What should happen after this horrible situation with United Airlines?

I saw the same film clip. All I can say is that there are two sides to every story, and I have only heard one.

Airline representatives do not start throwing punches without provocation. I want to know how drunk the passenger was. I want to know what was said and how it was said, before this altercation. I want to know if the passenger had been belligerent before this episode.

Bottom line: Without more facts, I am not willing to say that this guy is an innocent victim and that United is categorically wrong.

Knee jerk reactions dont help.

He was a doctor with his wife and the representative just pointed randomly at them to be removed from the plane! He very clearly said, ‘I have to get home because I’m a doctor and I have patients I need to see tomorrow.’..... He was selected because he ‘looked’ like a tourist.

@elbanditoroso He was not drunk, he was not belligerent. The private security thug smashed him against the arm rest and dragged him out of his seat.

I think the gate agents should be fired, along with whoever in United operations said paying passengers needed to be removed so they could seat a flight crew needed in the next city.

I wrote United customer service saying what I just said here.

It wasn’t private security. The airline has the authority to contact local police when they think it is warranted. Apparently, fulling booking a flight and needing to fly four of their own crew members warranted a full on attack and removal of citizens who had booked and paid for seats. If passengers do violate FAA laws, then it is a federal situation and no longer a local police situation. In this situation, passengers did not violate FAA laws. They were just an inconvenience to the airline. Anyone who was randomly selected by the person trying to toss people off the plane was going to be at the mercy of the power of that person. It was a power play and a fucking stupid one, at that.

Just more erosion of rights. I’m not surprised by this at all. There is nothing anyone can do to change this. Just get used to it.

@tinyfaery then you are complacent and just as guilty. There are things that can be done and resigning yourself to a role of helplessness is not one of them.

I’d sue United into bankruptcy. Even if the passenger was drunk the actions of security here are inexcusable. This is what you get when the primary concern of police/security/etc is to force compliance rather than peacefully resolve conflict.

There are dozens of witnesses. They all need to speak up.

^ Yep. This is going to be a mother of a lawsuit. Inexcusable, barbaric and I hope this Dr. and his wife make enough for their pain and suffering a violation of their rights to buy a freaking island and retire on about 10 million a year forever after.

@cazzie The airline is within the law overbooking. And when they have overbooked and no one will give up their seat, accept the cash offer, they can lawfully remove passengers. Nothing should happen. Everybody knew ahead of the flight.

I agree in this day and age of sue first and ask question later they just opened them selves up for one whopper of a law suite .
I hope that Dr, sues them into bankrupt.

@si3tech….They are NOT within the law with over booking. That is NOT a statute. It is a commercial practice that is allowed given stipulations. Physically assaulting passengers who have done no wrong and to remove them from the craft by beating them into submission IS NOT part of the lawful removal of passengers. They can not beat a passenger into giving up their seat. No. Not ever.

If what you guys wrote is to be believed, IF the guy sues, he is going to lose, big time.

The rules and regs of the airline industry (Contract of Carriage) give the airlines pretty much universal capability to say who flies and who doesn’t.

All the huffing and puffing in the world isn’t going to win the case. United will probably offer him a couple of round trips to make him go away. But they don’t have to.

I’m sorry, defenders, but security guards police don’t start hitting without some provocation. I do not believe for a second that this guy was innocent.

This article from the American Bar Association says it is legal to over book flights and to ask passengers to give up their seats with compensation.
The officer has been removed from duty.

The doctor and his wife were chosen to be removed from the plane as the flight was overbooked, not because anyone was drunk. The way United chose to enforce the decision is quite shocking and I think the doctor and his wife should sue United for assault. The BBC covered the story here.

@elbanditoroso “security guards police don’t start hitting without some provocation.”

… don’t you live in America? You know this is not true.

Either party could have acted with kindness or maturity and it would have just been another day.

From reading comments here and elsewhere, I guess it depends on your worldview who that should have been.

It also seems like anyone on the plane could have offered their seat to the gentleman and his wife, and it would have alleviated the problem. They probably would have also made $800.

The whole thing sucks, but we got here because we all feel like the embattled party when things go wrong. From the guy who was picked, to the flight attendant that summoned security, to the security agent who had to remove him, to the people around him who will record someone’s pain but do nothing about it. Anyone could have prevented it from getting this bad.

what should happen?
United should end the practice of booting paying customers for staff. Either reserve staff seats or figure something else out, but the policy of overbooking and then allowing staff to take seats is what really put pressure on everyone else.

But it’s not the passenger’s fault that they overbooked, whether it’s legal to overbook or not. Are they supposed to ask someone to volunteer to get off and get compensted? And no one volunteered? What is supposed to happen at that point?
How did it end up leading to the man being dragged away?

