JBord

They are trained at the police academy but do not work for the CPD. I believe the State of IL recognizes them as police offers, but they work for the city, in the Aviation Dept.

Interestingly, Chicago aldermen have had the same argument over whether they should have "Police" or "Security" on their jackets. There are also CPD officers at ORD.

In the end, I'm not sure how much it matters what the definition of "police" really is. It's what their job entails and what authority they have. My understanding is they are only authorized to enter a plane if there is imminent danger.

gold23

When there are no political ramifications to the governmental agency stepping in. Sad, but true, state of affairs in this country for a long time.

NH_Clark

Of course it's click-bait.

OP goes on the try and widen the net on their UA bias:

Ancient Observer

Br2k has it right in an early post. Exactly.

John Aldeborgh

It's culture not training. A number of years ago I was watching a program about murders in two cities - Chicago and Kyoto, Japan. The news article was written in about September and Chicago was seeing it's 150th murder of that year, while Kyoto was seeing it's 1st murder of the year. The cities are of about equal size and are so-called sister cities. The media in Chicago treated the story as a small back page article, just a routine murder, while the Kyoto media saw the murder as horrific and an inditement on how Japanese culture was failing, people were shocked and embarrassed. The point being you can not compare UA to ANA or JAL, these are two different cultural worlds. The notion of "Service" in Asia is alive and well, American's see "Service" as demeaning and somehow a lower class occupation, which it is not. Plus, America is a violent society which has disdain for the status quo versus almost any first world Asian society where conformity and respect are the foundations of the culture.

Ber2dca

There's certainly been instances of your own favored airline - American Airlines - calling cops on passengers over any sort of disagreement where the passenger didn't comply with whatever the GA says. Same with Delta etc. It's part of U.S. airline culture (and to some extent all of aviation) and has nothing to do with a culture specific to United.

And that's because the 'secure' area of an airport along with the aircraft themselves is basically a semi-militarized zone. There's been a social consensus that it's basically kind of a good idea to be the quiet, don't make a fuss type person in that environment and yes it's because people are concerned about terrorism and 'nutters' on board of planes.

Airline staff noticed that this gives them a powerful tool to make their lives easier, especially when things don't go right and people are in their hair over it and there's definitely some abuse of that setup. But at the same time, any frequent flier has observed instances of people speaking in a way to airline staff that would get them a beat down if they spoke like that to a stranger in any other context. There's just a lot of mutual antagonism as almost everyone in that environment is *stressed* and everyone's stress and anxiety form a very tense atmosphere. There is something to be said for airline staff having the ability to cut through all that and keep things moving, but it's overused because not all airline staff are very good at what they do either.

Silver Fox

A lot of people bravely sat down and bravely videoed. I am sure they will put in claims for some form of PTSD along the way.

bocastephen

It's both, actually - but training and strict enforcement can override cultural shortcomings. The key issue is unions - without unions, a company is free to dictate standards of performance and enforce those standards. The second issue is positive empowerment - not empowering employees to behave like depraved lunatics, but to act as partners and brand ambassadors to ensure customers have the best possible experience in line with company standards and policies, and create open escalation channels so someone at a higher level is always available to mediate disputes the front line person cannot resolve themselves.

The third issue is branding - in Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, for example, airlines are representatives of their national culture - hence, flag carrier. If NH or JL offered a poor, substandard product with horrible service, it would not just reflect badly on the company, but also on the country. Of course the reputation of US carriers reflects very badly on both company and country, except no one in the USA really seems to care.

The fourth issue is investor worship. While some corporate leaders like Frank Stronach, Herb Kelleher, and even Elon Musk "get it", and keep their shareholders in line and subservient to customers, employees and the brand, too many (i.e., Smisek) are under the thumb of institutional investors who offer absolutely no current value to the business, and essentially just get in the way. Many of us thought Oscar would be different and put United, its employees and customers far ahead of shareholders, but that doesn't really seem to the case. We were paid lipservice on a number of issues which were never addressed, and his handling of this issue shows an incredible level of detachment that surprised a great many of us.

To those who are up in arms about this thread, many of you are newcomers to Flyertalk, and you are free to read other threads and forums - but don't poo-poo the concerns and comments of others. If you all feel social media is offering nothing but click bait, I am sorry to tell you that your concerns are not really relevant at this point because the news is driven by social media and people are making travel and purchase decisions accordingly and thus the effect on UA's global business will suffer long term as the news and conversations are not going away; and guess what - Flyertalk is also social media, and we all make travel purchase decisions based on what we read here. No one is going to shut down social media discussions in order to protect United's business, and no FT threads about bad airlines, hotels or rental car experiences are shut down or edited in order to protect the business interests of any company.

