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Comment by dotnet00 | Hacker News Reader

You think it's ethical for a company to sell everyone seats, allow them to arrange plans around the seat's availability, let them get all the way to being in the plane and then drag them out of the plane just to seat staff?

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If they offered $1000 and an additional seat on the next flight they wouldn’t need to inconvenience anyone, someone would be bound to take the deal. The ordeal that man went through was ridicilous (I think he was a doctor who justifiably needed to get to his practice asap) and this kind of practice needs to be changed.

It seems the incident did lead to a change. DoT rules now prohibit airlines from forcefully removing people after boarding to make room on overbooked flights.

So after boarding their only recourse is to offer increasing compensation until someone gets off.

Great. This solution makes sense and satisfies all parties. Wonder why this wasn’t offered in the first place.

That wasn't the topic. I don't know or care enough about the reason for asking him to vacate his seat, but that is still a request that must be followed.

Given the multi-million dollar settlement I am guessing things might not be as simple

People can sue for whatever they want, and settlements from large juries are always a risk assessment, not an admission of wrongdoing.

A language that puts some conditions in some contract does not mean it can not be successfully challenged in court.

>...not an admission of wrongdoing.

The admission of wrongdoing came from the CEO:

>...Two days after the incident, Munoz issued an additional statement, apologizing and promising that such an incident would never again occur on a United aircraft. He said, "No one should ever be mistreated this way." In an ABC television interview, Munoz was asked, "Do you think [Dao] was at fault in any way?" Munoz responded, "No. He can't be. He was a paying passenger sitting on our seat in our aircraft."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Express_Flight_3411_inc...

Given that United wasn't the one who dragged him out of his seat and beat him (that was airport security), it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that United should have been liable for this. Most likely United just wanted the lawsuit out of the news, so millions of dollars was cheaper for them than the lost goodwill -- even if they would have ended up winning the suit.

Or they were afraid it would set a precedent that puts this practice into question

Weird, I didn't know the airport security had any saying in bookings, it's almost like a United staff asked them to take care of an "unruly" passenger.

Airport security might have followed orders but those orders couldn't have come by anyone but United.

That's useless reasoning that can be used to justify any action as long as it's an authority acting on someone 'lesser'. Kind of exactly the issue being discussed here. An airline managed shared no-fly list would only reinforce this broken reasoning.

"I don't know or care enough about the reason for arresting him, but that is still a procedure that must be followed."

"I don't know or care enough about the reason for preventing him from flying, but that is still a procedure that must be followed."

and so on. The reason matters because it determines if the procedure/request is ethical. An unethical procedure shouldn't be allowed to keep existing just because it already exists.

It's like asking someone to leave your house - there doesn't have to be a good reason, an ethical reason, or any reason at all. Generally if someone asks you to leave their property, then you get up and leave. If this creates a breach of contract or other civil dispute, that's exactly what civil courts are for, go use them.

You cannot ask a paying tenant to leave your house.

You say that, yet we all know that the change making what happened a violation of DoT rules wouldn't have happened if it weren't for this incident having caused worldwide outrage.

Refusing to leave is exactly what caused the problem to be fixed, taking it to courts would do little more than get the man a half-hearted apology and a bit of compensation.

I would hold that the change to DoT rules was fundamentally reactionary, unwarranted, and not rooted in any sort of reasoned argument. The rules change seems to be based in the idea that we simply can't expect people to contain their emotions when they are asked to leave a plane they have already been seated on. I think we should maintain this expectation, and more generally maintain the expectation that people control their emotions and remain calm and reasonable in day-to-day interactions. This would all have been avoided if the fellow just got up and left, as he was told, and as the airline staff were entitled to tell him.

Also, a half-hearted apology and a bit of compensation is all the fellow is entitled to in this situation.

It's nowhere like asking someone to leave your house. A plane is not a house.

This is someone that paid for a service, is following all the rules set in contract and is not causing any problem to you. You merely picked on this person at random.

This is like expelling a tenant that didn't do anything wrong and paid the rent because you want to let your cousin sleep for the night.

It's more like pulling over at the side of the road and asking a passenger to leave your car. You are indeed quite entitled to do this. I think landlords and tenants are a distinct situation that does not apply to the rest of the business world. There, services can be terminated, or goods not provided, and the the resulting disputes are fundamentally civil.

Also, evicting a tenant so you can occupy the space is pretty much the most legitimate reason there is for eviction.

But still the eviction has to follow due process in virtually every jurisdiction.

And planes are nothing like private cars. An analogy would be Taxis. Taxis accepting the fare but then leaving passengers "at the side of the road" without provocation or reason is also against consumer laws in lots of jurisdictions.

At that time, this was the due process: ask the passenger to leave, and if they refuse, apply force. I'm arguing that this is the appropriate process. And in general I'm arguing for less regulation of how people resolve private disputes over business arraignments.

What utter non-logic

Ethical or not, it's a long-accepted practice. We can argue about whether or not that should be how the world is (I agree it shouldn't be!), but that is how the world is. If you buy plane tickets without understanding that you may end up not being allowed on that plane when it takes off, through no fault of your own, that's on you.

Bumping prior to boarding is indeed a long accepted practice. Removing someone from a flight after boarding is not. It is counter to the law except in the rare circumstance that the person poses a risk to the flight.

https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer...

Correct. He shouldn’t have been removed. However, the airlines failure to follow regulatory requirements in this case is not a free pass to trespass or interfere with a flight crew.

These rules were changed after this incident.

Interesting. Do you have a link to the rule change?

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