@flo I think what happens if no one volunteers, then the last passenger(s) to buy a ticket is asked or told to get off. With compensation.

Edited: Evening news said the passengers are chosen by a computer.

They showed on the evening news that the guy got away and ran back on the plane and was filmed saying that he had to get home. They drug him off again. This is horrifying.

It’s not clear to me exactly what happened. However the video Tweeted makes it pretty clear that it got to three thuggish looking guards moving on the passenger and causing him to scream and then knocking him unconscious and dragging him off the plane. That looks pretty clear to me that at least one of them should not be a security guard, and should probably be charged with assault since the victim was seated and unarmed. Attacking and knocking someone out in that situation… well I’d need to hear an extremely surprising “other side of the story” backed up by evidence before I wouldn’t think that “guard” needs to a whole lot of work. (Maybe if the doctor-with-wife had been making threats and then physically attacked the guard as he moved towards him?)

It seems like the attack perpetrated by the security guard is probably a separate issue from United Airlines asking security to remove someone. If the guard beat someone, that shouldn’t be UA’s responsibility, unless UA has a policy to have guards beat people.

In fact, this part of the BBC article makes it seem like it’s likely an issue with that security guard:

One of the three security officers involved has been “placed on leave”, the Chicago Department of Aviation said, and his actions were “obviously not condoned by the Department”.

As for UA policy, it seems to me they ought to invent a better system for offering compensation for bumping as well as for selecting random bumps and especially for how they do or don’t escalate. There are a few steps I could think of before actually calling security for force an otherwise peaceful person off a plane.

@funkdaddy It’s hard to believe that entire plane full of passengers all turned down $800 (was that really the offer? or are you just estimating the value of flight vouchers?) to take a later flight.

@Zaku

My understanding was that the ”$800” was merely a voucher that could only be used for another United flight.

Thanks for posting this, @cazzie

If I was there and saw that happen, I would have surrendered my seat and demanded enhanced compensation.

Then I would have contacted the victim’s wife and offered to be a witness for her husband in his lawsuit.

Even if this poor guy didn’t win his lawsuit, I’d do what I could to help create a solar storm of negative publicity that would bankrupt United or at least wrench them into a no-overbooking policy.

I seldom fly, but next time I do, I’m going to grill whatever airline I choose about whether they overbook.

I don’t know if there are any customer-friendly airlines, but I think a slogan like, “BernieSanders Airlines- we don’t overbook!” would be a majorly salient point.

Even though all UA did was call security to make a passenger leave, it could still tank their reputation. This joke is already circulating.

Also this .

This is going to cost United Airlines so much more than it could ever have cost them to persuade people to give up their seats voluntarily. It’s been shown three times this morning on Australian TV. Apart from any legal costs and how much they have to pay that man in compensation I cannot imagine the final cost in bad publicity.

^So then they will pass that cost on to their passengers. You know, the people they are dragging off their planes.

Then vote with your money @chyna. Book another airline. Virgin Australia pissed me off and I now only book their flights when there is no other reasonable option. UA aren’t the only airline available are they?

@Earthbound_Misfit

Good point. Only a masochist would fly United in light of this.

Overbookings happen. People aren’t normally physically dragged off planes if they don’t agree to leave after paying for their seat. I can’t understand why they (UA staff) didn’t quietly approach couples travelling together and offer to put them up in a first-class hotel, a flight upgrade to business or first-class and some spending money to spend another night in Chicago. Surely if they’d quietly asked people directly, someone would have said yes.

I was flying home from London about 20 years ago and the plane was overbooked. And this was also on United Airlines.

Our flight was overbooked and they asked people if anyone wanted to catch the next plane since they were two seats short. It started off around a 200 dollar voucher. Then they just kept going up until people took the offer. Once they got over a 1K hands started going up.

So there was a solution.

I do kinda wonder what sort of shitstorm the person that had to sit in the guys seat would have had to endure.

@Brian1946 Why United Airlines though? Seems to me they are responsible for a lame-ass unsympathetic system for selecting who leaves, but it looks to me like it was the security guard who escalated it to a physical attack.

@Zaku, they must have requested security come and remove the man. Taking that step rather than negotiating with their passengers to find a peaceful resolution to their problem was their choice. The security guard went too far, but he was there at UA’s request.

@johnpowell

That resolution is 180º better than the one mentioned in the OP. Apparently they’ve Trumped themselves in the last 20 years.

I will never fly with United again.

