28isGreat

Indeed, that wouldn't make much sense as an iron-clad rule either. e.g., suppose weight & balance issues are determined after everyone is on board. Or after everyone is boarded, a flight attendant becomes unable to continue, zero options to get a replacement, and some number of pax must disembark to maintain 1:40 or 1:50 ratio. In such cases, it's either a few people disembark or the whole flight gets canceled.

OTOH, I can imagine lots of airline execs now contemplating a change in practice to never attempt to IDB a boarded passenger for non-safety reasons!

TheBOSman

The problem there is what if every passenger on the plane refuses to disembark? Should the airline simply continue to up the VDB compensation, even if it becomes thousands and thousands of dollars in airline funny money, until enough people take a VDB? The bean counters (and more importantly, the shareholders) won't like that.

24left

Seems to me the bean counters are part of the problem and the shareholders only care when it affects their returns.

Further, few airlines and perhaps none in North America, have done a decent job managing customer expectations.

Badenoch

Bean counters, executives and shareholders don't like bad publicity either if the cost is greater than the compensation.

s0ssos

I agree. Companies don't do what is in the best interest for their consumers. It is up to the government to regulate that.

Would you prefer it be like how some LCCs are in Asia, and just cancel cause they think the flight isn't worth it, and consumers have no recourse?

BRAISKI

Same here, I'd really like to know????

Bartolo

Each of us is one revenue passenger but if there are many of us spending significant sums annually, it adds up.

pitz

What's wrong with allowing an airline just to codifying the compensation into their CoC.

Don't like the compensation available? Don't buy "that" sort of ticket.

The deepest-discount Tango tickets, for example, could offer no compensation.

Full-Y or Full-J tickets, could offer, for example, the chartering of a private aircraft to transport the passenger if he/she is IDB'ed as 'compensation' if protection on another carrier, even if outside the alliances, is not possible. (AFAIK, AC will not buy an IDB/VDB'ed customer a ticket on WS under current policies, although most J/Y tickets could be refunded and used to buy a cash walk-up fare on WS without additional outlay!)

The root cause of the 'problem' here is too many people who really have no business (economically) setting foot on airplanes, think they're entitled to the world because they paid a fare which barely does much more than cover the cost of the fuel, but may be 'expensive' or "full fare" to them personally.

Spending doesn't matter, profit does. AC has lots of customers who spend big, but don't add anything to the bottom line. Altitude changes over the past few years have attempted to, with reasonable success, remove status and 'recognition' from those sorts of people who may be on AC aircraft often, but aren't profitable. So that profitable customers can be recognized.

TheBOSman

Agreed on the latter. On the former, IDBing this passenger instead of further increasing VDB compensation, had the Chicago Aviation police not treated the passenger like a common criminal, was arguably the short-term smart choice for the financial bottom line of the business. Every airline does it daily. When the cost to the airline of IDBing a customer is, say, $500, offering $1000+ in airline funny money as VDB compensation doesn't make short-term financial sense. Of course, it ignores that VDB/IDBs aren't numbers on a spreadsheet; they are living, breathing human beings being severely inconvenienced. Arguably, the most effective and fastest move to do in response to this is to significantly increase the IDB compensation required under US federal regulations. It's a major inconvenience to people who are IDBed; they should be compensated heavily for that inconvenience.

The cost of this to United will be hard to directly measure (though it looks to be, as the US President would say, YUGE). The cost of compensation is easy to measure. Not saying that it is right, but this sort of event is what happens when you measure people on fiscal numbers and getting the flights out on time, rather than a more nebulous concept of "customer's best interest". It's also on United for not getting these crew members to Louisville sooner. If the majority of regular FTers know "don't book the last flight of the night if you absolutely positively must be there first thing in the morning" how come United doesn't know this?

Agreed. Companies will do what is best for the bottom line. It is in fact considered bad governance not to. However, see my above posts for how "what is best for the bottom line" can have different definitions, despite too often a focus heavily biased towards "measurables" even if flawed ones.

Hardly, and I would never suggest such. If you offer a scheduled flight, you operate that flight unless safety concerns prohibit it. If your scheduling department is routinely offering flights that are so empty as to be uneconomical, you need new scheduling staff.

joyofflying

The doctor will have a much higher balance in his bank account in due course. Agreed about A/C. Returned from Mexico one month ago with the "friendly skies" airline...say again? Stood at ticket counter for over 20 mins as agent tried to assign seats for flight 1 to Denver, en route to Calgary. computer wouldn't work. Had seats for 2nd flight though - somehow. Agent said to ask for economy plus at the gate as they would not charge us, but he would have to...i.e. if his computer would work. Hurried to gate (about 1 hr prior), and waited on agents until the flight was totally boarded...you know, "hurry up and wait"? One question about the progress of seat assignment was responded with "wait!" - that's it, wait! There were at least 5 of us without seats; many on standby. Four of us ended up in an exit row, albeit with at least 1 seat # duplicated. I may be wrong, but don't think any of the seat backs on this plane were adjustable...ours weren't....to add more joy. Did I mention we waited in line at the PV airport in the United line up for...maybe 30 to 40 mins at least before reaching the agent with a malfunctioning computer. No lunch for us (United menu). Safe to say this flight was really over booked. United can't pre-book crew for a flight?? Well we will assume thier computers do work most of the time, or are they that incompetent? Maybe the CEO does need to go.

Denver security line up was 30 mins?...back and forth like cattle or sheep to reach x-ray. I never see these people inspect shoes or belts, or even lap tops. Guess they will soon. No supper (United menu).

A/C may stick with United. We won't! We changed our frequent flyer plan 2 weeks ago to Am/Ex. ...choose any airline. Will fly A/C still, and WestJet, if a direct flight. No offense to our American friends, but we will avoid US airlines and US airports as best we can. US government - and the airlines - have what, prostituted the industry? A sad state of aviation affairs for North America. We know it will be worthwhile to shop long and hard for our next flight.

24left

Posted by UA 2:08PM ET April 11 2017.

Quite the change of tone and words. Hmmmm.
I'll assume AC and its PR people are watching and taking notes

http://newsroom.united.com/news-releases?item=124755

Stranger

I don't see how they could in case of a last minute substitution.

People seem to all fired up because they bumped paying customers for a crew. ut surely a crew needed to take over a flight early in the morning should be higher priority. Simply a matter of having 4 vs. 130 passengers delayed. Or more if it spills over.

Thatguyatthebar

Well, on the plus side, i'm sure service will be EXCELLENT on United flights for the next few weeks...

LondonElite

I can't read all the thread updates on my iPhone, but reports are that the man taken off the plane had his medical license revoked at least once due to anger management issues and was caught prescribing opiates in exchange for gay sex.

Maybe there's another side to this story. I'll try and find the article.

tcook052

There are so many posts that are about the actual UA incident itself rather than the thread topic that a thread clean-up was considered but quite frankly there are simply too many so will leave this thread closed and encourage the crowd so eager to continue discussing this matter to please do so in the appropriate thread in the UA forum which is here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...il-2017-a.html

Regards,

tcook052
AC forum Mod.