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Comment by MrMember | Hacker News Reader

Based on the circumstances (he wasn't a danger to anyone or acting out in any unreasonable way) the better choice probably would have been to just leave him be. He may not have had a legal "right" to be on the plane and United may have been within their rights to remove him but it can't have been worth the image hit to have him strongarmed off the plane. If they had given up on removing him and just picked someone else, or raised the compensation for someone to voluntarily give up their seat, or found another way to get their crew to their destination, this wouldn't have even been a story.

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Did he not have a legal right? I thought the only reason they removed him was because the plane was overbooked and they wanted the seat for their own employees. Sounds like he had a valid ticket and every right to be on that plane. The airline should not have overbooked, and discovering that they had, they should have put their own employee on the next plane. Treating paying customers like this is inexcusable.

A ticket is just a deal between you and the airline. At any point the airline can decide it's not going to uphold that deal.

Sure, you can try to go to the courts to get monetary compensation for that, but you can't force them to provide the service.

That makes them an unreliable partner to deal with. A ticket is not just a simple product, there are other deals depending on it. You may have a vacation booked, an important meeting, a funeral, or anything else. Missing your flight could mean missing a lot more than just the flight. The airline should take their agreements a lot more seriously than this.

But if the airline takes their agreement a lot more seriously than this, then they're going to need to have reserve capacity. No more overbooking flights. Have standby pilots and planes available. Those things cost, and will show up in ticket prices.

The public has pretty well demonstrated that they prefer lower-price tickets over a higher-quality flying experience. So the airlines are giving the public what (the majority of) the public wants - a crappy, but cheap, experience.

And yet the thing people actually shop on is price.

Well, differentiating airlines is hard. To me, a for the most part non-traveler, they all offer pretty much the same product, quality-wise. Unless I was to up my ticket to some other class, every coach ticket is pretty much the same. So what am I supposed to differentiate on other than price?

Well, differentiating airlines is hard.

In future one might consider, "how likely are they to violently drag me off a plane?"

I'll be sure to select the non-violent checkbox on Google Flights, despite the need to save the $4.50 round-trip.

It is really rather easy to avoid it, just follow lawful orders by the flight crew.

Sure, but part of the point is that it isn't an accident. Airlines are paying attention to what people respond to so instead of going out of their way to compete on quality or whatever other factors, they compete on price.

I understand, but I don't think we can put the blame on the consumer alone. When all pretty-much compete on price alone, we can only compare on price alone.

If people manage to remember this event, they can now also compare on violently getting thrown off the plane.

If people decide that that's actually likely to happen, nobody will buy airline tickets. You pay the airline to get you to your destination, but if it's likely that you won't actually get to your destination, why risk paying the airline?

That's the source of the brand damage here: many people (rightly or not) will be wondering whether the same thing might happen to them if they fly United, and decide it's not worth the risk.

Airlines are legally allowed to overbook. It's an established practice.

Yes, but then there is a prescribed compensation that everyone involuntarily denied boarding (IDB) is entitled. The vouchers is an attempt to avoid this IDB by getting someone to voluntarily fly later.

Plus, I am not a lawyer, but I think IDB means just that -- boarding. Once you board the airline cannot change its mind, not for commercial reasons (although it might be able to weasel out of that by getting everyone off and re-boarding without some people). Again, take with a grain of salt; this is just what I heard.

Well, yes, but established practice is to deny people the opportunity to board the plane, not to violently remove them after they've already been seated.

Seems like it may be crucial. I am really eager to see how it resolves!

Just because it is legally allowed or an established practice does not make it right

Lots of things were legally allowed established practices until they were not; people realized they were unethical and immoral, hopefully people will begin to realize this practice is also unethical and work to abolish legal overselling

Yes, lots of things that are legal or established practice are not right.

But overbooking is almost certainly right. Look, fact is that some pax won't show up for their reservation. Without overbooking, planes would fly emptier, wasting money and damaging the environment.

The airlines have fairly good predictions in most cases, and people have different preferences, so that almost always in the small number of cases where there is not enough space you can get people to get bumped voluntarily. It's really a win-win.

It's a terrible practice and it should be punished more so it will stop.

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