternative traveling plans for their employees. Forcibly removing a customer due to overbooking should never happen, and a customer should be able to refuse. His actions while extreme to some, were reasonable IMHO.

On this note, can someone ELI5 overbooking? Why is it so hard for these companies to just not overbook? Genuinely asking.

A non-zero percentage of passengers usually fail to show up for any given flight. It is more profitable for the airline to sell (e.g.) 110% of the seats available and get near 100% utilization out of the flight, while occasionally having to pay for a hotel room and a cheap voucher, as opposed to not overbooking.

When a business is acting in an abhorent, immoral, or unethical manner profit and greed are nearly always the fundamental reasons.

How does this work? I mean, do the customers who fail to show, still pay for their flight?

do the customers who fail to show, still pay for their flight?

Depends on the ticket. For lower price tickets, generally speaking you don't get anything if you miss your flight. For Business and First class tickets you can generally re-book or get the ticket refunded if you miss your flight. There are also some insurance policies you can get which will refund at least most of your ticket if you miss your flight due to medical or family emergencies.

A certain percentage of passengers just don't show up for whatever reason. This percentage is fairly predictable, so if the airline sells more seats than there are on the airplane, the extra tickets are pure profit. Because they are good at their statistics, usually, it isn't a problem, but every once in a while more people show up with tickets than there are seats.

There are other reasons that this can happen. An aircraft change (due to maintenance issues, for example) might result in fewer seats being available. In this case, the airline needed to relocate some employees and seats weren't available. For the record, I believe they handled it very badly.

On any given flight, there will almost always be some people who cancel at the last minute, get delayed on their way to the airport, miss a connection, etc. From the airline's perspective, there's now an empty seat going to waste (unless there are passengers at the airport waiting for a standby seat). Therefore, airlines will often sell a few more tickets than they actually have seats for because, statistically, they expect some no-shows. But sometimes what's statistically probable doesn't actually happen.

The airlines know that a small number of people will not make their flight. If they plan the overbooking correctly they can fill the plane with happy passengers, some of whom wouldn't have got a ticket, and make it right for the the people who missed their plane (let them on a different flight that wouldn't be full).

If they sold tickets up to the plane is full, no more: they would have to charge people for missing their flight since the seat left without them. While that might be legal (and moral?) it isn't something people like to happen to them, so the airlines sell just a little over so that they can tell the guy who missed his flight, "sorry, but you can use your ticket on the next flight so you are only out your time."

In short overbooking when it works right is a way to earn some goodwill from people who make a mistake.

Simple. They overbook on purpose. There is usually a percentage of people that miss a flight, so airlines overbook to account for this trying to get every seat filled.

TBH this seems to be a more legacy airlines thing.

I've never seen EasyJet or Ryanair overbook flights (and they operate at WAY higher load factors that legacy airlines - Ryanair is up to 97% load factor on average).

Edit: looks like Ryanair actually doesn't overbook. "Ryanair is the only airline in Europe that does not overbook its flights; therefore Ryanair has eliminated the possibility of passengers being denied boarding due to overbooking."

most flights don't have every single person show up. there might be, say, 2 or 3 seats unfilled even if you sell every seat on the plane.

so instead, sell a couple of seats twice, and bet that not everyone will show up. if you're wrong and everyone shows up, you have to pay people extra to take another flight, but that apparently happens infrequently enough that overbooking makes money over the long term.

It's hard for them because they make much more money overbooking since XX% of people don't show up for their flight. They make money on change fees/no-shows since they sold more tickets.

No-shows. If you book at 100% you fly < 100% and that costs money.

Don't no-shows get charged anyway? With this policy they're making money coming and going.

Not if they cancel or reschedule which can be done up to about a day before in most cases without a fee. And there are very few people looking for a flight less than 24 hours before it departs so those seats would go unfilled most of the time.

They offered $800 to leave, and nobody volunteered. I'm certain that if they offered $10k, 4 people would. It's just a question of offering enough money. I guess they went for the "millions and millions" option instead...

> I don't really see an alternative other than just letting anyone willing to scream to stay and then boot off another customer with dignity.

Offer people compensation. Raise the offer until either (a) someone takes it, or (b) it's cheaper to send the employees via another route.

Exactly. At this point they're trying not to cancel another plane load of people, so that's a lot of money. They should have kept going up, "We'll offer $4,000 .. anyone? .. really?" ..

At some point the compensation isn't worth the profit margin of the other flight. They can just cancel it and let the flight crew go home.

Instead, they did what they did, which is going to cost them... a whole lot more.

I think physical violence is qualitatively different.

Consider: suppose a kid lays across your driveway and refuses to budge. Are you allowed to drive over the kid? After all, if everyone starts doing this, you will lose your job and can't feed your own family, right?

Well, no. You have to figure out a way. Take a deep breath and call their parents, get an Uber or whatever it takes.

The situation would be different if a random person was just asking you not to go. In that case, you could ignore them.

