United Broke Its Contract with Flyers
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
I don't think it's as dire as you make it sound. The reason is that the real implicit agreement most of us have with our society is that everyone is as helpful and congenial as possible as long as it keeps the wheels turning. Once you run afoul of the airline, or the sheriff, or the HR department, you can be stomped down in the blink of an eye, and even if you successfully challenge it legally, at the end of the day you've still lost some amount of money, time, or health fighting it.
Someone in that mindset is going to look at their Expedia search and still sort by price, because they realize that every airline is playing the same game, and the one in a million chance of being forcibly removed from the plane over a technicality is just one of those gambles that everyone takes whenever they step outside their house.
(That said, if I sort by price and Delta and United come up the same, I'm picking Delta.)
Except that the Delta will probably just be the United sold via Delta!
Tue, May 2 Air Canada logo 10:45a – 1:01p Air Canada• Operated by United 2h 16m SFO – YVR nonstop Flight details
That's because United and Air Canada "codeshare", meaning you can book with United or Air Canada but that flight is on a United plane.
Of course, it goes the other way: you can book an Air Canada plane but use a United flight number.
https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/Marketing/CustComm/Promotio...
https://www.kayak.com/flights/SFO-YVR/2017-05-02/2017-05-07?...
Every article about this story needs to repeat this line.
I'm not justifying United's actions (or that of the police)...just saying that Dao unfortunately probably wouldn't have a legal argument against being asked to leave.
Most airline employees to use it as meaning until the doors are locked
I have even seen it suggested that the employees could even have gone by taxi, though I don't know if that was really practical.
Anyway, seems to me the best solution would have been to simply keep raising their offer for compensation until they got enough volunteers. Whatever they had to pay would have been far less than the $1.6B hit they took to their stock price.
(I actually like Delta's solution the best: they ask you when you check in how much you would accept to get bumped. It's fair and efficient.)
I waited for a bit and then talked to the Delta rep at the counter, explaining that I really needed to get to my destination soon as my friend was waiting to pick me up, and if they had a flight available in the coming hour or two, I'd volunteer to be bumped.
Received a $400 voucher, and got placed in 1st class on a flight which departed 30 minutes after my delayed flight.
It was a win-win. I pounded 3 heinekens and had a jolly time.
I have a feeling the contract with the Pilot and FA unions squashes that idea rather quickly.
Correct, the pilot and FA unions would both have forbidden using a taxi to deadhead in this scenario.
Source: friends who are flight attendants, and I've actually also gotten bitten myself by this rule personally (though obviously with far less serious consequences than this doctor).
[1] http://www.space.com/20897-nasa-russia-astronaut-launches-20...
I think we all understood that already. It's merely comparing, and accentuating, the market cap loss vs. options that would have been less costly, even if those losses aren't "real".
To that endeavor, putting these employees on a rocket ship, launching them into space, docking with the ISS, then finally returning sometime later... just for fun... all would have "hurt" less than trying to evict customers from their seats in this case.
That's just the point. A short term stock move doesn't hurt (or help) a company much at all.
However I find it difficult to believe that the Airline (or the flight attendants manager) would have allowed a $5,000 compensation for the seat. Because they had no way of knowing how this was gonna unravel.
/
> Why the hell did you give this customer $5,000 for his seat, are you CRAZY?
>> M'am, I just prevented the biggest PR shitstorm in our company's history
> You're fired, and we'll make you pay those 5 grand
/ :)
http://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/April-2017/3-Things-to-K...
tldr: They're rent-a-cops hired by the airport, not United.
However, this is Chicago. Locals know to never assume anything about city government because you'll tend to discover the opposite later on.
Having lived in Chicago before, you fear the Chicago Police and your local alderman is the fixer.
If you're the mayor and you want to close an airport, do you follow FAA procedure and give notice to the government and all the aircraft owners (especially the ones with planes parked on the tarmac)?
Nope! You shut it down in the middle of the night and bulldoze the runway. Problem solved!
https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2003/march/31/m...
http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/day-shut-down-meigs-...
[1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-united-...
The the officers screwed up the extraction, but the guy was ridiculous.
Did he actually believe wailing like a 2 year old and doing his damnedest to hold on to his chair would result in his remaining on the flight?
His face injuries were caused when he finally lost his grip on his seat. The effort of the guy extracting him suddenly had no resistance and the guy sprang out across the aisle and whacked his face hard on the aisle arm rest opposite him.
The whole thing was a shitstorm where mistakes kept compounding, made by both parties.
Of course the whole thing was instigated by united and I firmly believe they were in the wrong, but the passenger was obnoxious and not free of blame.
They have both the training, tools and experience to deal with this.
I'm not sure what happened here - apparently the officers were "Chicago Aviation Police" - which is different to the "Chicago Police Department" (i.e. what you and I would know as real police officers). Surely there was somebody they could have escalated to (or simply called in the actual Police Department) if they thought it had to come to this?
Those police officers deserve praise for defusing the situation without escalating it. And at the same time, it also shows that yes, police can find ways to control situations without resorting to extreme violence. Even in this case on the airplane, I could easily imagine a competent officer saying to United, "is there any way you could convince someone else to give up their seat? Maybe offer more money?"
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-united-chicago-aviatio...
IIUC, regulation stipulates $1350 or 4 x the fare, whichever is lower. For Chicago to Louisville, the fare may well have been $200. If so, stopping at $800 was within the regulation.
[1] http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/4/11/1652290/-The-Widely-...
I suppose an excellent reason for an airline to offer more than $1350 would be to avoid losing $1.6 billion off its stock price.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give...
$400x4 = $1600, so without that $1350 cap they would have to offer $1600 using the 4x rule, but because that cap exists they can offer just $1350. Basically any fare above $337.5 can be treated as the same amount by the airlines, which is kind of silly since that's a really low fare relative to any kind of average flight cost.
The way people seem to be getting confused is assuming that cap is the maximum they can legally pay.. it isn't, it is the capped minimum they have to pay when following the 4x rule.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/250.2b
Carriers to request volunteers for denied boarding.
In the event of an oversold flight, every carrier shall request volunteers for denied boarding before using any other boarding priority. A “volunteer” is a person who responds to the carrier's request for volunteers and who willingly accepts the carriers' offer of compensation, in any amount, in exchange for relinquishing the confirmed reserved space. Any other passenger denied boarding is considered for purposes of this part to have been denied boarding involuntarily, even if that passenger accepts the denied boarding compensation
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/250.5
Amount of denied boarding compensation for passengers denied boarding involuntarily.
