How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights
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I do find it shocking that the airport police got involved with what really seems to be a civil, rather than criminal matter, but then again, such are the times.
Airlines should not be allowed to use violence to enforce arbitrary, or even random rules.
But police getting involved in non-criminal matters? Not strange in the slightest. It wouldn't be strange at all for someone to call the police about a trespasser or removing a customer that refused to leave (from a bar, restaurant, retail store, and so on).
It's even less shocking since as part of buying a ticket you agree to a contract of carriage (which is a shitty adhesive contract, but that is a separate issue) in which you agree that United has the right to remove you from a flight.
And again, just reiterate, I found the content of the video abhorrent, but making a 1 off rule against airlines seems totally arbitrary. If all other types of businesses are allowed to call the police, why not airlines?
Do police coerce people with violence? Sometimes, yes. But what does that have to do with United. That's an issue with political authority.
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...
None of them address this situation. They broke the contract of carriage (as well as, it appears, his nose; three bully boy police officers beat up a 69 year old man, who has committed no crime, at the request of an airline).
Also, I suspect it could be argued that it was not a private space. Privately owned, yes, but not a private space. This wasn't trespass.
There's a lot of people there but they obviously have the right to arbitrarily evict you.
That's just plain not true. There are reasons why people can be asked to leave; those reasons are curtailed. There are unacceptable reasons to kick someone out. You may not arbitrarily evict people. If you evict someone for the wrong reason, you may have committed a crime. Obviously I'm talking about US law; in other places, other rules apply.
While I'm here, just because it's one of my favourite legal misunderstandings, putting something in a contract doesn't necessarily make it legally binding. But that one's just for fun.
Additionally, what happened was also a violation of the conditions of carriage that the airline had set up. They were breaking their own rules.
What makes you say it's not illegal? Perhaps I'm reading the rules incorrectly.
EDIT: that article makes sense. I'm obviously not sure on the legalities so I will defer to your understanding of it. I guess this case goes close to home for me because if I had to make the decision between canceling a few whole flights and kicking 4 people off a plane I probably would've done the same thing and I don't think that's unreasonable. I'm all for sticking it to the man but people seem more outraged at the company making a pretty understandible decision when it seems to me the security officer who really made the bad decision and bloodied the guy.
It's disturbing to see here and elsewhere (not so much you, but certainly others) the degree to which people doff their caps to big business.
But back to reality, I can't speak for other countries, but in America the right to exclude people from your property is quite strong. But much more importantly, while there are many factors, the police are generally not in a position to evaluate them, and as a result they do not.
For example, if I go to a restaurant, pay for my meal, but before receiving it get kicked out by the owner (without refund) due to my race/religion/whatever, I am clearly in the right and I can definitely sue. But that's in the future. If I call the cops, they can't do anything. They can't conduct a mini, instant trial to determine if I was discriminated against and determine appropriate damages. On the other hand, if the restaurant owner calls the cops, and tells them that a customer is refusing to leave, the cops will almost certainly come and take me out of the restaurant. I can sue later, but that's it.
Edit: just adding that a United passenger has even less rights than the aforementioned restaurant patron, because as part of buying a ticket they agreed to a shitty adhesive contract, the United Contract of Carriage (https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...).
United Airlines has largely been the laggard in the industry in the past 5 years even though their stock price has risen 200%, that is 50% less than their peers like Delta and Alaska Air group who have risen closer to 400% in the same time period. If flying the friendly skies took them into bankruptcy, what could they have done that would've kept them afloat while maintaining a "regulated" carrier status?
The article discusses how the Justice department approved a series of mergers between the major carriers that significantly reduced consumer choice.
It's funny that this "vote with your wallet", "capitalism at work" rhetoric never finds fault with these near-monopolies. You can't have it both ways: either the justice department needs to do its job splitting up big business to preserve competition and consumer choice, or we need to regulate the market so that consumers are treated fairly despite their lack of choice.
It stopped forcing airlines to provide service to regional airports, and paved the way for the consolidation of the industry into the monopolists as Eastern, Midway, Braniff, Pan Am, Continental, Northwest Airlines, and TWA were liquidated.
4 "major" carriers - American, Delta, United, Southwest
1 "mid major" / borderline major in Alaska Airlines
1 "not a major, but not exactly a regional carrier" in Jet Blue
and a bunch of regional outfits like Frontier, Porter, Spirit, etc.