I wonder how I’d feel if there as a midair collision between a UA flight carrying whatever United execs imposed their overbooking policy, and Air Force 1, with only Trump and Pence aboard.

@Brian1946 You’d feel bad about the waste of good aircraft.

This whole thing could have been easily settled by common sense. If you have a boarding pass with a seat assignment, you get to park your butt in the seat, and you don;t have to give it up to anyone. Don’t have wan assigned seat on an over booked flight? Sorry, you are going to fly tomorrow.

If UAL Operations knew they were deadhaeding four crew to the next airport, they should have blocked the seats out way before it became a problem and they had to bounce someone.

@Earthbound_Misfit Yes I agree it would be best to not call security, and I’d like to think they should have been able to figure out another solution especially since he was a doctor with patients. (But I also haven’t seen any details about what happened before the attack.)

However that’s a very different issue, even if it is still a good and valid point that they should select and escalate much much better than they do.

And with a fleet of airplanes and thousands of staff, I’d hope they could consider getting some other solution for getting staff where they needed it, rather than requiring customers off.

It seems to me that however foolish and annoying their process is for choosing who can’t fly, people not being able to fly happens quite a bit and is a separate and lesser issue from the physical attack.

And, the reason this is getting attention and is such a big deal, is about the needless and extreme violence used. And that looks like it’s all down to the security guard, not United Airlines.

Saying that it’s UA’s fault for calling security seems like saying security should be expected to bust heads. That mindset is actually more disturbing to me than anything in the story.

I respectfully disagree @Zaku. The problem started when UA called in security. I do agree, that the media wouldn’t have become involved if the security response hadn’t been so brutal, but UA created the environment for this to escalate. Therefore, the responsibility lies with them. I can’t really see how forcibly removing anyone from the seat they’d been allocated and paid for was ever going to be a happy, pleasant experience. The security guards handled it badly, but that they were there would appear to be a major mishandling and over-reaction by UA.

Regardless of whether the fault lies with United or with the security guards the fact of the matter is United are the ones who are going to pay for it with a seriously tarnished public image (at the very least) and for that alone they should have been mindful of handling it better.

@Zaku :: There were ~130 people on the plane. I’m sure if the doctor was trying to tea-bag the cop we would have known and had video of it.

The cop was a fucking power-tripping-needle-dick. Hopefully in a few months he is a security guard at Burger King.

When I worked for a psych hospital we were trained how to get away from, and how to subdue someone without harming them, or minimal harm. I would hope security guards and cops, and even airplane employees of all levels who work at the airports, have similar training.

Here’s the stupid thing: The problem is easily preventable. Very easily.
Normally the offer of 1 free air ticket gets a volunteer out of the plane.
On the rare occasion no one takes that offer, then all United has to do is up the reward to 2 tickets. And so on, until someone accepts.
But this is the age of subwoofers and thuggery.

The airplane company should be sued for that. There are proof and victim. The airplane SOP is not an excuse to forcibly discriminate and assault an innocent passenger. That is what should be done.

I imagine the situation where all the passengers on the the plane stand up and fight the security guards, but… then again, they would never, another passenger gone is not their business so long as they arrive in their destination. Many people said the guards are wrong but have they put themselves in the position of other passengers at that time? People could be so selfish sometimes.

@Kraigmo :: When this happened to me I actually raised my hand when they offered a 600 dollar voucher (price of my round trip from Eugene to London). The difficulty was I had a few connecting flights so they advised against me doing it since that would mess up my connections.

Here is the funny thing. Once the offer went above 1K pounds so many people wanted it the conundrum was finding out who raised their hand first and ran up. They nearly had to beat people up to keep them on the flight.

@Earthbound_Misfit I don’t disagree with you that it sucks and that UA should have had a much better policy and it was probably not wise to call security (but I don’t know the situation before security was called), but there are several things going on in this situation, which I don’t think should be collapsed into one.

I do agree that when you call security, you are at cause in what happens next, and it could go badly, so you should try to avoid that, and there are many other things they could do.

But the part about the guard physically going after him and knocking him out and dragging him off, is preposterously wrong, and that wrongness is all on the guard, and possibly his trainers and security superiors, not UA. UA called the guards, which looks like a mistake, but one of the guards attacked the guy, which is crazy.

@johnpowell Ok that’s what I thought, but not knowing for certain, I wanted to at least clarify that at least theoretically there might be a reason for actual force in some cases.

They would have had no problem getting takers if they offered two business class round trips to Hawaii.

Always obey those in authority. You can work it out later. He could have been booked on a later flight, or many other options.

The ones responsible for this should be tried, declated guilty, and then executed by throwing them out of the aeroplane mid flight.

