Comment by cmdrfred | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cmdrfred | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

>1. This was United, not Delta. The Delta mention in my comment was their response to an industry incident

My mistake.

2. No one ASKED for any money. United was trying to get people to voluntarily bump by offering X - no one accepted (because the next flight didn't leave for a day). United should have realized that if they really wanted to get their employees on the flight & not have an international incident, they could go a bit higher...

Yes, but they don't have to offer any more. The truth is you don't get to choose if you are bumped from a flight they can simply bump you and the most you can sue for is the rate specified. Without a specified rate you can argue in court that "missing the flight cost me a multi-million dollar deal" or "I missed my grandfathers final moments" and potentially get awarded many thousands or millions of dollars. That risk likely would have resulted in a very different outcome. (probably the end of overbooked flights and increases in airline fares/stricter restrictions on missing flights to compensate)

>All of this is out the window anyways with the Dao case since it wasn't even an overbooked flight - one with too many ticketed passengers - but one where they were trying to get employees to another airport

That's something for his lawyers to look into of course, I have a feeling the 300K a year guys they keep on retainer who likely approved this policy have a good idea of how they can argue this was legal under current regulation. That or the legal department at United will have some openings soon.

"That's something for his lawyers to look into of course, I have a feeling the 300K a year guys they keep on retainer who likely approved this policy have a good idea of how they can argue this was legal under current regulation."

They can argue. But will the judge or jury agree?

Regarding the boarding, this was posted by a lawyer and makes it look a little bit like a clusterfuck. Could get quite pricey for United.

1. First of all, it’s airline spin to call this an overbooking. The statutory provision granting them the ability to deny boarding is about “OVERSELLING”, which is specifically defined as booking more reserved confirmed seats than there are available. This is not what happened. They did not overbook the flight; they had a fully booked flight, and not only did everyone already have a reserved confirmed seat, they were all sitting in them. The law allowing them to deny boarding in the event of an oversale does not apply.

2. Even if it did apply, the law is unambiguously clear that airlines have to give preference to everyone with reserved confirmed seats when choosing to involuntarily deny boarding. They have to always choose the solution that will affect the least amount of reserved confirmed seats. This rule is straightforward, and United makes very clear in their own contract of carriage that employees of their own or of other carriers may be denied boarding without compensation because they do not have reserved confirmed seats. On its face, it’s clear that what they did was illegal– they gave preference to their employees over people who had reserved confirmed seats, in violation of 14 CFR 250.2a.

3. Furthermore, even if you try and twist this into a legal application of 250.2a and say that United had the right to deny him boarding in the event of an overbooking; they did NOT have the right to kick him off the plane. Their contract of carriage highlights there is a complete difference in rights after you’ve boarded and sat on the plane, and Rule 21 goes over the specific scenarios where you could get kicked off. NONE of them apply here. He did absolutely nothing wrong and shouldn’t have been targeted. He’s going to leave with a hefty settlement after this fiasco.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com