So United should not have tried to board their flight personnel so that another plane full of passengers could sit on the tarmac for hours in Louisville with no crew?
It wasn't worth a penny more than $800 + hotel and rebooking x 4 to United so they called the police to enforce their profit margin rather than pay the market cost of doing business.
Not at all am I defending what happened on this flight. Just want to point out that last second adds of flight crew members is a VERY common occurrence and without it the number of cancels would skyrocket astronomically.
Gee, I wonder if they could, I don't know, hire more people so that these situations don't happen as often? Heaven forbid they lose a little bit of profit a year...
You simply delay the other flight. You don't force someone off of a flight they've already boarded.
Those extra people still would have to be sitting on call somewhere. Once they receive the call they're sent to where they're needed which still results in this situation. It's simply unreasonable to think they would have spare flight crews in every single possible destination. Unless you want about 1,000% increase in ticket prices of course.
I'm sure the other flight was delayed. Not getting a crew there on this last flight out for the night though would have likely meant cancelling the flight in Louisville or delaying it at least 24 hours. Stranding a plane in a city like Louisville would cause major ripple effects down the line resulting in probably another 10-15 flights being delayed. If they cancelled rather than delay now you have a plane full of passengers that need to be re-routed on multiple other planes that are likely already full.
Re-location of flight crews is simply a necessary option for the airlines at this point of time. Maybe down the road we can remotely pilot airliners and then situations like this won't arise.
Sure, there may be issues that can't be planned for, and you can't hire for every case and solve every issue. But that is still not this customer's fault, and he was punished for it, arbitrarily. Frankly I don't care how difficult it is for United to prevent this from happening again-it is their responsibility, it should not be the responsibility of their customers.
> Re-location of flight crews is simply a necessary option for the airlines at this point of time. Maybe down the road we can remotely pilot airliners and then situations like this won't arise.
Then reserve 4 seats on every flight for possible situations that arise. It's not my problem that United loses money this way. It's theirs.
By your logic they better go ahead and just block of 20 seats. You know, just in case they need to re-position a B747 crew. Wonder what tickets will cost when they can only sell 30 seats on those 50 seaters.
I would think that a better argument could be made than a straw-man, but in this case, I don't think there is, so I don't blame you for it.
What's unreasonable is to think that a moderate action shouldn't be taken due to an unlikely extreme result that would never happen.
The company needs to eat the cost. Whether that means blocking out a few seats or offering more to get someone to volunteer. And sure, you can argue, that this could make tickets go up for all-but the rates at which these events happen is very low, it's hard to argue that would happen. And due to competition, many airliners would find a better way-they still have to compete on price.
I guarantee you United wishes they did.
The airline ceased to be civil when they shifted from an auction, to inviting police power on board. It was morally wrong for them to do this, and it was even worse for the police to agree to it.
There's no ethical, legal, or contractual argument for what the airline did; or the power they claim to have in this letter. They do not have the power to deplane people for the reason stated, their contract lists out numerous reasons for passenger removal but this is not one of them.
And on top of all that, there is no transparency at all on how they kick people off. And they have the audacity to talk nonchalantly about this man who had obligations refused to get off so he needed to be bloodied when they could've done so much more.
Sorry, it's not this man's fault someone got sick and a flight crew needs to be in Louisville. Hire more people or save 4 seats on every plane in the future. We shouldn't be responsible for a company's mistakes.
The airline needed to raise the compensation price until someone volunteered, and if still no one volunteered, then tough noogies. They still do not get to shift from a civilized situation to a violent one by dragging state police power into what is strictly a monetary dispute.
In your example the basis for refusing transport is that due to an equipment problem it's not possible for that passenger to comply with FAR safety regulations and therefore is in breach of the contract of carriage for the airline. The terminology of the word boarding isn't even relevant in your example.
Also, boarding is any time up until gate departure.
http://www.businessinsider.com/secret-airplane-bedrooms-2015...
(though if the crew wasnt there, they wouldnt board the plane anyways, the other flight would've been cancelled or delayed, which happens all the time)