Interesting that they didn’t drag a white man in a suit off the plane.

@Zaku: If United Airlines has access to the guards’ services, they must contract with the guards, which means they’re responsible for the actions of the guards. I’m thinking United will get sued and the security company will get sued, as well.

@canidmajor Yes, I was also wondering at the names of the other three passengers that were “chosen” to get off the plane.

I can’t link it, but the CEO of United Airlines, Oscar Munoz is blaming the passenger, saying he was disruptive.

I finally watched the video, and I’ve listened to some news reports.

It was the police, not “security guards” from what I understand. The names were chosen at random, two couples if the reports are right. The first couple deplaned without incident. This man didn’t want to leave so they dragged him off. I’m not ok with it, but it does have me thinking, how could it be resolved? A passsenger won’t leave, and the plane won’t leave until the passenger leaves.

I feel like if the passenger had explained why it’s important to him to get home on time maybe someone would have “volunteered” to take the bump and get compensated. Problem is, no time!! The plane is full, which means a long boarding time, and I have no idea if it was already delayed possibly, and United needed the seats to move crew around for other flights.

The overbooking is really not ok. Not to the extreme that some airlines do it. There needs to be better back up plans than just offering free flights for the bump.

I wouldn’t give this guy millions if I was on a jury, but I’d definitely give him something.

@chyna I saw what the CEO said, I don’t remember the quote exactly, but I wasn’t left with the impression that the CEO said he was disruptive, but rather the passenger refused to leave the plane when asked. The CEO’s statement wasn’t good, I felt like he would have been better off saying nothing.

I read a news article that made a very good point. The airline must have known they were overbooked before anyone boarded the plane. Why did they allow these people to board at all? If they had not allowed anyone on to the plane until the situation with the overbooking was resolved, they wouldn’t have had this problem. United Airlines really dropped the ball on this one.

This was the article I was thinkng of.

^^I’m not sure how overbooked it was. Supposedly, they needed seats to move crew to another city. Possibly, the left hand didn’t talk to the right until last minute to get crew onto the flight.

I was once on a plane, everyone was boarded, and buckled up, and they came on board and said they needed two volunteers because the plane was overweight. My husband and I volunteered, which I wound up regretting later, but usually I take the bump and it works out fine. My guess is maybe they had cargo that added a lot of weight that they were able to charge a lot of money for, but that’s just a guess. It was a rather small plane, maybe 40 seats.

Did the passenger speak English well? I wonder if there was a language barrier.

The local news here interviewed a witness. He said two secutiry people came on the plane and asked the person to step off. He refused. They were very polite and just kept asking and offering compensation. He still refused and was adamant. This was holding up the flight. It was clear nothing was going to happen. (Or the compensation was going to be very high)
At some point they called in “a big guy”. who forcibly removed the passenger. People started their video cameras when the big guy got on the plane and yelling ensued.
When you push an Irresistible force against an immovable object something is sure to break.

Frankly I am surprised no one volunteered to take his place.
Maybe if they offered more than $800 per seat they would have had more takers. They could have gone up to $1350.

My grandpa used to say, “a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.”

It’s the airline’s job to transport their employees and to plan for that transport. And it is never, ever acceptable to assault a customer. Fuck, I know bouncers in dive bars that wouldn’t treat a drunk dude waving a gun that way.

@LuckyGuy

They didn’t even offer $800. They offered a flight voucher (United only) “worth” $800. So basically any customer who took the offer would have been severely inconvenienced for no real gain on their part.

@Darth_Algar Sure they’d use it. Odds are very good if they are on a UA flight they will take another. They are not offering the voucher to random people. They are offering it to people who take UA flights. They’d be used.

Maybe cash should be the next offer after an unwanted voucher offer.

Cash is definitely preferable to a voucher. One of the times I was bumped it was on an airline I was only using because it was needed for that city. I’d never go back to that airport and never use the airline again. A voucher would have been meaningless. Cash, a phone card and a night (including all charges) in a five star hotel was what we stepped aside for. 15 years ago it was $500 . It cost the airline close to $1000 to get me out of a $200 seat. Same for my friend.

The only really bad thing about that was that we were in a five star hotel with no clean clothes. We’d calculated our wardrobes down to the last sweat stain. We were in a Crystal City hotel during a NATO conference. Lots of well-starched multi-starred generals and two small, dirty, sweaty Canadian women in the same lobby. We did shower and all but… no clean clothes and no place to buy anything fresh nearby. We ordered room service at the airline’s expense.

If they’re flying you on a later flight plus a voucher for another trip up to 800 bucks, I don’t see how that’s a bad deal.

