Segments

Define a new policy where United does not call law enforcement under the guise of "safety" when in reality they want hired thugs to enforce profitability.

They chose to remove a pax by brute force because they failed to properly manage crew staffing. Ops could have notified GA of inbound crew to stop boarding process alleviating this from becoming an on board situation. Someone could have identified an alternate method to get crew to needed location rather than bumping loaded pax. VDB offer could have gotten creative (offer of a one way rental car plus cash?). Communicate IDB rights.

Instead someone decided it was cheaper to yank this customer rather than cancelling a flight the next day. Okay. But United's failure to plan does not constitute an emergency for anyone else. Make it mutually beneficial. Address the poor trouble shooting skills of the GA and apologize to LEO for asking them to violate pax civil rights in pursuit of corporate profit.

My God, flying United sounds worse than than a state owned airline in a banana republic with a despot dictator in terms of both the initial event and management response.

ACVBear

why? there are plenty of fliers who remember Continental being awful in Irrops because they only worked in hub-captive airports.

The airline needs to work on customer service, badly. has for years. and needs to try over the top because it already has a negative image. but that's not really a useful suggestion here.

xcrunner1988

I agree with you about the animals. Boot them all off the plane.

I'm not sure about a pilot/FA in First Class when you have 1Ks in coach. I think that's bad form.

As for the rules and the laws... The airlines have a special responsibility because their rules have the force of arrest behind them. As such they need to be either held to a higher standard or stop all the B.S. post 911 "if you don't comply with company demands the terrorists win" stuff.

br2k

Not worse, just *is*.

PV_Premier

UA doesn't have to do anything. Fares domestically are sky high, and there aren't enough seats available on competitors to cover the need of the public. People are going to have to fly UA, even though they don't want to...the same phenomenon that kept UA afloat during the horrors of the merger.

xcrunner1988

Wait... flight crews are consuming food given to them by some rando? I don't consider myself a "terrorist behind every bush" kinda guy but isn't a bit scary?

kavok

Rosa Parks disobeyed the law too, and refused to give up her seat. She too was removed by police officials.

Can we get Oscar to defend the Montgomery PD, an immoral law, and slam a disobedient Rosa Parks while we are at it?

br2k

There would have been a statement on "having to reaccommodate certain passengers from the front of the bus".

Mister Nice

They will do what airlines typically do - massive fare sale, bonus miles etc. What I hope happens is that the other US carriers start an aggressive status match campaign to woo UA flyers.

muishkin

The situation could have been avoided if the ground agent had more training and leeway to make tactical decisions like re-booking either the passengers or the deadheading crew members to SDF on the AA flight leaving at 1840.

Or even the non-direct Delta flight at 1830.

United should learn that going with the "cheap and dirty" option, while technically not wrong, isn't always the best choice.

People keep saying that United did nothing wrong. Well I think it's rather wrong that their agents had collectively the emotional intelligence of a tree stump.

riphamilton

i would imagine that one of UA's options in terms of public reaction to this could have been a statement along the lines of "united is horrified and appalled at the violent actions of CPD against one of our guests."

if made early enough, it may have successfully framed the story such that the twitter mob would have directed their pitchforks towards the police instead of UA. this could have been just another case of police brutality.

this would obviously have been a bad decision, as UA would have appeared anti-cop. that's not a role any corporation wants to play in contemporary america, for good reason.

i agree with your point. what i'm trying to describe is that a corporation has to be extremely careful and walk a tightrope if it wants to "lean" on a police department these days. it can get very messy, very quickly. i seriously doubt any hint of criticism of CPD by UA comes out of this.

mkasperzak

Just a couple of questions as a 3 million miler and former airline defense attorney.

First what did Oscar mean when he said "re-accomodate"? Who was he referring to?

Second, I have seen several comments about the necessity of overbooking, but I thought a $250 change fee was suppossed to take care of last minute no-shows. Last I saw airlines were making billions on fees. What is the annual salary of the Executive suite?

Third, do we know if the gate agents were United mainline employees or from the regional carrier? In any case, might be a good time to buy stock. A few thousand dollars in DB comp versus dealing with the equivalent of the Tylenol scare. Hmmm, give that employee and Employee of the Year Award.

spin88

I find the defense of Ua to be just cray, cray. Those of us around long enough know the root cause. Jeff too away compensation flexibility and replaced it with fixed limits, that is all that can be offered. Ux has less flexibility.

Beating up a 69 yo man is so outside the norm it is shocking. The Chicago police suspended the cop. When the cops are more proactive you know how bad your response is. Oscar's statement was beyond tone def, I found it insulting and arrogant. The only response was 'everyone involved has been suspended pending an investigation, we are reaching out to the passenger, and will change policies to see this never happens again.

This is going to kill united in the china market, where this is getting wall to wall coverage, and no it is not going to blow over.

Fix it? I think this is beyond a quick fix. United needs a very public very strong 'passenger bill of rights". Basically remove the protections given by the ada and bumping rules. But I think the book away is going to be a lot stronger than people expect. United behaved criminally to its passanger. They assisted someone. Defenders can say what they like, but 995 of people see it this way, check out the comments sections on major media sites.

LordTentacle

I didn't think twice about booking ~$20k worth of flights with UA today for travel over the next 6 months. Asking around the office... no one else here at the office has an issue either

I seriously doubt this will have any lasting impact on UA

Proudelitist

UA is one of my most hated carriers, second only to WN. I hate UA for completely different reasons though, most of those reasons are based on UA's horrendous customer service. It is quite possibily the worst of any airline world wide, including AF.

Over the years it has always been UA where I run into IRROPS, CS problems, booking "glitches" and problem staff. On more than one occasion I have had to fight against non-rev shennanigans and seat poaches. I witnessed a UA FO screaming at the top of his lungs at a GA because of a gate change beyond her control.

They still run beat up old planes too, sometimes known as "Dirty Birds", particularly on the South America bound routes. It is still possible to fly long haul on an old config (from the 80's) 767 with no IFE with UA. These end up with Mech delays more often than you would imagine as well.