Because physical violence is different.

Well, in your example, I can't run over the kid, but I can call the cops, and have them come and physically remove him. So that's almost exactly what happened, except that the burly guy wasn't a cop (or at least wasn't in uniform).

The cops were there, though, and were (at least tacitly) authorizing the guy to try to physically remove the passenger. Is that legal and/or moral? Or does it have to be a uniformed officer before it becomes legal and moral?

I thought they were both cops.

Having a cop makes it legal, but the moral question is the one we are arguing.

I think the cop has the responsibility to remove the kid without endangering the kid.

It's easy for a couple of cops (or even one) to remove a kid from your driveway, even a kid who doesn't want to be removed. Removing an adult from what appeared to be a window seat is going to be harder. That is, the adult can make it harder to do without causing harm to the adult. (Also, the adult is presumably more aware of the potential consequences of their actions.)

You can pick the kid up and move him. Choosing a kid in this senario is cheating because kids are dumb and don't understand consequences.

If my doctor was laying on my driveway I'd drag him off and then leave. And it's morally and legally right to do so.

Nope.

You have a "contract of lying on the driveway" with him, you've granted him permission to lie on the driveway for the next 1.5 hours, and your contract doesn't list you changing your mind as a reason for rescinding that prior permission, nor has he breached the contract in a way that permits you to remove him.

You're welcome to point out where in the contract of carriage you're basing your opinion. I'm finding no justification.

I get your point, but being this hyperbolic is not supporting your case.

When we are discussing principles, it is helpful to discuss the extreme case because it clarifies what the possible outcome of the principle is.

They should have dealt with it earlier if possible. (I assume operations told them they needed to transport a flight crew after the airline was already boarded.) Given that they didn't, someone should have had the authority to offer enough compensation to get someone to voluntarily deplane. I have trouble believing that if they offered $3K or whatever, they wouldn't have been able to find another volunteer or two.

That said, refusing to follow the instructions of a flight crew and creating a scene is not going to end well for you however convinced you are in the righteousness of your position. (I have been bumped off a flight after I was onboard and sitting down. It was years ago and I don't remember what the exact circumstances were if I ever knew.)

> if they have to do it

They wanted to get an airline crew to another city. Sounds like United fucked up, overbooked a flight, and didn't want to :

    1. escalate compensation for passengers to get off the plane
    2. arrange alternate transportation for their crew

This was a business decision. They didn't "have to" do shit, and certainly didn't "have to" call in the bouncers to forcibly eject a paying customer who was already in their seat.

How is the passenger unreasonable at all. United could have easily avoided the situation by paying the market price for a seat, they didn't even offer the maximum they could have per their own contract.

I'm sure someone would have opted to delay their lives if the offer was $1k, $2k, hell $3k. Why does United get to economically benefit by getting their pilots to the next flight and profit from it, while inconveniencing someone else who has already purchased the flight? Sure, they're legally allowed to do what they did, but they didn't even bother to offer the maximum amount their own contract says to, so not sure why they would get any sympathy.

This shines a light on what is, most likely, a policy that is not in the interest of passengers.

In my experience, the airlines offer a decent incentive for taking a bump and they do this before boarding. I know delays have been crazy the past few days, so maybe people who were already delayed didn't want to wait any longer?

I wonder what kind of incentives were offered? You'd hope United would offer enough to get someone to volunteer, especially in cases like this that are so late into the boarding process. Why not just get a United official on the plane to start raising incentives until the $ amount makes someone bite.

Terms and conditions of the contract may be legal but it could very well result in incidents like this.

> And he had to get dragged off the plane.

You've skipped over the part where the people involved bashed his head against another seat, then dragged him down the aisle while concussed and limp.

I'm not one to get outraged easily, but seriously this story is shameful.

They needed the seats, fine. They asked for people to volunteer and no one did? Did they even offer maybe a 1st class on a flight taking off a few hours later? I can't imagine that out of more than 100 people they wouldn't find at least 4 interested in waiting in the airport to travel 1st class.

They handled that like bozos and I can absolutely see how a passenger chosen "at random" would make a fuss.

> I can't imagine that out of more than 100 people they wouldn't find at least 4 interested in waiting in the airport to travel 1st class.

Apparently they did. The law is pretty clear on this. You can be refused a flight for this reason - United decided that they wanted the seat for their employee more than the passenger.

Once the passenger starts resisting, he/she should get removed by any means necessary, up to and including force. When people are acting unreasonably they should be prepared for unpleasant outcomes.

I don't think your average person will view this as being "fair". Specifically already being on the plane and effectively being evicted from your seat for no fault of your own I would call "unreasonable".

Public opinion I think will also be very "unreasonable" regarding United in these circumstances.

I bet people continue shopping airline tickets on price and barely remember this in a week or two.

The point is that it doesn't matter if it's "fair" or "unreasonable" in your eyes.