@LuckyGuy

I don’t know about you, but any business who decided to remove me from the seat I fairly paid for, for no other reason than their own poor planning and practices, would not see my patronage again. A voucher would then be absolutely worthless to me.

@jca

And if you have to be at a certain destination by XX:XX time and do not have the luxury of waiting for a later flight?

Well, ya know, there is a simple solution here. Airlines quit overbooking, period, end of story.

@Darth_Algar I most certainly would use it. Even for spite!

I just find it hard to believe that out of 250 people (i don’t know the real number) there was not one willing to arrive at their destination the next morning – even as a courtesy for the doc who supposedly had patients. I gave up a seat for an older woman because her husband died and she was traveling home with the body in the hold. I was offered nothing! I just did it because I could.*
Have we all become so selfish that we could not help a fellow passenger?

*(At the last minute they did have room for me and I sat next to her for the overseas flight back to the US. It was one of my most memorable and emotional flights. We talked and talked. She told me all about him, their life together. Lots of hugs and tears. i still puddle up when I think about it. It made me a better person.)

“Have we all become so selfish that we could not help a fellow passenger?”

That’s certainly one way to spin corporate fuckery.

United should have to provide free airline travel for the man for the next twelve years…....on a different airline.

@rojo at the minimum! We haven’t yet heard if he was injured beyond a bloody lip.

By refusing to do the right thing in the first place, United now has a huge PR crisis.

“The internet is viciously trolling United Airlines, and it’s a sight to behold….This is an incident that isn’t likely to blow over in short order, so expect plenty of apologies, re-apologies, investigations, clarifications, accusations, and ultimately a costly lawsuit that will make one man very, very wealthy.”

https://bgr.com/2017/04/10/united-passenger-incident-twitter-reaction/

However, he’s 69, and lawsuits such as this can drag on forever (and are very stressful), and can take so long that it’s likely that his heirs are the ones who will be wealthy.

No, @snowberry, I think he has a very very good case. And so what if it’s his kids that end up with the money? I don’t believe in the private court systems that they use in the US. I think UAL should be up on criminal charges and have to pay damages to the victim.

@cazzie I think he has a very good case too. But these sorts of trials won’t be over quickly at all. It will be many many years before it’s over. This part saddens me because I’d like to see him live long enough to enjoy the fruits of it. I surely hope he does.

@Darth_Algar If I were a passenger, was returning home and had the time flexibility I’d have raised my hand. (Like I did years ago.) It just seems incredible that nobody on that plane could do it.
I can’t wait to hear the rest of the story.

@luckyguy
And why should they.
They paid good money for their flights and have places to be.
If the transport of those United Airline employees was so important, put them in the cargo bay with an oxygen mask and a blanket.

I watched coverage on the news. Somehow the guy got back on the plane, and was removed again.

Idea for a wacky gameshow…Fight or flight
Come on down, you’d have to be plane crazy to turn down this offer…

Now they’re saying the guy is a felon. Makes me wonder if it’s true, or if they’re just trying to smear the guy to save face or redirect attention away from their own fuck-up. Either way, the guy’s past record hardly seems relevant.

@LuckyGuy

It’s not really the job of the paying customer to accommodate the businesses’ fuck up. Imagine, say, going to a restaurant that was filled to capacity and then the restaurant stating that they had employees taking their lunch break, but since they had no break room that some customers were going to have to give up the table and meal they had already paid for so that the employees would have some place to eat.

@snowberry

Nah, with all the negative publicity United will want this to go away as quickly as possible. I smell an out-of-court settlement in that guy’s future.

If the guy is a felon, they may have fabricated a story with the thought the passengers would be less afraid if they didn’t know.
Perhaps the whole intent from the beginning was to get that one guy off the plane.

If that’s the case then why don’t we see, say, Martha Stewart getting jackbooted off airplanes?

I didn’t mean they would eject every felon, but perhaps he is wanted or watched currently for something specific.

Nope: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4401980/Dr-dragged-United-swapped-drugs-secret-gay-sex.html

@Patty_Melt

If that were the case then he wouldn’t have been allowed to board the airplane in the first place. It’s amazing how far people will stretch to rationalize abuses like this.

It doesn’t matter who the guy is, or what he’s done in the past, or whether he’s even a doctor. We don’t earn our seats on planes by good behaviour or a fine education. The man bought a seat on the plane, and what they did to remove him from that seat was criminal. Period. Whether or not someone did, could, or should have offered to give up their seat for him and what could or should be offered to them is a separate issue.

There are two sides to every story. If we are only seeing the video of what happened from a certain point, and have not heard the whole story about the entire incident, then who knows what will come out in the coming months, or in depositions, or from cameras inside the airports, etc.