Compensation shall be 400% of the fare to the passenger's destination or first stopover, with a maximum of $1,350, if the carrier does not offer alternate transportation that, at the time the arrangement is made, is planned to arrive at the airport of the passenger's first stopover, or if none, the airport of the passenger's final destination less than two hours after the planned arrival time of the passenger's original flight.
(c) Carriers may offer free or reduced rate air transportation in lieu of the cash or check due under paragraphs (a) and (b) of this section, if - (1) The value of the transportation benefit offered, excluding any fees or other mandatory charges applicable for using the free or reduced rate air transportation, is equal to or greater than the cash/check payment otherwise required;
---
There's a section about volunteers, which may be compensated in any amount (literally the phrase "in any amount" appears), and a completely separate section for how much you have to pay people involuntary denied boarding, which specifies something that looks like a fixed amount. And even if you're involuntarily denied boarding, you may accept non-cash compensation that equals or exceeds the statutory minimum.
There is simply no basis for the claim that an airline can't offer more than $1,350 in vouchers during a search for a volunteer. It's plainly refuted by the text of the law.
They also said they'd put us on first-class for our flight the next day, but didn't.
So when they say "$400" they really mean 4 $100-off coupons that expire in 1 year.
> A “volunteer” is a person who responds to the carrier's request for volunteers and who willingly accepts the carriers' offer of compensation, in any amount, in exchange for relinquishing the confirmed reserved space.
They're free to offer $2000, $3000 if they think it's in their best interests (or in this case, cheaper than the inevitable suit). $1350 is just a cap on their legal obligation, not their moral.
I don't have a real opinion on what compensation levels should be. (Although there are enough IDB's that the answer is probably "not enough.") However, in addition to the compensation, the airline still has to get you to your destination.
Note that the monetary compensation is in addition to rebooking the bumped passenger on a later flight, so even if an economy passenger had paid more than $1350 for the ticket initially, they are still getting $1350 in addition to a seat on another flight.
That is not true. There are cases of business and first class being bumped (http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-united...).
Either way, my other point makes this not really matter; the compensation isn't a "refund" for the seat. It's compensation for the inconvenience, and the airline is still required to get you to your destination in addition.
The airlines really hate giving up the cold hard cash since it hits their bottom line immediately, whereas the voucher is essentially "free" money.
Delta has just announced they will offer up to 10k for giving up a seat.
This is kind of like a recruiter asking you what your current and expected salary is. I wouldn't call it fair and it is only efficient for the airline which can then use that information to bump customers with the lowest thresholds, maximizing producer (the airline) surplus.
Better to reverse auction until only 4 hands are left. It should end up cheaper (and fairer, incidentally, as it will closer to true preferences)
A reverse action is offering $2K. More people than we need. OK, how about $1500? Still too many. $1000? OK, right number.
"Wait! You offered us $2K and now you're only going to give us $1K. Lying POSs."
At least that's what I think people are referring to as a reverse auction in this context. I'm not sure if that's a totally accurate description or not.
But in the case we're discussing here, United's offer wasn't sufficient to get them as many volunteers as they needed. So they would have had to pay someone more than usual. Seems like the right outcome to me.
I do see the recruiter analogy, but I think there's one key difference you need to consider: Delta still has to get you on a plane at some point.
In practice though, auction theory only works well with high stakes auctions with sophisticated participants (ie, Treasury debt auctions or FCC spectrum auctions). With small stakes and unsophisticated participants, people do crazy stuff, and you need more of a behavioral economics model. (As opposed to a game theoretic model, which is how the standard auction theory stuff works.)
Unless people blow off the dollar-amount question or later have second thoughts, then people should feel like they've been compensated fairly because they literally told the airline what they believe would be fair compensation. If they provided a bad figure, then really, that's their fault.
If we want to "stick it to the airlines" a bit more and make it equal compensation, then sure, require them to pay all bumped passengers the max bid of anyone who they actually end up bumping. That's not a terrible burden on the airline and is an easy tweak.
So going for an optimal auction can be a good idea if you're trying to make the most money possible (many if not most private sector auctions), or to distribute items in an equitable way (lots of government auctions fit this category).
In this particular case, airlines have multiple goals. They want to solve the overbooking for a small amount of money, they want to minimize the time their staff spends dealing with it, and they want to keep their customers happy.
An auction's a good fit for discovering how to keep their customers happy for the least amount of money in an automated way. As to which auction... I don't think theory helps very much here. As I said, theory doesn't work well except in high stakes auctions with sophisticated participants. So you need a behavioral model of your consumers (ie, an understanding of the ways in which they behave irrationally) to figure out a good choice in this case.
If a flight is oversold, it's oversold. They're going to bump the same customers with the same low thresholds whether they declare those thresholds when they check in or if they wait until they're at the gate.
Sure, there's a psychological difference between making an abstract dollar amount decision at check-in time (when most of the time no bumping will even have to occur anyway) vs. participating in a live auction at the gate (when it's actually a reality), the latter of which might result in higher payouts by airlines, but I don't think that's necessary, and makes the process much more inefficient.
I don't like the sound of that much - how many people actually know or are prepared to think straight about how much money they would accept to get bumped when they're checking in?
I'd rather the system be that, if they need to bump someone, they start with a public offer of a modest amount, then keep increasing it until either somebody accepts or it gets so high that it's cheaper to do something else.
However, if people were being bumped at check-in, or between check-in and boarding,
It would have taken five hours. By itself, that's fine. But according to FAA rules, what is their status during those five hours? If they're on duty, they either need eight hours off duty once they get to Louisville, or they have a limited amount of time they can be on duty once they get there. (If that time doesn't count as on duty, of course, no problem.)
Incidentally they were actually from another airline, Trans States Airlines of Missouri, which also flies for United and American. So they were using their status as to-become-United Express crew to make must-ride space on a Republic Airways aircraft.
Chicago -> Louisville is a little further than Baltimore -> Philly, but it still seems manageable. The only question is, would the crew have been "on the clock" (counting against their hourly limits).
* 1000hour flight time clock which they couldn't exceed (cosmic radiation or something).
* They had the flight clock which is how they were compensated ie. 14 hour LHR-HKG.
* They had the break clock in flight. So crew could sleep 1-2 hours during a 12-18 hour flight.
* Rapid response standby (15 minute) was a 12 hour standby shift in the terminal.