That's not to say that more competition wouldn't be nice, but it's hardly the case that there is no competition. Heck, as far as that goes, Peter Thiel uses airlines - and their razor thin profit margins - as the prototypical example of why "competition is for losers"[1] in his talks.
Businesses either need competition or regulation. If they have neither, you end up in the situation we have now. Airlines are killing all but a few chosen cities in our country by cutting flights and jacking up the prices.
On top of that, they're completely indifferent to customer service. It'd be bad for their business to care about the customers when they already have regional monopolies.
I'm trying to talk with exactly the same degree of absoluteness that droopyEyelids is. Frankly, I'm not sure why you read my statement in any way different from that.
I'm not sure this comparison flies. You can say a lot of bad things about Ryanair, but in some respects they treat customers better than many airlines. Yes, they charge for everything, but as a Ryanair customer you expect that. Yes, the Dark Patterns on their website are inexcusable.
At the same time, Ryanair doesn't overbook flights (they claim the hassle costs more than an empty seat). Ryanair has a pretty good on-time track records (partly due to underpromising, but still). Back on topic, Ryanair doesn't violently remove passengers from planes.
Here in Europe we usually have 2 options:
- Fly Ryanair/EasyJet/etc, pay to sneeze, but get from A to B
- Fly BA/KLM/Lufthansa etc, free soda hooray, *maybe* get from A to B
But if I need to be somewhere at a certain time, I'll endure the crammed seats and pick Ryanair without a thought.
like Ryanair which charges for every possible amenity and slight convenience.
I think the "new norm" of low-cast airfare we like is the price discrimination - not the violence.
"The man who was dragged off a United Airlines flight suffered a broken nose and concussion and lost two front teeth"
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-live-stream-david-dao-...
And the United CEO seems to have finally clued into the right message:
"We are not going to put a law enforcement official to take them off," Munoz told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Wednesday. "To remove a booked, paid, seated passenger -- we can't do that."
" ... According to Bloomberg, four of United's top five shareholders are also top-five holders of American. Three of them are also top-five holders of Delta Air Lines Inc. United's top 10 holders own about 49.8 percent of United Stock between them -- and about 51.6 percent of American and 37.6 percent of Delta. American was up 3.8 percent yesterday. ... "
As you can see, boycotting does not necessarily improve things. Just shifts them around a bit.
Needs more analysis, but it sounds like the airlines are somewhat limited in invoking "interference with crew members" as a threat, since the door isn't yet closed. At a minimum, they're aware now of the potential PR backlash.
That's assuming this ends in this passengers favor. If that happens, and the average traveler knows that saying "No, thank you" is an option for deplaning...well.
Edit: Betting Congress will also soon raise the current $1350 limit per ticket on denied boarding. They love to find ways to seem like heroes.
I think that's not true either; the ability to readily compare fares has led to opacity in pricing by moving a growing and shifting (and inconsistent among carriers) set of services out of the base ticket price into separately charged services.
Interpreting market behavior as revealed preference assumes all the classical ideal market situations, including perfect information, which is particularly silly when the supposed revealed preference is for a status quo with deliberate selective opacity of key information.
People claim to be annoyed by baggage fees, not being able to select their seat ahead of time, no or limited food, paid in-flight entertainment, overselling, etc., but they refuse to vote with their wallets and pay more for better service.
We've made this bed, and now we're apparently pissed that we have to lie in it.
In my last flight, I would have paid to select my seats if it was reasonable but there wasn't any to actually do that which didn't cost a disproportionately huge amount and wasn't bundled with other perks.
When flights have a 50% swing in pricing for seats without any add-ons -- who knows what's going on.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2017/04/11/another-passenger-...
They alienate those who are not considering the ticket price too.
We're pissed because they set the bar so low we have to trip on it. Those of us who don't fly often have no idea how bad it's gotten compared to how things used to be.
"Nor does United seem better for its employees, who used to own the airline, but are now stuck enforcing cruel and arbitrary rules, and assessing the punitive fees. They are cast as wardens, trying to keep unruly passengers in line."
As a 6'1" passenger, I can tell you that your claim that you "couldn't sit" while the passenger in front of you was fully reclined is a gross exaggeration. Sure, I empathize with you that it was uncomfortable, and rest assured, you were paying an extremely bargained price for your airfare.
Basic economics also comes into play here: There are Economy Plus seats if you want a more luxurious amount of legroom.