It's lawful, and eventually you will be taken off the plane. The time to fight the battle is after you get off, not struggling against overwhelming odds and then getting charges piled on you.

If he had done as you suggest, nothing would have happened, nobody would've noticed and he might have got $1000 in compensation if he was lucky. Instead, United look like a bunch of incompetent thugs and many of the people involved in this debacle will be worrying for their jobs, as they should.

Laws/rules don't change if people don't make a fuss about them being wrong.

Right now he's looking at injuries and lack of a voucher/compensation, and possibly criminal charges.

This situation is akin to getting kicked out of a store that you were asked to leave.

Your rights and compensation are spelled out in the law dealing with situations like this. One person is not allowed to make these unilateral decisions because they feel as though the law is wrong in that time.

Laws and rules don't change if you act like an entitled drama queen that tries to bring race into the situation

You're invited to provide citations to the violated rules, regulations and laws.

I don't see United's contract of carriage rule 21 or rule 25 applicable. The passenger was granted boarding, not denied. FAR 91.3(a) doesn't apply, this has nothing to do with the operation of the aircraft. And federal regulation preempt state and local law, but you're welcome to try and convince me.

I see no contractual basis for involuntary removal after boarding is granted, other than being in breach of some other portion of the contract of carriage. The airline was basically in a position per their own contract, of auctioning off a seat on their own plane and they got pissy and called the police, which was improper, and then the police didn't bother to evaluate the appropriateness of removal.

Trespass doesn't apply, the passenger was authorized. Rescinding that state requires a basis in the contract, or FAA regulations or other law and so far the people engaging in victim blaming are providing a lot of jabber and no convincing explanations.

> You're invited to provide citations to the violated rules, regulations and laws.

From united contract of carriage: UA shall have the right to refuse to transport or shall have the right to remove from the aircraft at any point, any Passenger for the following reasons...:

  C) Force Majeure and Other Unforeseeable Conditions – Whenever such action is necessary or advisable by reason of weather or other conditions beyond UA’s control

  H) Safety – Whenever refusal or removal of a Passenger may be necessary for the safety of such Passenger or other Passengers or members of the crew including, but not limited to: 3) Passengers who fail to comply with or interfere with the duties of the members of the flight crew.

He was definitely not complying with and interfering with the duties of the members of the flight crew.

Also, the distinction for boarding granting and non-granting is unclear to me. Is the fact that you receive a boarding pass indication that you're on the plane for good? Apparently not.

> people engaging in victim blaming

Assuming that the passenger was a victim. You should be blamed if you're at fault and unreasonable. If you're unhappy with the situation, deal with it later in the courts. Just like you can't talk your way out of a speeding ticket by "asserting your rights".

C) Does not in any possible way apply here because the outcome of oversold seats is completely predictable, as is the need to accommodate crew shifts. This isn't "chance occurance" at all even in the most vivid imagination of one of my house plants.

And in fact there's no oversold issue either, as it turns out. Exactly four paying passengers were removed for exactly four non-paying non-customer crew. That is not an oversold situation.

H) What safety issue applies here? This isn't a safety issue.

The contract has allowances in specific situations for passenger removal, not one of those allowances is applicable. You have to stretch way above and beyond the simple meaning of words in a dictionary to get where you're going.

> If you're unhappy with the situation, deal with it later in the courts. Just like you can't talk your way out of a speeding ticket by "asserting your rights".

That's asinine. Speeding tickets presuppose a civil or criminal offense from the outset. There is no civil, criminal or contractual offense at all on the part of the passenger/victim.

Did they actually offer that to the passengers? I didn't see any mention of this in the article.

Some comments here talk about $800. I don't think that's equivalent to a 1st ticket, but I may be wrong.

In any case, they may have the law, but I still think it was very poorly handled.

I'm also curious to know what was their random process to select the 4 passengers.

They said it was "the computer", but I think they just looked at the fare paid and picked the lowest ones.

From what I've been reading (sources are all over the place, so take with a grain of salt) the man was a doctor and was supposed to see patients the next day and wanted to talk to his lawyer (presumably about the legality).

I couldn't tell with this article if that was guy who was screaming or if they asked the doctor first and then went to this guy. It's not clear at all.

Maybe they should just keep offering money until someone accepts. Surely someone would accept $1200 and a replacement ticket. It would have cost much less than what this PR fiasco has cost.

Do they not have those "Catch Me If You Can" era jumpseats for deadheads anymore?

They don't have four of them.

>But if they have to do it, the passenger shouldn't be allowed to just refuse.

why not? if the passenger in this situation was allowed to just refuse, Delta would have had to get its employees to another location via some other method, or delay/cancel whatever it was they were supposed to do when they go there.

why is that a worse universe than this one?

  s/Delta/United/

It is wholly unsurprising to me that people are willing to be apologists for this. It's always "outrage culture", it's always clickbait, it can't ever be that these people really are pieces of shit. But still disappointing.

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