Because the work times are so extreme cabin crew is given certain latitude in off time. Like, they may work 3 12-hour shifts and then take 3-4 days off.
Everything I've read so far has not been clear about why the crew needed to be there on a flight that was already closed (when the last seat is filled the gate is closed). There were many better options, including driving, that were available. Unloading a passenger is a logistical nightmare and most ground crew are reluctant to do it. It messes up their performance metrics but in an airline like United maybe they just don't care.
Wasn't aware of that feature of Delta's check-in; that's actually really smart.
I'd be in favor of a system where involuntary bumps are banned, and the airline just takes (cash) bids for people who might volunteer, and is required to take the N lowest bids. I'd be ok with something like allowing the compensation to be vouchers if the airline is willing to make the voucher amount 2x (or something) of the cash amount.
That's backwards from a psychological point of view, that will entice people to hold out for a larger offer later.
How they should handle it is very simple. Pick a very large number, lets say 10k, tell everyone on the plane to raise their hand if they're willing to get off the plane for 10k.
Obviously a lot (probably way more than half) will raise their hands. Now, tell everyone "keep your hand up if you're willing to get off for 7500," rinse, repeat until you get to only four people with their hands up.
I bet united could have gotten four passengers off that plane for LESS than the $800/each that they offered at the beginning, probably a LOT less and the four passengers would have been happy about it, too.
There a crew resting hour regulations that might have prevented the crew from operating the next flight had they driven, and union contracts that stipulate how deadheading crew can be transported.
Again, all of those might be renegotiated at some point, but that doesn't mean there is an easy obvious alternative at hand now every time a pax refuses to deplane.
So UA's policy is possibly based upon a "stay below some non-market-related amount" internal goal versus recognizing that they were throwing away perfectly useful pricing signals every time they enacted these kinds of policies. If they reached $2712.50 per seat for those four deadheading crew members in the auction with no takers (highly unlikely), then that is not just signaling it is cheaper to charter a private jet, but also signals pricing information to inform their route planning and marketing teams.
I see this all the time in business when helping clients implement their policies into software. There are often policies set for what amounts to someone with policy making power within the organization trying to game the metrics they are compensated by, and it ends up blinding the company to valuable market information that they then turn around to spend a minor fortune upon obtaining a very low-fidelity equivalent in lengthy, futile sales and marketing efforts.
As for your scenario, ask for a volunteer to get bumped instead, and incentivize them as necessary.
(And yes, the idea that others have the right to compel my labor, on pain of prison, scares me. It also would make me very hesitant to be a pilot and express any concerns about the airworthiness of the plane I'm flying.)
I'm astonished at the facility with which this keeps being said.
Why are weather and maintenance (e.g. broken seatbelt) a reasonable excuse to bump someone? Well, because they're unpredictable, unavoidable, and if you didn't bump, the flight could not be safely executed, affecting a planeload of pax (and probably more, due to knock-on effects.)
Now, mechanics flying to AOG (aircraft on ground) have the highest priority on many airlines, and dead-heading crew the second highest. Why? Because if they don't go, you will have to cancel flights affecting plane loads of people (and probably more, due to knock on effects). Now, why do you suddenly and unexpectedly have to position mechanics or deadheading crew? Why, good question - frequently for weather, maintenance, sickness, and any number of similar unpredictable and unavoidable reasons.
The justification to bump pax due to seats required for mechanics or deadheading crew is exactly the same (avoid flight cancellation and inconveniencing planeloads of pax that arose for unforeseen, unpredictable, unavoidable reasons).
But there can be unexpected need for crew to position due to weather, maintenance, sickness.
I sincerely doubt that. Most people will not voluntarily get mixed up in police violence that isn't directly related to them.
[1] http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/328497-dem-plans-bi...
United: Hold my beer.
Sean Spicer: LEEEEEEEEEERROOOOOOOY JEEEENNNNNNKINS!
Fickle indeed. Hopefully United learns from this incident, tho I think it's unlikely
There's also an episode of It's Always sunny in Philadelphia (S12E04) where they talk about the 24 hour news cycle - which pretty much sums up social media unforgiving nature
[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/lance_bradley/status/851864862426...
1. Let's stop overbooking in the airline industry. The seats are already prepaid for. Who cares if a passenger shows or not? (It'd be different if they were losing revenue when a passenger doesn't show up; they aren't).
2. Let's take responsibility (the airline) if we fuck up (or an act of gawd enables) a situation where our own staff can't get where to a destination they need to be in per our own scheduling. This means we don't bump customers involuntarily for our fuck-up. If not enough paying customers volunteer so be it: We'll eat the impact of our fuck-up of not properly planning how to get our own staff from point B to point B (whether that means finding an alternative for them to get there, delaying some other flight, whatever).
The crux is this entire situation seems to be four distinct matters:
- Overbooking (unnecessary)
- Staff logistics (contingency plans, accepting consequences)
- Involuntary bumping (goes away with addressing the former two matters)
- Security / policing efforts for matters that aren't being handled amicably in the moment by a disagreeing party (standard police matter I presume, which has a body of knowledge and skill associated with it which may have been lacking here or needs to be adopted to plane boarding situations)
At least for business class tickets, if the passenger doesn't show up they have to reimburse or re-book the ticket, so they are losing revenue when a passenger doesn't show up.
The obvious answer for bumping passengers is simply an auction. At some price below what it costs to charter a private jet on short notice you will find people willing to give up their seats.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give...
Typically for US airlines, fare class "F" is the unrestricted/"full fare" for first class and is fully refundable and can be freely changed; fare class "J" is the same for business class; and fare class "Y" is the same for economy class.
United uses two codes for first class depending on the cabin arrangement. In a two-cabin (i.e., economy and first class cabins) aircraft, "F2" is the "full fare" first-class, while on a three-cabin (economy, business and first class) aircraft, it's "F3".
There is also a "pecking order" attached to the fare class which affects how and when passengers get shuffled around in case there aren't enough seats in the cabin of that fare class. The highest pecking order is, as expected, from an "F3" ticket; next in line is an "A3" (discounted three-cabin first class), then "F2", then "A2", then "J", then the lower-tier business class fares ("C", "D", "Z" and "P"), and then the full-fare economy class "Y", followed by a mix of other economy fares and "upgrade" fare classes (the "upgrade" fares are ones representing a ticket booked into one cabin but with a condition, or points/instrument attached, which grants a space-permitting right to be seated in a cabin of higher class).
