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Comment by zzrg | Hacker News Reader

It's not clear to me that the police even did anything wrong in this case either. The passenger was going absolutely apeshit and it looked like he bashed his own head into the adjacent seatrest. I'm certainly no fanboy of United, but in this case it doesn't seem like they, or the airport police, did anything particularly wrong.

[edit] I suppose I should expect the downvotes to continue flowing for this comment. If you do downvote, please also explain exactly who you think made the mistake, and where. Thanks!

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They were airport police and should be familiar with the rules and regulations. This was not a case of overbooking. Laws and rules differ in this case from the lies peddled by UA and media. They didn't have legal authority to remove him in the first place.

They could've done a lot of things better before assaulting him, but i don't think after that initial fact any further are necessary.

In my high school law and government class our teacher taught us that runof the mill cops rarely know the law. Also taught us that pointing out the law to the same cops was rarely going to lead to a satisfactory result. Also taught us to generally not let the cops into one's home and not speak to them without a lawyer (outside of you filling a police report).

What I though was going to be a useless required class ended up being quite educational.

The class was quite eye opening for somebody who just moved to this country 3 years prior.

Perhaps. From the video I watched I cant tell if he was given clear warning from the officer that he would be literally be physically uplifted and removed. Also once in the aisle would it of been possible to bring the person to his feet, or at least two people carry him, I don't know. Also seems a police failure that he was able to make it onto the airplane for a second time, again its not clear from report if this is the time the drama ensued.

This is something I've seen several people not seem to understand.

A large part of why people are upset about it isn't just the physical brutality, it's the act of FORCIBLY removing someone from a plane after they've:

1. paid 2. boarded 3. spent all the time going through customs, etc.

The fact that he got brutalized, even if it was not purposeful, is secondary. If you read through this very thread you'll see most of the commentary isn't centered around his injuries, but around UA's decision to forcibly remove him after boarding.

What should they have done instead?

United should have offered more $ to get people to volunteer.

Saying that they couldn't get volunteers is like saying you can't hire developers - you can get either if you offer the market rate. Instead, United decided to use muscle instead of compensating customers for what was United's mistake.

I don't think the level of moral outrage you're expressing is commensurate with the position "the only thing United did wrong was setting their cap for overbooked flight compensation too low." And in any case, that cap is set by the department of transportation.

The "cap" is a limit on how much the airline must pay, not on how much they can pay in order to involuntarily dis-board a passenger. There was nothing stopping them from paying the passenger who "bid" $1600 to solve the problem they created in the first place.

Are you sure? Most of the articles I've read indicated that the cap was UP TO 400% of the ticket price with a maximum of $1,350 which seems to indicate that the cap is a maximum. Although I will say if the airline offered cash instead of vouchers I'm sure more people would have volunteered.

"DOT's denied boarding regulation spells out the airlines' minimum obligation to people they bump involuntarily."

https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights

"If the airline arranges substitute transportation that is scheduled to arrive at your destination between one and two hours after your original arrival time (between one and four hours on international flights), the airline must pay you an amount equal to 200% of your one-way fare to your final destination that day, with a $675 maximum."

It certainly looks like they are specifying a maximum compensation for the relevant situation here.

But suppose it were entirely up to United. Whenever I've asked people what United should have done instead, "offer more money!" is really the only response I've gotten. Even if the amount were much higher, there could still be scenarios in which people would refuse it for whatever reason. And even if it were entirely up to United, that seems like very minor mistake, if you could call it that. And certainly nothing that should cause anything resembling "moral outrage." Particularly when their flight bump compensation is in line with all other major airlines.

> But suppose it were entirely up to United. Whenever I've asked people what United should have done instead, "offer more money!" is really the only response I've gotten.

That can only be true if you haven't really been anywhere talking about it.

People have suggested paying more money, having them take a later flight (or a morning flight), having them take a different airline, paying for a rental vehicle and asking someone to drive them the 6 hours.

Part of the reason people are so angry about it is because there are SO many other options, and they went STRAIGHT to the nuclear option.

The regulation caps what the airlines must pay, not what they can pay.

The moral, outrage isn't because United made a mistake. The moral outrage is because, rather than pay $800 more to correct their mistake, they resorted to force.

The moral outrage was compounded by the president of United not delivering a sincere apology. "I'm sorry your dog was run over." isn't the same as "I'm sorry I ran over your dog."

There seems to be a case to be made that United wasn't even in the right contractually. It certainly struck many people that way at a gut level i.e. when you take delivery of a product or service you don't expect the seller to come back later and take it back. This also contributed to the moral outrage.

Not downvoting, just advancing a theory: when the police are acting like hired thugs, all damage to persons and property is their fault.

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