Interesting that when they dragged him off, his wife left too! Now why didn’t they plan for that too?

Well, the United CEO has come out this afternoon with another apology:

“No one should ever be mistreated this way,” said Oscar Munoz, chief executive of United’s parent company.

He is trying to save face, knowing a smear campaign against the Doctor was the wrong approach I don’t fly very often but after this I will avoid United at all costs.

Munoz’s first reactions were badly misjudged. It was only when United’s share price fell that he woke up to what was going on.

@funkdaddy “anyone on the plane could have offered their seat to the gentleman and his wife, and it would have alleviated the problem.”

Exactly my thoughts.

Remember everyone:

We owe it to each other to protect each other from the Corporations who have the right by law to treat us however they will for their own profit, and will be gleefully cheered on by the masses for doing so.

Very true, @Seek but remember we are what the wealthy call pee-ons, and pee on us they will for wealth and profit for isn’t that the capitalistic way?
That we all know and love so well.

The ultimate goal of any corporation is to return a profit to investors. That’s the first and last point of the profit motive.

@chyna Thanks for answering my question.

As an aside, the man was bleeding. How does a arm rest cause a cut? Wouldn’t it cause a bruise instead? Should there be a sharp edge on an arm rest?

There’s no way of us knowing what he cut his head on @flo. If he hit his head hard enough on the arm rest, I’m sure it could break the skin.

@Earthbound_Misfit The reports say that it’s what caused it. By the way I saw one video where it looks like it’s a nose bleed.

By the way was a it an overbooking or flyers on standby? The terms are being used interchangeably, or something.

As I said @flo, we weren’t there. We can’t say what caused his injuries. He is obviously injured though.

I answered your second question on the other thread.

Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Push Coalition is protesting United with signs saying, Beat your competition, not your customers.

He’s still in the hospital.

@flo it was considered an overbooking to accommodate a United crew of four who needed to be in Louisville the next morning. It was last minute, after all the paid passengers had checked in and had assigned seats.

China is boycotting them.
Their stock dropped seven hundred million in one day.
I believe they got their due.

In response to this negative publicity, there’s going to be a United Groundlines service.

Instead of having to deal with the hassles of airline travel, they’ll drag you to the destination of your choice. ;-)

Regarding if it was an overbooking, @zenvelo is right that crew had to be added to the flight, and what hasn’t been said much in the news reports, I don’t think it’s been discussed, is regulations (I think they are federal regulations) require the crew take priority over a paying passenger. Is that right? Does anyone know for sure?

@Strauss “The ultimate goal of any corporation is to return a profit to investors. That’s the first and last point of the profit motive”

I’m so sure about that. I think the ultimate goal it to maximize the CEO’s income. Next in line are the other C levels, Then some of the profit is returned to investors. How else can we explain the $300M+ severance package to the CEO of Home Depot, Nardelli (sic) after only a few years of tenure. and when they was not making money? There are many other examples.
Boards need to recognize that, and structure the CEO pay incentive accordingly. Base it on performance 3 to 5 years hence. Not in the years they have control of the funds.
J T Battenburg (sic) ripped off Delphi while running the place by getting bonuses for having XYZ cash on hand at the end of the year. Unfortunately that cash was raised by selling raw materials needed for production. After the evaluation date the staff were instructed to buy the raw materials back. He walked away with a few extra million, the brokers who sold and bought the materials got a few million. The shareholders were screwed out of the money.
Bankruptcy eventually followed. The CEOs walked away with fortunes while the shareholders got virtually nothing.

Followup; The SEC investigated and brought up fraud charges on that metals sale. Delphi paid for all his legal fees and a stipend! He never had to pay back a cent. And he moved on to Sara Lee and other places.

This incident is certainly not the first with United, although it’s probably the worst. Even after all these years, they are still learning the lesson, and they have a long way to go. This video is relevant! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hd8XI42i2M

@JLeslie There is no Federal Regulation requiring the seating of deadheading airline personnel.

I say it is partially our fault. Why? Because we get what we pay for – and a little less.

I’ve flown a lot over my career of 4+ decades. (Much more than million miles)
I remember when flying was a classy, expensive proposition and people dressed up to take a flight. Domestic tickets were the equivalent of a month of salary. (a professional salary, not a minimum wage.)
Service was fantastic and flight attendants wore clothes that fit.
Security was lax and you could take pretty much take anything on the plane if you had a reason. “It’s for my work.” (Once I was sitting next to guy who owned a company that made kinetic energy anti-tank projectiles. I was not familiar with it so he said “Here, take a look.” and pulled out this thing!)