So they are loosing revenue. Here's why. A certain number of flights will be delayed, and people who are supposed to be on those connections... won't be. This means if they don't overbook, they will have more empty seats. They are pretty good with averages, and even though they are overbooked it generally works out due to the math that some people miss connections.
These people paid, but they still have to be flown to their final destination. Which means putting them on later flights... if you don't want to be told, "Hey, sorry... we can't fit you for a week..." then letting the airline fudge the numbers a bit and squeeze people in and book based on statistical analysis is fine.
Plus... the cost of all this... if they fly with more open seats... the cost of all of our tickets goes up. We say with our pocketbooks that we hate price hikes... this is why we have those stupidly small seats in the first place... everyone goes to Hipmonk and selects the cheapest flight they can find... not the fastest, not the most luxurious... the cheapest. They are doing what we want by overbooking based on statistics of who misses flights.
Anyway, what needs to happen is much more simple. Just remove the cap on the vouchers. And bid on seats. No takers at $400? Go to $600. No takers at $600. Go to $800... and so on. Eventually, even on a flight full of people heading to their mother's funeral, they will hit a number that someone is willing to take in exchange for taking a later flight.
You know how after 9/11 we reinforced the cabin doors and that was the only meaningful thing we needed to do and everything else they have spent billions upon billions of dollars for was just for show? Yeah, let's not go overboard and fuck up travel any more with regulations and more hassle. The root issue here is the abysmally small cap on vouchers.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/delta-offer-10000-to-flyers-give...
Flight #3411 wasn't overbooked. Instead, they were perfectly booked -- the plane had 70 seats and they sold all 70 with zero no-shows. That's a dream economic outcome for the airline. What threw the monkey wrench into the situation was adding 4 last-minute employees to the sold-out flight which required that they remove 4 paying customers already in their seats. United stopped the financial incentives at $800 and then called Chicago Aviation Police.
The widespread media reporting it as "overbooked" (which was no doubt legitimized by the United CEO using the same "overbooked" language) successfully deflected part of the blame to some abstract concept ("it was the overbooking!").
Yes, people do get involuntarily bumped from overbookings all the time but that was not the situation with this specific flight.
However, let's assume for a minute that a flight was overbooked, and that the airline screwed up and issued boarding passes and seat assignments to more people than could fit on the plane. They start the boarding process before they realize their mistake. They ask for volunteers. No bites. They ask the computer to pick four unfortunate souls. One of the four won't leave the plane. Security is called. Security is overzealous and beats the guy up.
I think this scenario is just as plausible as the one that played out.
I bring this up because I think we're focusing on the wrong thing. Dr. Dao should certainly be focusing on United's improper use of IDB rules, since that's great grounds for a lawsuit.
But let's say it was my hypothetical scenario. I suspect there would be just as much outrage. While I personally think it was foolish to refuse flight crew instructions (reading the news about anything airline-related in the past 15 years suggests that's going to get you in a lot of hot water), no one deserves to get beaten up like that for that "offense".
Why are we focusing so hard on United's wrongdoing in the boarding process instead of focusing on why escalation of force is so accepted and easy?
Also, hypothetically, the airline could halt boarding, ask everyone to deplane, pick who they don't want to let on however they want, and let everyone else board. They could do so many things that aren't yanking a person of a plane when they're already seated, involuntarily. All of these hypothetical situations seem far more sane to me.
We're focusing on United's wrongdoing because they are the ones who escalated to forcibly remove a passenger from the plane. They did not have to do that.
Your alternative scenario of a true overbooking (overselling to other customers) is plausible but the subsequent escalation to violently pulling a seated passenger is not.
The 2 situations put United personnel under very different psychological and monetary pressures:
1) overbook by overselling 70 seats to 74 paying customers. Nobody cancels and therefore, 4 of the customers have to be bumped. This is all visible on the computer reservations system and the gate agents can sort this out (offer vouchers, etc) before the last passengers board the plane. It would be very unusual to violently yank a seated customer out of the airplane just to accommodate one of the other 4 customers.
2) perfectly sell out 70 seats to 70 passengers but now you have a last-minute set of 4 airline employees who need a ride to Kentucky. If those airline employees (2 pilots & 2 stewards) don't get on that flight, it affects the plane in Kentucky with its own set of 60 passengers.
The higher stakes in situation #2 is what escalated the situation into a broken nose and bloody face. United wasn't going to let one uncooperative passenger disrupt and cancel a 60-passenger flight in Kentucky.
In other words, airlines prioritize their employees in a very different way than other overbooked customers waiting in standby for a seat on a plane. Flight #3411 just happened to shine a big spotlight on that difference.
I do agree that the consideration of the 60-passenger flight in Kentucky would heighten things somewhat, but United itself wasn't directly responsible for the violence, the security team was. I doubt they had full context of what was going on beyond "we told this guy to leave and he won't; help us".
He was told he'd be removed forcefully and the man said he didn't care. He was removed forcefully with adequate force.
They literally just pull him from his seat. I don't know how else you would forcibly remove someone whose resisting getting out of their seat.
Going by literal definitions, an officer tackling a man out of the way of a bus would technically be a "physical assault". But if your headline was "Officer physically assaults man", people are going to have a much different impression.
Tell me whats wrong with pulling a man out of his seat when you are ordered to remove someone from a seat and that person refuses to leave peacefully.
No there isn't. But there is something illegal about lying to police, filing false police reports, and using such false pretenses to assault and batter someone by proxy. There is no question United did this, it's illegal, and it's criminal. They should be charged by the prosecutor as should the cops who did the actual beating. They are equally responsible as United. The police failed to investigate and beat up an innocent person because of their failure to understand the situation. They should lose their jobs and pensions; ideally they should go to jail.
You state that as fact, but is that true? The passenger and airline are bound by a contract of carriage, and the passenger arguably did not violate any of the stipulations in there. The airline had no business asking him to leave. I'd very much like to see this hashed out in court one way or the other, but the fear is that they'll settle without admission of liability and under seal.
It can be hard to even tell which specific laws apply to the case.
So, yes, 'probably' is how the law works, if you don't have solid precedents.
('Probably' could also just mean that there is solid precedent but the author themselves didn't do the research to figure it out. Legal research is a lot of work. It's, like, an actual job to do that sort of thing.)
Even for the worst of crimes, the perpetrator will only probably get caught and only probably get convicted.
They go to court because laws are ALL about 'probably'.