I book seats that are Economy Comfort (I fly Delta) or exit-row seating, but when flying with my wife and children I sometimes need to choose comfort or sitting near them. (For the record, I choose to sit near them when I am forced to choose.)
I'm a little unhappy about being charged an extra $100 to fly Economy Comfort just because I happen to be in the 90th percentile for height, but I understand the engineering and social issues of providing seating in a fixed space for 200+ passengers.
Regardless, I am a competitive distance runner (and have the right body type for the sport). My femurs are likely even larger than yours, and yes, my knees stick a little bit outside of my space into the adjacent seat, but I am still perfectly capable of sitting in my seat. I've had overweight seatmates that encroach more on others' personal space than my knees do.
There would be a required training course for boarding and unboarding which all potential passengers would be required to pass. We'd also teach people how to put their carry-on in the bin in the correct orientation (with the widest side inserted depth-wise and the second widest dimension vertically such that 4 bags can fit into a normal bin instead of 3 or 2 + that one person's purse which should be under the seat). It'd be like a marching band, with timed choreography. We'd board using the front and rear doors. I bet I could reduce average boarding time to 20% of what it is today.
There would be no in-flight screens for entertainment, no drink or snack service, etc. There would be a double-walled [possibly plexiglass if no lighter alternatives exist] section for people traveling with children under about 12, with a bit of space reserved for anyone acting like they're under 12. This would contain the noise and smells. If this could not be made to work, simply restrict booking to passengers older than 12, then everyone else can appreciate baby-free flights.
The benefits of all of this would be reflected in ticket pricing and clearly-stated business practices + expectations. It would have limited appeal, but excellent customer service and I would expect a cult following of loyal frequent travelers who appreciate efficient travel.
I would guess you would need a fairly big legal defense fund for this endeavor.
Average seat pitch is 31 inches these days, but the room you would have from buttocks to your knee would be smaller than that. 22 inches isn't uncommon: http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/PJ-BY155A_MIDSE_16...
"Buttock to Knee length" seems to range from about 21 to 25 inches: http://ergotmc.gtri.gatech.edu/dgt/images/hbfg0713.gif
It's not hard to imagine someone with 24 inch+ b-to-k having trouble fitting them into a 22 inch space.
My son is 6'3", and has real issues with this.
I always pay extra for the Economy Plus seats if the price difference is $100 or less. I find it pretty uncomfortable even when the person in front of me doesn't choose to recline, and I'm only 5'7" in height. I would hate to be 6' or taller in regular economy.
I'm just waiting for the natural evolution of this system, where everyone takes their seat, and knock-out gas is piped in.
Unless they charge you for the gas, the the airline wouldn't be able to make money off booze, food, headphones, etc.
But most people traveling for personal reasons (and many traveling on business) choose or are required to choose the rock bottom price which results in not only stripped down amenities but also a general focus on cutting operational costs to the bone.
Furthermore, the big legacy carriers are still generally more attractive to regular business travelers because of their loyalty programs which insulate them from at least some of the worst aspects brought on by competition on price. (In that they get a somewhat better class of service without paying for it directly.)
Tangentially, in some ways, its a fact of reality in the US that the price you see will almost never be the price you pay, which is generally higher. Americans seem to accept this as a norm and it still baffles me even after 17 years.
The consolidation of the airline industry and resulting lack of choices in the US has made voting with your wallets quite ineffective. Airline's have been practicing something called "capacity discipline" that ensures that reduces the number of flights and ensures that planes are always nearly full. Where are you seeing these "ever lower" fares? US airlines are flying fewer flights and certainly fewer direct flights these days in a practice called "capacity discipline" which is designed to make sure the planes are as full as possible. The fares on a fuller flight tend to be more expensive than fares on empty flight.
Also the reason why Ryan Air is so successful is not because they charge for every possible amenity but rather they have the cheapest labor costs in the industry Labor - 6€ per passenger [1]
see the section"Operating Model: Execution":
[1] https://rctom.hbs.org/submission/ryanair-the-lowest-cost-air...
The corps found it easier to lower fares than to achieve decent treatment. They failed to understand our votes.
United is about to learn (when they shut their doors, I hope) that decent treatment was very important all along, and they screwed up badly by neglecting it. They got away with it for a while, but not anymore.
This is infuriating to read. Having empty seats is not an "opportunity cost", you sold the damn seats, you made your money, that should be the end of it. It does not cost the airline a single thing to fly with empty seats, other than a blow to unchecked greed. If people don't make the plane they shouldn't get a refund, and I'd imagine that the vast majority do not, so literally the only thing being "lost" is the extra money they had no business making in the first place.