Over the years we, the public, kept demanding cheaper and cheaper flights. We compared prices to the penny and selected airlines that accommodated our demands for cheap. Some airlines went bankrupt, some merged, and we still demanded cheaper flights.
On top of that push, 9/11 made security more and more expensive.
The airlines have gotten to the point where their margins are dangerously small. They over-book because a certain number of customers back out at the last minute and some are not charged for the cancellation. We demand it.
What would happen if the airline said “You make a reservation you pay for it and we reserve a seat no matter what..” We’d be furious if we got the bill for a flight we missed because Aunt Alice died, or my puppy got sick, or my other flight was delayed.
So, they over-book and keep the prices low.
Everyone boasts about how cheap they got their latest tickets. “I got a flight from NY to Orlando for $89!” “Oh yeah? I got my NY to Miami for $79!”
If the airlines suddenly said “We will treat you like people, give you the flexibility to cancel or change at the last minute, serve great meals, and give you more space. But we will charge you $2,100 for that ticket ”, would you do it? Very few people would. Sure there are a few in First class who are there because their company is paying, or they have free points, or got a free platinum upgrade because they have over a million miles. But the vast majority of customers are always fighting to get the cheapest price.
We, the customers, turned the flying experience into a Walmart shopping trip. “Give me the item at the lowest price. You can keep the frills.” It is our loss.

Oh almost forgot. On top of all this we demand the planes leave and arrive on time. We can track it like a hawk. And if they are late we demand compensation. Back in the old days i was once 23 hours late because my plane was running low on fuel and had to land in Anchorage and then needed service. They gave us nothing. If that happened today they’d have to give everyone hotel vouchers, cash, some fresh salmon and clean clothes.
No wonder the airlines try to squeeze everywhere they can.
And no wonder they make mistakes.

@LuckyGuy That may be true but….beating the snot out of a passenger who doesn’t want to give up their seat is still completely unacceptable.

True. Absolutely unacceptable. The airline should have raised the offer until someone else on the plane would have taken it.

I forgot another thing in my post above. The level of employee courtesy and professionalism (and likely education) from counter agent, to baggage handler, to flight attendant, to the pilots, was way above what we see today. Even the maintenance staff in the airport looked professional and did their job well.
Have you been to a US domestic airport recently? Yikes. It is embarrassing. You see people fiddling with their phones while customers wait, maintenance crew hanging around, (sure they might be on break but they have been sitting there talking for a long time) the bathrooms are not in the best of shape, there is gum floating in the water fountain bowl.
The woman sitting at the kiosk selling sunglasses and overpriced ear buds is staring down and swiping her phone with fingernails that curl like osprey talons. Gate agents a babbling and laughing with each other like at a bar.
Back in the old days if people went on break they went to a break area and then went back out when break was over. People showed some enthusiasm and pride in their work.

Employers pay the lowest possible wage so they should not be surprised they get what they pay for.

How stubborn does a person have to be to not get up when the police (or whatever agency) demands it? Would a normal person need to be dragged off? Not me? I’d argue but I would get up and go.when the heavy got there.

@LuckyGuy I’m with you. If someone wants to remove me, I will go with them, walking up right and with dignity. Even if they are in the wrong. It can be sorted out later.

@chyna Yep. I sure as heck would not allow myself to be dragged off. That reflects on me as much as the jerk doing it. I, too, would stand tall.

I don’t think the guy who got dragged off the plane had planned to “allow himself” to be dragged off the plane.

The poor guy needs reconstructive surgery now.

But why wait until it got that bad? Just get up and go with the guys. You can’t, and will not, win against them.
That is my point.

I doubt Martin Niemoller would agree, @LuckyGuy. I know that this is not as extreme, but the rolling over blindly to authority causes more problems than it solves.

^ Agreed. Cowering down to bully authority figures strong arming their power around is never a good idea. He who throws the first punch is the guilty party.

@canidmajor He doesn’t have to just roll over. He can stand up ask people to take videos and walk off the plane and immediately call his lawyer.

It seems to me he intentionally held up the flight and sat there waiting for them to punch him in the face. I’ll bet he is buried with offers from 1–800-SueMNow.

If just one other person on that plane had agreed to stay behind or if the airline raised the off this would have been a happier ending. As it is even if he wins most people will think of him as the stubborn guy who needed to be manhandled before he got off the plane.

As a funny little quirk of fate…. I will be on United out of Chicago later this month. I wonder if they will be offering extra snacks.

If your luggage is too heavy, get security to drag it around for you.

Whether or not he “intentionally” waited, assault was wholly unjustified. And really, as I said before, I wonder if they would have acted the same way if he had been a white man in a suit.