It totally is. In the sense that you have no way to predict with certainty what a judge or jury will rule. Especially in cases where the law seems ambiguous, and/or where it or the relevant aspect of it not been tested in court much.
And rulings are the reciprocal "okay"
"Probably" is exactly how the law works. There's a reason it's called "making your case".
The system tries to reduce the "probably" for certainty, but we're still humans.
https://www.quora.com/How-should-a-breach-of-contract-be-qua...
> The legal system encourages the deliberate breaching of contracts by ensuring that there are no penalties for breach (in fact, if you try to put in a penalty clause in your contract, it won't be enforced)
(Note he's not saying you won't have to pay damages; penalties and damages are not the same. Damages = compensation for the wrong you've caused, for example by breaching a contract, penalties = punishment over and above damages)
Once United Airlines breached its contract with Dr. Dao and decided he could no longer be on their plane, he was trespassing. They owed him damages for breaching the contract, but that's an issue to be decided in court, not right there and then when the cops where asking him to get off. As far as I am aware, it is not the cops job to arbitrate breach of contract issues.
(Again, not a lawyer, and I expect regulations around air travel are more stringent, so it could be more complicated than that. Could be they broke some FAA or DOT or whatever regulation, I really don't know.)
> (Again, not a lawyer, and I expect regulations around air travel are more stringent, so it could be more complicated than that. Could be they broke some FAA or DOT or whatever regulation, I really don't know.)
There are aviation lawyers questioning it: http://denver.cbslocal.com/2017/04/10/united-airlines-remove...
If we're in agreement that United can break their contract (of course with civil liability), then the question is whether or not common carrier rules prohibit that an extra-contract ejection. And even if they do, what's the legal remedy if they try (and succeed) to do it? I mean, the bottom line is that they can of course physically do it.
Less potential defense for a civil case from the passenger if they can't claim trespass. They could, for example, be more liable for the injuries even though they did not inflict them directly.
Then, if violating some common carrier requirement, also subject to fines. Like the multi million dollar ones doled out for leaving passengers on the tarmac for hours.
It may also serve to educate airport police in the future as to how involved they want to get in a contractual dispute.
Now, if they want to renege from their part of the agreement, they have to refund him the money. Just 'promising' to refund the money is not sufficient; if he wants, he must get the cash in hand. After all, United issued a ticket only when they had the cash in hand, right? Why should he be obligated to relinquish his half of the contract just based on a promise to pay later?
The only thing that SORT of works the way you describe would be a landlord-tenant situation, where there are legal requirements for evicting someone. However, that is a VERY special case; there are special laws for housing. There are not those sorts of laws for planes. Now, there are laws about refunding money and paying for breaking contracts on plane tickets, but not about REQUIRING that an airliner 'give cash in person' to someone who is kicked off a flight.
Many people seem to think this is unjust. I don't necessarily disagree, but there's no need to go around the internet attacking the messengers. If you don't like how the laws work, write your legislators.
There's no such thing as "using false pretenses to assault and batter someone by proxy". If you have authority to ask someone to leave, and call the police to enforce that, you have no control or responsibility over how they go about doing that.
Regarding "lying to police" and "filing false police reports", all the police need to be concerned about is that he was asked to leave by someone with authority to do so, and refuses to leave. Airline pilots and other such proprietors generally have broad discretion to require people to leave. If he has a contract that requires him to be transported, then he has a civil claim against the airline, but the order to leave by the captain is still entirely legitimate.
It is also not the responsibility of the police to investigate the reasons behind a request to leave and determine if they are legitimate or not according to contracts. The law recognizes that the courts are for making real determinations of facts, officers on a scene have broad discretion to do what appears to be the law based on the information they have at the time. And in this case, they were entirely right - the crew does have the authority to demand that someone leave and does not need to justify that to anyone. Failure to provide the service under contract is a civil claim to be addressed in court later. Or, the short version, this classic applies - you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride.
I really don't get the need in these media sensation cases to burn everyone involved at the stake. Isn't it bad enough what United actually did wrong, which is to have a dumb policy for how to handle overbookings and crew transport? For nobody to look at the situation there and step back and try to find someone else more willing to take another flight?
There's a reason why we have due process instead of lynch mobs - the next person to make a mistake and be the target of the internet frenzy could be you. If you make a mistake someday and it gets blown up on the internet, wouldn't you rather face a reasoned punishment for the actual laws it can be proven that you actually broke, instead of having your life completely destroyed because everyone's really pissed off?
It's actually highly questionable whether United had that authority. They are bound by contract, they are bound by regulations. They did not have the right to remove him or prevent boarding via overbooking regulations, as the passenger was already seated, and the plane was not overbooked. Also, they were not in the air, meaning the pilot does not have unlimited rights to control who is on the plane. Frankly, I see no legal means for United at all to remove him from the plane.
They certainly did not have the authority via their own contract, the article goes into that.
It's corporate propaganda to claim consumers have no rights. Consumers do have rights, there are contracts, laws and regulations. It is also not at all evident why the cops should follow the orders of United. Since United was in the wrong and did not have the authority, it was just wrong for the cops to follow their orders. They already got punished, and it is absolutely possible this will have more legal consequences for them. And for United.
I was thinking about this some more, and I would think that they do. Consider what would happen if, instead of the actual situation, the passenger was being removed for being highly obnoxious. Maybe if he was sexually harassing flight attendants or intentionally making a mess or something. In that case, the commander of the aircraft might also demand that he leave, without needing to cite an exact law that he broke and prove that he broke it.
I'm not saying that the actual removal in this case was right. I am saying that the ability of bad actors to behave in ways that are obnoxious and interfere with normal operations yet technically do not break any specific laws is the reason why property owners, vehicle commanders, etc generally have broad authority, recognized and enforced by law, to demand that anyone leave at any time without needing a reason. The law only specifies a few minor exceptions to this based on certain very specific types of discrimination.
I would consider United to have abused that right in this case, but that's why the system is that if the commander says that you're off, then you're off, and the police don't hold some mini-trial on board the plane to figure out what if any laws were broken.
> It's corporate propaganda to claim consumers have no rights.
I don't think anybody is arguing that. It's a matter of exactly what rights do they have, and how those rights are to be enforced. He does have the right to either be transported or refunded his fare, but that is to be enforced by a civil court of law at a later date, not by a snap decision by whatever cop happens to show up.
