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No LEO Dragging Policy - Consequences?

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Old Apr 12, 2017, 6:30 pm
  #31  
 
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Originally Posted by rickg523
Drunk and disorderly is a criminal offense. Arrest can be warranted.
Accusation of molestation must be taken seriously. If accused won't move, move victim. Inform both that they will be held at destination for investigation by police.
Weight and balance is an obvious safety issue. Empty the plane, pilot isn't going anywhere like that. Reboard plane individually, distributing weight as needed.
All three of these idiots are refunded any return ticket costs and are banned for life.
Seat poachers? Meh. It's a seat on a plane. Within the same cabin, Southwest manages to carry passengers without assigned seats all the time.
The guy who bought a coach ticket but squatted in first? That's grand theft. Move or be arrested and charged at destination.
.
Obviously too much logic!

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Nov 25, 2017 at 1:33 am Reason: quote updated to reflect Moderator edit
leungy18 is offline  
Old Apr 12, 2017, 6:34 pm
  #32  
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Originally Posted by sbrower
1. You get to your aisle seat and someone else is sitting there. They advise you that you can have their middle seat in the back of the plane, because they are sitting in your seat with their friends. The FA asks the person to move and they indicate that they are happy with their current seating as a paid, boarded passenger.
Apply some common sense here. The "paid, boarded passenger" still has to be in the seat assigned on his boarding pass.

And unless someone is in imminent danger, NEVER call the police to remove someone while other passengers are still on the plane. Flight attendants should be instructed to deny access to law enforcement personnel unless there is an emergency in progress. If law enforcement thinks they need to force their way onto a plane, they can get a warrant.

(semi-seriously: ) I would change the thread title from "No LEO Dragging Policy" to "No LEO Policy".
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Old Apr 12, 2017, 6:35 pm
  #33  
 
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can just cancel entire flight. "ATC Delay"
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Old Apr 12, 2017, 6:36 pm
  #34  
 
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Originally Posted by mre5765
Federal law says a pax has to obey the crew.

If the issue is one where the plane can safely fly with the problem pax onboard in the wrong seat then arrest the pax causing a problem when the plane arrives and the pax leaves the plane.

If the issue is one where the plane cannot safely fly with the problem pax onboard then the plane doesn't move, the pax are told the flight is canceled, and when the problem pax leaves, arrest him.

One or two pax doing time in supermax will cure this problem pronto.

Easy peasy.
Supermax?

I'm imagining a documentary on ADX Florence going through the list of prisoners right now. "Serial rapist with 4 escape attempts, Pakistani dirty bomb smuggler, drug lord with 200 murders, guy wore a T-shirt on a flight and did not cover it up..."

Overreacting much?

No, crew doesn't have the right order pax around as they please.

You've got a pretty sick mind. Air travel is an issue that requires utmost compliance and supermax prisons? Jeez.
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Old Apr 12, 2017, 7:10 pm
  #35  
 
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Originally Posted by sbrower

My question is, if the rule is "LEO's don't pull out paying, seated passengers," in what circumstances will UA (or any other airline - because I bet the rules are going to change for all of them in the next few weeks) authorize their FAs and GAs to call the LEOs and risk another incident?

1 and 2 are slam dunks. No sympathy for self-upgraders and seat poachers. Toss them into the cargo hold!

3. In my experience, barfing is the quickest way to becoming sober again. Let him empty it all out and then give him a bloody mary.

4. Depends. If the teenager looked liked 19 years old Megan Fox, I would invite her to sit next to me.

5. Have someone wear a t-shirt with a cartoon of Muhammed doing naughty things and have those two sit together.

6 Psh! No one sitting in row 3 on AA would be that irrational.
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Old Apr 12, 2017, 7:10 pm
  #36  
 
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Originally Posted by drewguy
They need to start waving some Benjamins instead of restricted vouchers.
Originally Posted by claaaaaydavis
can just cancel entire flight. "ATC Delay"
In United's case, it would be weather delay...as always.
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Old Apr 12, 2017, 7:26 pm
  #37  
 
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Originally Posted by leungy18
What are you trying to prove with this post?

An IDB'd pax after UA messed up with its deadheading organization and VDB negotiation is very different from many of your scenarios.

Now obviously, when I say that LEO should be involved -- it should be in a reasonable manner without excessive force; force should only be used as a last resort. The fact that the PD put the three officers involved on leave is telling that UA3411 incident was out of the ordinary.

1) and 2) justify LEO involvement. Nothing about UA3411's incident has to do with a seat poacher. You are entitled to your seat and your seat only, particularly in the fare class you paid/were awarded for. Y pax who upgrade themselves to F can go to hell.

3) Happens every day without much press. Nothing controversial about drunk pax. Drag him/her out, usually to the applause of other pax.

4) Move the teenager instead of moving the adult (first move should always be to separate the two) and then call LEO to assess the situation. Although I'd imagine if there was a case of sexual harassment in the scenario you describe -- when LEO arrives it would devolve into a case of he-said she-said. Especially in Y class, accusations of inappropriate touching happens all the time. But I am not a legal expert nor a trained officer. Not sure.

5) Covering T-shirt has nothing to do with seating. Is the pax posing a security threat with his T-shirt? Leave him be.