This is a sick symptom of our gone-mad capitalism. I love capitalism, it's done great things for us but the relentless pursuit of growth, profit, year after year straight in the face of reality, morals and common fucking sense is getting comically ridiculous.
That said, I do see the appeal of allowing flexibility in tickets, allowing someone who's missed their flight to catch the next, with no/minimal additional cost. And I recognise that might need practices such as overbooking to accommodate.
Overbooking's been happening for years, on almost all of the airlines. Individuals do inevitably get caught up in, get annoyed/compensated for getting booted from their flight, but for the most part it works.
It breaks down in this extreme situation, where someone literally got beat up in order to ease logistics for an airline.
It's more accurate to say a man got beat up because United sold his seat twice and couldn't figure out what to do about it when they got caught.
As a consumer though, it would makes things more complicated and/or more expensive. I would argue that in most cases, the airlines are in a better position to handle the complexity and costs than the individual consumers, who may be delayed, break down on the way to the airport, whatever.
This particular scenario is bizarre and unwarranted for two main reasons:
1. The event happened after the individual had boarded the aircraft. If the dispute had happened at the gate, the individual would have had to use violence to board the aircraft. As it happened after he had boarded, it was the aviation authorities (at the request of United) who resorted to violence, to remove the individual. It's also worth considering that violence at the gate is more easily contained (minimising harm to anyone, including the perpetrator) than violence on a confined aircraft. It's also worth noting that in all of the video footage available, the individual shows no signs of violent behaviour.
2. The flight wasn't even overbooked. It appears to be a last-minute decision for United to ship crew to a new location, whilst also deciding to give the crew precedence over paying passengers, who had already boarded. There's been some suggestion that there is no legal precedence allowing them to do this.
I think the practice of "over-booking" is unduly taking the fall in this example, because the flight wasn't over-booked, and even an over-booked flight shouldn't create the circumstances for this type of harm.
I'm sure if United had offered $2000 for someone to take a different flight, they'd have found takers. The mistake here is poor management of the situation from united and Chicago PD, not overbooking.
If someone can prove this actually happened and United (or any airline really) didn't just pocket that money as profit, I will eat my hat and post the video for all to see.
[1] This is from memory. Actual years may vary.
At the core doesn't seem to be evilness of capitalist corporations, but rather
a) the economic usefulness of overbooking
b) an uncooperative (ex-)customer (his refusal to leave being unlawful)
c) an unqualified and brutal airport police
d) the disastrous United management resulting in employees unfit to deal with situations like these (diplomacy, authority to up the bump-fee) and a company that didn't understood what kind of PR fallout this situation would bring.
See https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/united-airlines-video-pas... for why United had every right to remove the customer.
I realize that "overbook" can mean different things but United flight #3411 wasn't oversold to statistically offset no-shows. Instead, the plane had a capacity of 70 seats[1] and United sold all 70 seats to paying customers with zero cancellations. That's a perfect economic situation for United.
What went wrong was 4 extra United employees needed a last-minute ride on that plane to Kentucky. Since this is an HN audience, I guess we could frame it as a massive failure in the "information flow" through their computer reservations system.
The very second that United knew they had 4 employees they had to acccomodate, their computer system should have immediately confirmed those 4 employees on flight #3411 first such that the plane only shows 66 available seats instead of 70. (Computers doing math for the win!) That way, either 4 of the customers get denied a boarding pass at the check-in kiosk, or they get denied at the gate that scans the barcode before they enter the jetway. Instead, United let all 70 passengers board and settle in their seats.
If United insists that their employees take precedence over paying passengers, their damn computer systems need to reflect that reality in the seating database!
All of those opportunities to have the computer system "help" were missed that would have prevented the situation from escalating to a bloody face plastered all over the news.
[1] https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Air...
Especially in this specific situation! It's a five-hour drive to Louisville from Chicago. United should have chartered a van for the employees and driven them there.
Can you imagine going to home depot and someone pulling drills out of your hands and giving them to employees?
What you're describing is a race condition, to use the term from real-time software. By updating faster, you reduce the timing window, but the problem can still happen - the passengers are all in the jetway, but the 4 crewmembers are in the employee lounge and just a 3 minute walk from the gate. They can still make the flight before all the passengers are out of the jetway...