Criminally, they do have the authority to remove anyone from the aircraft at any time, for any reason or for no reason at all. They can call on law enforcement to enforce that decision, and law enforcement has the right to use the necessary level of force to carry out that decision.
They missed several good opportunities to de-escalate the situation have have a PR nightmare on their hands, but their legal liability for anything involved with this is quite low.
Why shouldn't United let Dao stay in is seat (as required by law) and then sue him afterward? Why should Dao be the one to cave in?
They used enough force to pull him out of the seat and stopped.
Which means this one's going to need a court to sort it out, though I believe the general principle, when the terms are ambiguous or have multiple interpretations, is to prefer the interpretation least favorable to the side that wrote the contract.
Both were already seated, when someone more important to them arrived (too late). Both of them violated not any of the FAA rules by denying to leave the plane or change seats.
Phew!
This is such a crazy level of corporate apology that it's got to be sarcastic. United was not in the right to remove him. He stood up to that. If United really wanted to make room they should go for the market-based solution of just continuing to increase the price they were willing to pay for you to vacate your seat.
Where is your compassion?
It doesn't require that United call police to remove someone after they hit some arbitrary price limit.
>He didn't "stand up" -- he ran back onto a flight, screaming, after he didn't get his way. Sorry, but he needs to go to jail for disrupting his flight and the flight downstream that didn't have a flight crew because of his antics.
Good. He should inflict as much pain on the corporate beauracracy as possible. He should make everyone involved in this situation pissed off and then he should remind them that this is United's fuckup, not his. I also hope he takes as many millions as he can get out of United's pocketbook, especially considering their CEO's immediate response.
Probably worth noting that people with concussions, that just went through something fairly traumatic, may do odd things.
United didn't do anything criminal by asking him to leave. This is in fact the opinion of the article were supposedly discussing.
>To be clear, the fact that United seems to have breached its contract with Dao doesn’t mean its action was illegal, as the headline of this otherwise helpful article by a nonlawyer on a frequent traveler website suggests. There’s nothing illegal about breaching a contract. If you do so, you simply have to pay damages. Dao’s lawyer, Thomas Demetrio, said Thursday that he is investigating possible claims against United.
>And once United in effect told Dao that it was breaching its contract with him and told him to get off, he was probably under a legal duty to comply.
He should have left and contested the charges as a civil case.
The contract allows them to reschedule you. Period. You can be at the gate -- or even boarded -- with your "normal" fare, and a passenger can show up and pay full fare -- say a grand or two versus your $200 ticket.
It's economically advantageous for the airline to bump you and give your seat to the last-minute, full fare passenger. Even after comping you say $400 (and that's often in their script, not in actually, fungible dollars) for your inconvenience.
And, per the report, they will! Big surprise.
In short (in my words), you don't really have a ride until the plane is in the air.
If you think this is "unfair", might I suggest... gasp, some regulation?
I suspect this will take some actual legal proceeding for there to be broad agreement.
Things that make it complex:
- Airlines are "common carriers". So they are subject to laws above and beyond a mom-and-pop restaurant on issues like refusal of service.
- They publish a "contract of carriage".
- Overbooking didn't happen, so those laws don't offer any protection
- They can't have multiple meanings of the term "boarded" and switch meanings to use it to their advantage depending on the sitation. Denied boarding has to happen before boarding.
- The door wasn't shut, and the passenger did not assault or intimidate the crew. So "interfering with a flight crew" isn't on the table.
At the same time, this sounds like... regulation! Some form of restriction on how the terms may be interpreted and executed.
I am not entirely happy with the situation. I want to know that when I purchase a ticket to go somewhere, I'm going -- absent equipment failure or some act of God. (Or, the occasional drunken pilot...)
But, it is what it is. And I get a bit tired of all the outcry when much of such is basically coming from the people who made it this way -- through the governments they've voted for, or not voted for, as the case may be.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14116603
https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-united-legally-wrong-deplane-...
which provides some more context.
I still find it crappy that airlines can bump you if/when someone essentially outbids you at the last moment (prior to boarding) -- after you've already made all your plans and have gotten yourself to the airport. But, as with many things in this society, money takes precedence over all else.
Not even so much that: we, as passengers, are in part responsible as well, due to the vast majority of us picking flights through only one metric: ticket price. Economy passengers are not willing to pay higher ticket prices for better service, and yet still complain about baggage, food, and entertainment fees, and fewer route choices and consolidation. Economy fares have been a race to the bottom for decades now. You get what you pay for. If you want to pay less, you'll get less.
That doesn't excuse United breaking their contract, and it doesn't excuse the excessive use of force, but it does put it in context.
The only charge I could see sticking here is simple trespass. United/Republic, as the owners of the vehicle in which he was sitting, had the right to evict him regardless of whether any contract says otherwise. The contract issue has to be resolved separately. However, things like common-carrier laws might complicate even that. It's entirely possible that trespass doesn't apply either.
United broke their contract. They also took action which led to violence. Those are two separate things in a legal sense, but United can and should be held accountable for both.
Here contract of carriage https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...
We can read the definitions section of the contract where it defines oversold
>Oversold Flight means a flight where there are more Passengers holding valid confirmed Tickets that check-in for the flight within the prescribed check-in time than there are available seats.
So does this apply to this case - yes, even though this individual was removed to accommodate UA employees the fact was there were more passengers holding valid tickets than there were available seats
Now scroll down to Rule 25 which gives the provisions for what would happen in the case of oversold flights - one of which allows for involuntarily denying passengers
>Boarding Priorities - If a flight is Oversold, no one may be denied boarding against his/her will until UA or other carrier personnel first ask for volunteers who will give up their reservations willingly in exchange for compensation as determined by UA. If there are not enough volunteers, other Passengers may be denied boarding involuntarily in accordance with UA’s boarding priority
The article may have one valid argument - that the language of the contract says "boarding" not "leaving once already seated" but I don't know how much of a difference that would make in legal terms. Is there really a world of difference between not being let on the plane and being asked to leave once you've taken your seat. I don't think there is.
It's possible that you might get this in front of a sympathetic jury and get an award. But as a lawyer, under the law it's pretty clear that United did not breach any contract. And This remains true no matter what talking heads on TV are saying.
Or, you can argue that laws and regulations outside of the contract of carriage apply. I don't think this is a case where just the United contract of carriage settles it. There are actual aviation lawyers saying things like "this is very gray".
Sorry, it's not that easy. Employees flying non-revenue don't have "valid confirmed Tickets". At best, they have something called a "must ride" pass.
