aacharya

I fail to see where it differs from many other IDBs noted on this forum.

Passmethesickbag

Absolutely no need. Just ask for volunteers and make a reasonable offer, and the people who are happy to be offloaded will make themselves known.

LaserSailor

True for SFO-OAK, but LaX-HNL more difficult.

halls120

I'll bet someone would have stepped up.

tunu2

If they were following the rules then it was not the right thing to do-

I used to fly UA, not much anymore. I stopped flying them about 10 years ago after about 20 yrs of high mileage travel- The UA I remember would have made the right decision. After reading here I see they are not making too many friends-- I really enjoyed flying with them and was even considering them again until I started reading this blog.

I fly DL, AK, HA, KLM, AF mostly now.

LaserSailor

You volunteer a night in a hotel on us for someone who volunteered to take a bullet.....

Doc Savage

I would bet quite a bit of money there is much more to the story that is not being told. For example, did the passenger check in late? Why wouldn't UA simply offload 3 bags to accommodate the passenger?

Something is missing here.

fastair

I find attempting to guilt passengers into something is in poor taste. As was pointed out by another, everyone has a story. Publishing the personal info about a person is often something that makes the original person feel bad or even angry. The whole "Dec 7" aspect would fall apart when one looks at the calendar and realize that in all likelihood, the gentleman in question will still be there a couple of days before then. I'm sure he has plans for the next few days, but I bet some of the other people also have plans. It's a sad story, but guilting others either on FT, or at the gate, well, that is just a weak play. We all want the rules to not be bent arbitrarily to hurt us, but if we leave that ultimate decision up to someone who makes decisions based on their own internal upbringing and emotions, instead of a list of planable and published, if one flies enough, one might get shafted when they need to not be shafted most, dispute not being next on the "next to be IDBd" list.

Often1

Do you know that UA didn't do just that?

The bottom line here is that there was an IDB and so far as you or anybody else on this thread knows, UA sought volunteers and either didn't find one or didn't find enough AND the veteran was the first in the IDB order according to UA's policy and thus DOT rule, someone was inconvenienced by 3.5 hours.

As noted before, once you start down the "social value" of individual pax and start letting individual GA's impose their belief systems -- even if DOT allowed it, which it doesn't -- you start a mess.

As a matter of policy, I also don't think that air carriers should guilt others. As noted, why make the guy flying home to see his father before he dies feel worse than he does because he didn't give up his seat? What about the guy who just wants to see his kids before they go to sleep? An evil person?

rwoman

Looks like A LOT (well, I think 41 is a lot for a 737) of pax were bumpled off the flight yesterday:

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/2...u-bound-flight

The quote below is from the link above and UA's statement:

Definitely a challenging situation for any GA.

LASUA1K

Exactly, UA does not make reasonable offers anymore. If UA offered next flight to HNL and something more like a 500.00 credit and not the 100.00 that I have seen on this route. People would bite on this, as not all LAX-HNL traffic is going on vacation. Plenty of Hawaii locals who would jump on an offer. They should at least start at 300.00. The 100.00 I've seen lately is just a joke!

LaserSailor

Thanks for both the clarifier and re-title rwoman.

That's a huge GA nightmare and puts a totally different view on the situation.

FT, where an ingrown toenail can turn into brain cancer as quick as you can say T-O-D....

I still think the abandon puppies and teddy bears though.

rwoman

LaserSailor - I'm all for being as accurate as possible with information. After posting the update, I also updated post #1 and requested the mods update the thread title.

FT...always an opportunity for lively discussion.

UA Insider

Hi rwoman and everyone,

Yes, the pax figure is accurate...there was quite a bit of severe weather over the Pacific yesterday, which meant we had to reduce the number of pax onboard by a substantial amount. Our agents at LAX noticed Mr. Shatz in the lobby attempting to check in for the flight and, after approaching him and offering assistance, proactively rebooked him on the best available alternate flight that could get him to HNL on the same day. As our statement mentioned, we’ll follow up with Mr. Shatz and look forward to the opportunity to welcome him on his flight back from HNL.

Aaron Goldberg
Sr. Manager - Customer Experience Planning
United Airlines

rwoman

Aaron,

Thanks for the update - proactive efforts to help pax are always appreciated.