In that case, I'm saying there would only be up to 66 (not 70) paying customers in the jetway. This still leaves 4 available seats for the deadheading United employees.
In other words, don't render those 4 extra United employees "invisible" to the reservation system only to later make them "visible" when they finally show up at the gate after all 70 passengers are already in their seats. United knew they needed those 4 employees in Kentucky hours before customers boarded #3411 in Chicago. The issue is that they had zero empty seats on that flight so they had to bribe/force 4 "volunteers" to give up their seats.
If United's computer system doesn't have enough sophistication to set aside plane seats for employees that have higher priority than paying customers, they deserved to have the situation escalate into a Mexican standoff between the gate agent, the seated customer, and the Chicago police.
If you're talking about a rare emergency circumstance where United's operations center doesn't know they need those 4 seats for employees until after all customers are boarded, yes that can still happen. However, that wasn't the case for flight #3411. The 4 employees were "running late" to appear at #3411's gate. This means they were not a "hot standby" crew at the airport's lounge. Instead, it meant that these employees were are either on an incoming flight or were stuck in traffic driving to the airport from home/hotel. Either way, United had plenty of time to reserve 4 seats on #3411 for their higher-priority employees but for whatever reason, they didn't do it.
All 70 passengers are in the jetway or on the plane. Say, 40 are on the plane, but 30 are still in the jetway. At that moment, United discovers that it needs 4 crewmembers on that plane. They have 4 crewmembers sitting around in a crew lounge in that terminal of the airport. They can walk to the gate in 3 minutes. 3 minutes from now, some of the passengers will still be in the jetway, waiting to board the plane. Now what?
It's not enough to just improve the computer system. The timing window still exists, even if it's smaller. What you need to fix this is some kind of business rule, like "You can't deny boarding to a passenger who's already in the jetway, no matter how badly you need their place for a crewmember".
United's own Contract of Carriage uses the term boarding and discusses overbooked flights: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...
However, by all accounts (including the statement from Oscar Munoz) is that the Airline Employees needed to board after the customers had already boarded.
The simple matter is that United really doesn't have a policy in place for such an event, but they tried to treat is as an overbooking anyways, which is questionable.
If this had happened before the passenger got on there wouldn't have been much of a story - but United got themselves into a pickle by not having a procedure in place for moving their employees around when the plane was already loaded up and ready to go.
Strictly speaking, refusing to leave was a violation of the airline's rules, but they also didn't really have the right to eject him per their own Contract. You don't surrender all rights when you board a plane, and quite frankly it doesn't seem like United has a lot of ground to stand on when it comes to this particular incident. They didn't have a policy in place and tried to make another one fit, but it was an awkward fit at best.
"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."
That's hard to reel back in later.
a) the circumstances did not warrant his removal pre-boarding per the contract and
b) there are no clauses pertaining to post-boarding removal
IANAL so here's my source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sdtG0WyktMM
[0]: http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2017/04/united-airlines-own-contrac...
> One might argue that Dao had not completed “boarding” until the cabin door was closed. This argument would be wrong. The term “boarding” is not defined in the definition section of the contract, and absent an explicit definition in the contract, terms are to be afforded their plain meaning. “Boarding” means that the passenger presents a boarding pass to the gate agent who accepts or scans the pass and permits entry through the gate to the airplane, allowing the passenger to enter the aircraft and take a seat.
> It is possible in this regard to distinguish between the collective completion of the plane’s boarding process, which is not complete until all passengers have boarded and the cabin door is closed. But that is different from each passenger’s boarding, which is complete for each individual once he or she has been accepted for transportation by the gate agent and proceeded to the aircraft and taken his or her assigned seat.
It is exactly what booking a seat is: buying an entitlement to seat in that plane for that specific flight. Otherwise what's the point? I understand that overbooking can be useful for companies, but in that case they should just buy back the service they oversold. That's how markets work.
Property rights are not everything. What is protected in a market economy is the free transaction between two economic actors. United's property rights of the plane, of course (even though it's likely to be leased, anyway), but also the rights created by the contract between the carrier and the passenger. If you don't protect these rights, you have nothing like a functioning market economy. Capitalism relies on social structures able to protect rights.
I don't see anything compelling there. The only somewhat legal word is "property rights".
It doesn't mention the "common carrier laws" that may be involved here, and likely override any "property rights." I suspect we'll see more enlightened debate soon as aviation attorneys start talking about it.