That also doesn't address what "Boarding" means. Can you "deny boarding" to someone already on board? If so, are you using the various other references to "board/ed/ing" in the same light in the contract?
For what it's worth, I'm not 100% convinced I'm right here. I'm not a lawyer. But there are real aviation lawyers saying this looks very grey. That's why I'm suspicious of opinions saying this is a simple matter.
This is again wrong, you have skipped the important part of the oversold definition. It says "Oversold Flight means a flight where there are more Passengers holding valid confirmed Tickets that check-in for the flight within the prescribed check-in time than there are available seats."
This was not the case. The employees did not have valid confirmed tickets, and they did not check in within the prescribed time anyway. United does not even dispute this, because they can't. They could not have legally confirmed a ticket at that point.
You can't just eliminate the "valid, confirmed ticket" part. It is the actual important part.
If crew repositioning granted those four employees "must ride" passes, could United not make the argument that those four seats were then not "available" per that definition?
So: 70 ticketed passengers, 70 physical seats on the plane. Four employees arrive for repositioning. Now you have 70 ticketed passengers, 66 available seats. By the definition in the contract, there are more ticketed passengers than available seats, so the flight is oversold.
The one bit that I think does change this is the part I left out in the ellipsis: "that check-in for the flight within the prescribed check-in time". By the time they tried to remove people from the plane, the "prescribed check-in time" may have ended, so you could make the argument that, when check-in ended, there were still 70 available seats. But maybe check-in hadn't ended, so who knows. It also isn't clear from the wording if my interpretation here is valid: the check-in window may not limit the time during which the number of available seats is determined.
Also consider another "availability" scenario: 70 ticketed passengers, 70 seats on the plane. All 70 passengers get on, but 1 passenger finds that their seat is damaged. The crew determines that the damage to the seat cannot be repaired in such a way as to legally fly someone in the seat, at least not in the time they have. Now they have 69 available seats and 70 ticketed passengers, all of whom who have technically "boarded". Let's assume there are only enough jump seats for the FAs, and the flight can't leave one behind and fly without (assuming it's even legal to fly a passenger in a jump seat). What do they do? Obviously in this case the passenger is going to be more cooperative, because they physically do not have a seat to sit in, but is it differently legally? (Though perhaps this situation would fall under Rule 21, Section H, "Safety"?)
No. Because by the point that happened, they had ticketed, confirmed, and reserved all of the space.
By definition, it couldn't be confirmed and reserved space if they had reduced the number of available seats ahead of time, but they didn't. They marked everyone else as confirmed and reserved. There is no provision for changing the number of seats after the fact. The number of spaces on the flight is actually fixed ahead of time, again, by law ;)
This is why united's contract of carriage says: "A reservation for space on a given flight of UA is valid when the availability and allocation of such space is confirmed by UA and entered into the carrier’s reservations system. "
Note: ahead of time.
it continues: "Subject to payment or other satisfactory credit arrangements, a validated Ticket will be issued by UA or the authorized agent of UA indicating such confirmed reserved space provided the Passenger applies to UA or the authorized agent of UA for such Ticket within the Check-In Time Limits"
and " Once a Passenger obtains a Ticket indicating confirmed reserved space for a specific flight and date either from UA or its authorized agent, the reservation is confirmed even if there is no record thereof in UA’s reservation system."
There are no provisions for undoing this. At the point they confirmed it at check-in, it's confirmed and reserved, period. No takebacks.
Further, there are no provisions for "must-ride" tickets in the contract of carriage.
They can't even make the argument they gave them zero fare tickets. The CFR, again, says " A zero fare ticket does not include free or reduced rate air transportation provided to airline employees and guests."
They pretty much have no way out of this.
There were an equal number of passengers holding valid, confirmed tickets and available seats. Until United decided to reduce the number of available seats to make room for employees who did not hold valid, confirmed tickets.
> the language of the contract says "boarding" ... Is there really a world of difference between not being let on the plane and being asked to leave once you've taken your seat. I don't think there is.
That is ridiculous. The act of getting on the plane and taking a seat is literally the definition of the word "boarding". Once you have boarded, you can no longer be denied boarding because you've already done it. They didn't redefine the term to mean something weird in the Rule 1 - Definitions section, so they need to abide by the normal meaning of the term.
The contract says "more passengers than available seats" not "more passengers than seats" if it were the latter your argument would be valid, in this case, seats may be unavailable for any number of reasons including there were other passengers or employees who took priority - not great customer service and I won't be flying United anytime soon - but from a standpoint of legal liability, it is well within the wording of the contract.
The Dr in this case had boarded the plane.
If United wanted to bump passengers to make room for crew (ignoring whether that was permissible under the "overbooked" definition), they needed to do it before they let the passengers on the plane.
Furthermore that was an entirely knowable event. The moment they started letting people on the plane they already knew the crew members were running late. They could have had the gate agents ask for volunteers before anyone got on. They screwed up twice.
There is no defense of United to be had here. Everyone can stop apologizing for them now.
From the CFR:
"Confirmed reserved space" means space on a specific date and on a specific flight ... confirmed as being reserved for the accommodation of that passenger.
The employees had no confirmed and reserved space.
They also should have been the first to be removed. This is because the law requires it. The relevant CFR says that when you deny boarding or refuse transport, you must do so in a way as to minimize the number of people with valid, reserved and confirmed seats removed.
This means the employees, who did NOT have such seats, would be required by law to be removed first.
They even made it worse for themselves, it also says:" No employee or agent of UA has the authority to alter, modify, or waive any fare rules or any provision of the Contract of Carriage unless authorized by a corporate officer of UA. UA’s appointed agents and representatives are only authorized to sell Tickets for air transportation pursuant to approved fares, rules, and regulations of UA. "
So none of the people involved could have changed the rules :)
United's screwup was trying to remove the passenger. If he had been denied boarding there would be no issue.
So sorry, if they tried to confirm and reserve tickets for the crew, "must-ride" or not, after they checked in the flight as full (not after they boarded it), they would still be screwed. Denying boarding would still be breach on their part, because the flight would not actually have been oversold. This is because they could not have validly confirmed and reserved a seat for their must-ride once the flight is fully confirmed. Period, full stop. They could only reserve one (and worse for them, https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/250.2a says those people, the must-ride, would be the first to go).