A huge mistake was made this week - it escalated out of control, and was completely mishandled by corporate leadership, thus the fallout will continue. Yes, some of that fallout may involve difficult customers, and some of it may involve difficult employees with both sides getting closer to battle. Airlines in this country cannot continue to treat paying customers this way, with shrinking seats, poor service, bad attitudes and operational instability and not expect it will eventually come to the point where people can't take it anymore.

And to those who insist that compliance was the root of this issue, I call BS. I guarantee that each and every person on the pro-company side of these discussions, if faced with a situation which in their mind meant they needed to take that flight (i.e., heavens forbid a sick or dying relative, critical job issue, etc), they would have flat out refused to deplane no different than Dr. Dao, and you all know it.

H3A3H3

Well stated. I agree entirely with you.

United Airlines made their bed on this one, not another carrier (although it was Republic acting as an agent of United). One might ask, why is my attention focused on United? That's easy, because United Airlines drew my attention to United; United did not draw my attention to another airline.

With regard to your question about DOT's threshold for public safety, I think time will tell, and the proof will be in the pudding. We'll see how much the DOT considers it their function to protect the public's safety and the public's interests, whether or not they have the authority to act in the public's best interests, and what action, if any, DOT takes.

JBord

I don't think anyone (or at least many) are saying passenger compliance is the root cause. But there are different layers to the incident. I've outlined my understanding below. To put it in the context of this thread, the only one that "makes me feel unsafe" is the last one.

1 - UA overbooks a flight
2 - UA decides that deadheading crew is more important than passengers (in my opinion, this is the root cause, although a case could be made for #1 )
3 - UA can't entice with a VDB, so they IDB. Dr. Dao loses for some reason.
4 - Dr. refuses to leave. (passenger-initiated issue)
5 - UA calls in Chicago Aviation Police (another UA problem)
6 - Aviation police act irresponsibly and physically remove the passenger (CAP's issue, not UA)

So UA initially caused this problem, but there were many factors. It never would have made the news without #6 , which was not UA's fault.

I agree with your point that this had done great harm to UA through social media. And I agree that there are cultural and training issues here. But the biggest training issue is with the aviation police.

STS-134

UA screwed up at step #3 actually. It wasn't that they couldn't entice with a VDB, it's that the VDB offers weren't high enough. Everything is for sale at the right price, but UA wasn't willing to pay what it took to get 4 people to give up their seats. Note that there is no legal limit to VDB compensation; airlines are free to offer $2000 or $2500 or more if they want to. Some idiot at UA/YX however decided that it would save the company money to IDB people instead of paying more VDB compensation. Since then, they've created a worldwide social media PR disaster, been mercilessly mocked on Twitter, and have inspired people to boycott UA and cut up their MileagePlus cards. In doing IDB instead of VDB, said idiot cost UA probably more money than it would have lost from paying each and every passenger $2000.

Segments

So in summary you don't feel unsafe flying United, but do feel unsafe transiting ORD?

bocastephen

I don't disagree that these aviation security people or whatever they are, were the fuel on the match that lit all of this up - but the root cause is a corporate culture across United, and probably most service businesses, that puts customers last, and beyond that, finds no problem treating them as disposable trash to replaced with someone waiting to take their place. It's also an example of how people treat each other in this country - someone of authority against someone with legal standing.

Airlines, banks, insurance companies, utilities, retail, media, etc - no matter the business, customers are generally put last. Not every company can be Nordstrom or Southwest, but at least they can make an effort to try.

For this reason, many people and the media are looking past this incident as a flash point for the broader issue of consumer rights and corporate conduct - this is just one pimple on a face already covered in acne.

The question now becomes, where do we go from here? This thread asks a valuable tangent on this point - are we headed to nicer, more pleasant pastures, or will both sides dig in their heels a little deeper and wait for the next conflict to erupt? I don't travel on a tight schedule, so I have no problem with another passenger making a fuss in the process of asserting their right to better treatment.

Wise-Broccoli8301

But I thought the whole issue was not overbooking? Yes someone volunteered before they boarded, but even had they had 3 seats open, if Dao was the 4th seat they wanted for the crew, it could've still happened. #2 is the main root cause.

I also feel that #2 is not an uncommon issue and must fly situations do occur. While #2 was the root cause I'm not sure if you can really eliminate #2. With that said it's really about how #3-#6 are carried out and the escalation path United took that could've been adjusted to not have this result.

After all you have IDBs that happen and why this one blew up was because everything that went wrong could go wrong.

MrTemporal

Two thoughts:

No doubt if this goes to trial it will be a very intersting case to follow.

and

Just because United screwed up how they handled getting people to give up their seats (not offering enough $$'s to get what they wanted), does not mean that a passenger who defies lawful orders is a saint. There seems to be plenty of guilt to go around.

Actually, here is a third thought:

Don't call the police and put them in a position where they are stuck between enforcing the law or letting some scoff-law get away with some illegal action, unless you want them to use force (that's why they carry guns, clubs, etc.). Cops often get criticized for enforcing stupid laws made by others.