Someone mentioned a guy in an United flight first class passenger being threatened with handcuffs if he wouldn’t get off because they were bumping him off the plane for a higher priority customer. This happened the week before this incident. Here’s that link. http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-united-low-priority-passenger-20170412-story.html

How is two front teeth gone, blood coming out of his mouth, caused by just dragging him from his seat?

@flo, have you ever been on an airplane? The space is very restricted, sometimes getting out of your seat under your own steam is tricky. The outside armrests have rigid features which can cause injury if one is slammed against them. The supports (underneath) for the seats are near the aisle and are metal with corners. There are a lot of ways to explain his injuries.

They smacked his head on the armrest, @flo

Hear the latest from United A Calgary man returning home from a holiday in Mexico got bit by a Scorpion that some how got in the over head luggage rake?http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/13/scorpion-stings-man-on-united-flight-to-calgary.html

Yikes!

I know right between either being beaten up or bit makes me want to jump on the next United flight.

Many years ago now United sent my dog to Philadelphia instead of Albuquerque. How the hell they messed that one up is beyond me. My poor dog was stuck in Philly airport for an extra 2 days.

And to add insult to injury, they didn’t take his luggage off the plane, so it took him a while to finally get his luggage.

^literally the least they could do, and they didn’t even do it!

I saw Mr. Daos attorney speaking the other day. I liked the guy, I hope they sock it to United in a big way.

United should just pay the guy a suite case of money the longer this drags out the worse they look.

@SQUEEKY2 – now that the guy has a lawyer and they’ve started the process of suing them they could probably offer him $5 million dollars and the lawyer would ask for $50 million. They offer $50 million, he wants double that.

It’s really hard to get anything done quickly with lawyers.

Well this is proving to be costly…

Here’s a summarized update, from Alan Grayson:

Dr. David Dao was dragged off an overbooked United Airlines plane earlier this month, breaking his nose, knocking out two of his teeth, giving him a concussion and rendering him unconscious. All passengers then were deplaned so that a cleaning crew could mop up Dao’s blood. United CEO Oscar Munoz immediately released a statement commending the United crew for “flying right,” and condemning the bloodied passenger for “defying” the police and being “disruptive.”

Munoz received $14 million in United Airlines stock options last year for the hard labor of being United’s CEO, and likely is in line to receive at least that much this year. Let’s call it $28 million.

The day after Munoz’s tone-deaf “mea non culpa,” United’s stock dropped from $71.52 to $70.71, on four times the average volume. A week later, it was down to $67.75.

Then Munoz apologized.

Dr. Dao ended up in the hospital, needing corrective surgery, after he informed the United flight staff that he was a doctor, he had to be in a different hospital the next morning in order to help his own patients, and therefore he couldn’t give up his seat on the flight. Did Munoz apologize because he sincerely regretted that Dao’s nose was broken? Or did Munoz apologize because his stock options had lost $1.5 million in value?

A week ago, the United Airlines Board of Directors announced that Munoz would not be promoted to Chairman of the Board, as had been planned, but that he would remain CEO. Was Munoz denied his promotion because the Board realized that Munoz really isn’t up to the job of Chairman? Or because the directors are paid in stock options, too?

The supervisor of Chicago Airport Security, who oversaw the staff that dragged Dao off the plane, was fired on Thursday. Not because he was responsible for brutalizing Dao. But because it came to light that he had been fired previously, as the operations head of the Illinois Tollway, for sexual harassment.

No one else has been disciplined on account of the assault on Dr. Dao.

In a poll a week ago, 79% of the respondents who had heard about the incident said that they would rather not fly on United Airlines. Almost half said that they would be willing to pay an extra $66 and spend an additional three hours flying if they could avoid United.

What can we learn from this? I suppose that the lesson is that if you remove $1.5 million from some callous boss’s pocket, he can grow a conscience. Maybe there is hope for late-stage capitalism, after all.

@Brian1946 Thanks for the update. I wish I could believe he grew a conscience. Although, in some ways I agree that capitalism took care of the situation. That and all forms of media.

I started wondering, did the cops that brutalized the passenger know why he was to be removed? Airlines have all sorts of power to ask passengers to leave. If they are unruly, drunk, talk about exploding bombs, any sort of anything that makes a flight attendant decide the passenger is a risk to the flight. This passenger was no risk, but I wonder if those cops barreled in already in the frame of mind that he was the same as an inebriated, belligerent, passenger?

Not that it matters. The entire episode is just wrong from A to Z.

@Brian1946 Maybe they should send in a SWAT team to remove Munoz from office?