They don't get to just mark all the tickets they like confirmed and reserved and remove other passengers. Otherwise, these provisions would all be meaningless :)
They cannot actually validly confirm it unless their is actually space on the plane. The only case this occurs otherwise in practice is an accident (IE ie system screwup assigning two people, same seat). Otherwise, they just don't confirm them until you get to the gate, and you are holding a reserved but not confirmed (I believe that is the correct way, and not the other way around) ticket.
This also means, as you might expect, most of their "Oversale" situations are not really oversale as defined by federal law (and they can't really deny boarding for them). They are really "we issued more reservations than we can confirm for this flight". and they would like to get to confirm everyone who really wants to go. This is how they avoid most of the issues in the first place.
That's also particularly why when those people go to check in, they don't confirm and issue reserved boarding passes. They tell them to see the gate agent. Because they have not actually confirmed the reserved space :) So it's only actually oversold if they just issue confirmations to everyone who checks in, instead of not actually confirming :P.
That's why it's confirmed and reserved (for that specific passenger/flight/time/seat) and not "kinda confirmed and kinda reserved".
If you actually follow the flow chart steps the contract of carriage lays out, and compare it to with what the CFR says, they are pretty much out of options.
Now, they certainly would have done it anyway, but they would still lose the lawsuit. Again, by law, at the point they have confirmed and reserved all the seats, their only actual legal recourse is to find volunteers.
Yes, United should have done anything reasonable to get a volunteer to get out of their seat and leave the flight. But this fine parsing around when an airline is allowed to deplane someone is pretty silly. What if the captain determined that he needed to take some weight off the flight? Would the airline be allowed to involuntarily deplane someone in that case?
And guess what. I have been bumped off a flight after I was sitting down for unknown reasons. (It was quite a while ago.) And I managed to avoid getting into a tussle with airport security over it.
However, once the flight crew directly asked him to leave, they had three choices. What they did, sit at the gate until he changes his mind, or cancel the flight. If I'm flight crew and there's someone on board who is not following crew instructions, I'm not flying with them on board.
And therefore, if I have an option not to take responsibility for that person I will exercise that option by either removing that person or just canceling the entire activity.
Four choices - they could have upped their incentive until the doctor, or someone else decided to take. I'd bet someone would have gladly taken a $1,350 voucher.
To be clear, I absolutely fault United for letting the situation get to the point where there were no reasonable options.
Edit: other passengers even offered to get off for more money. But they were just laughed at by the crew.
He is a professor of constitutional and international law at Harvard University and was a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter.
There are valid reasons an airline can forcibly remove boarded passengers. It's not clear that the United situation(s) were valid though.
It's fairly complex due to "common carrier" laws, airport city laws, as well as United's own contract of carriage. I can't claim 100% that they weren't technically allowed to do what they did. But there is more than one aviation attorney chiming in and claiming they had no legal standing.
United's CEO said as much himself.
"We are not going to put a law enforcement official to take them off, to remove a booked, paid, seated passenger -- we can't do that."
The word "can't" versus "won't" seems deliberate.
Edit: Also, a pet peeve of mine. You've probably heard a flight attendant tell someone something along the lines of "It's illegal to disobey instructions from a flight crew." That's complete bullshit. There is a federal law about "interfering with a flight crew". But it only applies after the doors are closed, and only applies in situations that involve "assaulting or intimidating a flight crew".
Honestly, I think a succinct statement to that effect should be legally required to be posted prominently in every plane, enough so passengers actually read it.
I used to think flight attendant power trips were just annoying, but people are now literally getting beaten up as a result of them.
Ding ding ding. Which means all the stupid pontification over whether or not the flight was "boarded" is borderline ridiculous and likely disingenuous at best.
If this flight had closed the doors and then came back to the gate to remove the passenger? All these arguments would have weight. But it's quite clear to me that he was IDB'ed like any myriad other situations I've witnessed. Being IDB'ed makes no difference if you're at the gate or on the plane - shit happens after you board as well. Has no one here been on a flight that had to IDB someone prior to the door closing due to weight issues?
Thus, it's simple trespass once he refused to leave. Either the flight was a flight and subject to all those rules, or it was just a piece of private property sitting on the ground.
I can see no way for someone to make a successful argument that once your feet move past the threshold of the aircraft you have an inviolable right to be there regardless of the wishes of the aircraft owner.
Note that "Refusal of Transport" Rule 21 specifically talks about removing passengers from the aircraft. And it does not apply in this case. The list of valid reasons does not include "oversell", even though that didn't happen in this case anyway.
The "Denied Boarding" Rule 25 makes no mention of removing passengers from the aircraft.
I suspect that's not a mistake.
I'm also not sure the rule around the door having to be closed before "interfering with a flight crew" applies has anything to do with "boarded or not" either. It's more about the legal venue where a flight crew is a flight crew. It's the "Special Aircraft Jurisdiction" https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-1405-s...
Like everyone else here, IANAL, so I may be completely wrong. However, I've read what aviation lawyers are saying about the Dr Dao case though. Most are saying it looks very grey.
In fact, on a United flight just a few months ago the captain got on the intercom and said they had weight issues because of headwinds on the flight path and they might have to deplane some people. As it turned out, they were able to remove some cargo and otherwise get the numbers to work so everyone could stay.
I have no idea about trespass etc. but flights have legitimate reasons why they have to deplane some people. Now it's much better if they can get people to agree to do so voluntarily with compensation. But one way or the other, they sometimes have to get some people to leave a plane and making a fuss vs. not making a fuss isn't a very good criterion.
This case doesn't meet that criteria.
That, and the US "common carrier" laws that put more onus on their ability to refuse service is exactly why this is so grey.
Hopefully some news organization will convene a panel of aviation attorneys so we can hear from experts. I suspect United will settle out of court, which would keep us from hearing what the real answer is.
Certainly when the situation is reversed, airlines have no problem with you losing your unrefundable/non-transferable ticket price when unforeseen circumstances force you to cancel plans. And they cite the contract if you complain.
I've never seen or heard of someone being asked to get off the plane to make room for a different passenger. Quite the opposite: I've seen airline employees asked to get off because a paying passenger showed up at the last minute.
The author is a real lawyer, not the armchair kind. So put away your misdirected rant.
> And guess what. I have been bumped off a flight after I was sitting down for unknown reasons.
I'm not sure why you think that's relevant. "I obeyed a direction in circumstances which may or may not have been similar in any relevant manner" has no bearing on whether the order, the passengers response, or the law enforcement intervention were appropriate, legally, morally, or otherwise.