6) This is a safety/security issue. If row 3 is a higher class than row 10 then UA should defuse the situation first by offering compensation for the op-down but only use LEO when the situation collapses.

In every situation, UA should take every reasonable step to avoid calling LEO. And LEO should take every reasonable step to avoid the application of force.
Exactly, in each case you have to prove there is a flight safety issue present.
1 & 2 are easy, as the seat poacher is preventing the ticketed pax from being able to buckle their assigned seat belt. Easy justification to defend.

3 - Drunk/sick pax has high likelyhood of causing flight to have to divert, which is safety issue.

4-As mentioned, try to move teen first if possible. But because potential sexual assault crime may have been committed, it could warrant getting a LEO involved depending on the situation.

5-Having an unpopular viewpoint does not in and of itself pose a safety threat... no action taken.

6-Flight safety issue due to weight balance. Easy to defend.


And finally, flying Mr. Dao to SMF posed no safety threat... so he becomes most akin to #5 ... you may not want that pax on board, but want/liking a passenger is not a legal reason for violating the carriage contract.
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Old Apr 12, 2017, 8:14 pm
  #38  
 
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Originally Posted by WineCountryUA
Oscar's response and I suspect UA's revised rules with be more nuanced. He was responding to a question about IDB/VDB. A seat poacher should not feel empowered.
Correct. His statement was actually tightly qualified: A person sitting in the seat they paid for should not be removed by force.

Many of these scenarios involve safety-related violations of the provisions of Rule 21 covering safety-related reasons why United can remove a person from a flight. Munoz's comments only addressed the IDB issue, which is covered elsewhere in the CofC.
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Old Apr 12, 2017, 8:17 pm
  #39  
 
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Originally Posted by Tblack15
Honestly, for most of those reasons, my hope is that the leering & general judgement of others will keep this at bay, but who knows with the state of this country. I'm not "pro-regulation" of stuff this small.

Someone just sits in a seat that's not their assigned seat, let alone a E+ or FC seat they didn't pay for, and we can't force them from their seats? If someone does that, do they still film them and have sympathy for the seat poacher/a-hole?

I'm moving to Japan or Germany where people actually have common decency to follow rules if this actually starts happening.
Most of the cases where a truly disruptive person who is violating a safety-related rule, if they are removed, leave the plane to general cheering. That was not the case here, and the reason why it wasn't makes all the difference.
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Old Apr 12, 2017, 8:20 pm
  #40  
 
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Originally Posted by DrPSB
This situation may also result in aviation police having policies which specifically address civil, contract disputes and that they are not authorized to use force to act on the airlines behalf in such disputes.
Absolutely.
Rdenney is offline  
Old Apr 12, 2017, 8:23 pm
  #41  
 
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Make compensation cash , $1000+ and someone will take it
Sorry United fate has finally caught up with you
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Old Apr 12, 2017, 8:44 pm
  #42  
 
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Originally Posted by mdkowals
I think it'll end up being "Seated passenger who has otherwise not broken any rules" with added clarification that once you're on the plane, you've boarded the thing and IDB is no longer an option.


The major difference between IDB and the other annoyances you mention is that your other passengers would support the LEO in the these cases.
Have to agree with mdkowals. I think the OP's questions are valid, though. As in this PC world, something as heinous as the UA Fiasco will lead to really stupid PC decisions by management and less-than-civilized folks will take advantage.

This is a good thought-experiment, and I would hope there are some Airline Management people who lurk here and will take the OP's questions to heart and proactively create some logical and fair responses.

I think if someone was in my seat, I might just sit on them and then profusely apologize because I'm near sighted and thought they were a chair cushion. Then I'd pull out photos of all my grandkids and start telling them my life story whilst sitting on their lap. If I'd known in advance they would be there, I might pull out stinky food, or perhaps eat baked beans prior to boarding... Well, we are going to have to retain a bit of perspective and our sense of humor as flight conditions continue to deteriorate, aren't we, fellow road warriors?
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Old Apr 12, 2017, 9:20 pm
  #43  
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The policy as I understood it was specifically for DB, which is quite different from the situations you list.

The only reason this was was an issue and the Disaster it is was the use of force here. Thousands of people are DBd invointarily every year by the airline's each year, and no one ever hears about it. This one went bad. The scenarios you list all involve completely different situations, some of which involve crimes and others which involve safety of all pax. If an LEO can't get involved when a passenger gives themselves an upgrade and refuses to move, or someone accused of sexual assault, then that's a bigger issue. And one I don't consider Munoz's statement was meant to address. And one I hope doesn't become common.
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Old Apr 12, 2017, 9:34 pm
  #44  
 
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It wasn't just the use of force. It was the use of force coupled with a really crappy response. The initial response should have been, from Oscar, "I have seen the video and I am mortified by what I have seen. We are commencing a full investigation into what happened to make sure no passenger of ours is ever treated this way again."

Then wait for the ruckass to die down a bit. Then craft a response based on all the information you now have and perhaps explain why the passenger was asked to leave, that he didn't leave so you refered him to law enforcement, and after that it was a police encounter.
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Old Apr 12, 2017, 11:34 pm
  #45  
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Originally Posted by mre5765
Federal law says a pax has to obey the crew.
It would help if you read the OP where I specifically pointed out that federal law does NOT say that.
sbrower is offline  


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