The smile high club?

What’s ur definition of drunk. I can drink a lot but I can handle my booze while acting perfectly fine. Remember that the knife cuts both ways. What give u the right to judge? If that person was being physical and throwing up. That’s a different story.

Seems a little harsh:

Spill one drink = nothing happens
Spill two drinks = get a warning from FA and pilot
Spill three drinks = get deplaned during flight

As others have mentioned; if you strip this all down, all we are left with, is a seatmate spilling a drink...twice.
For that we are now talking complaints to FAA, escorted off the plane, legal action.
A bit over the top, IMO.

Thanks for proving my point.

I completely understand how difficult these situations are for a flight crew to handle, and I suspect that there is reluctance on their part to ask for law enforcement assistance because of the bad publicity that often results. That said, the number of these incidents will continue to increase if the airlines keep "turning the other cheek" because addressing the problem is perceived as being too difficult to handle.

​​​​​​That's your version of what happened. I'll let the OP address the validity of that version, but I've been on flights where conduct far more annoying than this event should have been addressed by the flight crew, but wasn't.

By offering to let her move to another seat, they were attempting to address it. Forcing the drunk guy to move would likely have escalated the situation, so keeping him where he was until the plane lands was the most logical course of action.

At least the seatmate didn't pull a "Finneran" :eek:

That's fair, although your own experiences shouldn't be transferred to what happened [or didn't happen] here.
Even OP wasn't on the flight, so any info we are getting is hearsay from a third party.

I tend to believe if a person recounts an event such as this, they usually make a point of including the most egregious thing that happened.
From what was told here, this amounts to a very annoying passenger, but falls short of requiring complaints to FAA, escorted off the plane, or legal action, IMO.

I'm not saying he should have been forced to move. I'm saying he should have been warned by the crew to calm down, or expect to be escorted off the plane upon arrival.

I'm in agreement with you there, but if the verifiable bad acts were limited to two spilled drinks, I'd probably stop short of playing the police escort card.

Consider the situation for the FA. Your mom complained, so the drunk was likely an unacceptable seatmate. Unless there was an empty row elsewhere, the only way to get your mom away from him without putting someone else next to him was to move your mom.

Where's the line drawn? If the drunk is making physical contact, IT IS United's duty to protect their passengers, even if the flight is full.

Same exact thing happened to my wife on a flight we were on and separated by a few rows. Wife was in 21C. Drunk guys in 21B kept touching my wife's thigh and the thigh of the woman in 21A. Talking into their ears, saying "gross" things. Passenger was causing numerous disruptions during boarding which a blind eye was turned at every corner. Wife notifies me of the touching and his refusal to keep his hands to himself (I'm sitting a few rows back) and wife and woman in 21A notify flight attendant. Flight attendant told my wife that she should switch seats with me. But what about the woman in 21A? She was affected just as badly. I told the FA that if I switch seats and he continues to grope woman in 21A, it'll be a guarantee that we're diverting. FAs decide against having us switch and instead tell the passenger he needs to stop. Guy ends up frustrated, but passes out for the rest of the flight. Quite honestly if a passenger is sexually harassing and groping seat partners, action should be taken -- not just "hey victim, lets move your seat and put another pour soul next to the drunk". FAs acknowledged the passenger should have never been allowed to board by the gate agent and that management would be standing by upon arrival to take a report. Management ends up telling us the passenger was a 1K with a large corporate entity and unfortunately nothing would be done. At least they were honest!

Okay, I'm intrigued. Where can I get some Salon for 70k miles + $5.60?

So my incident I mentioned was disturbingly similar to this except we were both guys and it was in F. Dude practically flopped in the seat next to me (after sprawling across the D/F seats opposite first) and then immediately started trying to touch my thigh, leg, "help me" putting earbuds in my ears, order "us" champagne as a PDB, and more inappropriate touching attempts.

At first I tried to ignore him (it was a red eye, I really just wanted to fall asleep) but as it went on and he got weirder I realized that not only wasn't I going to be OK sleeping next to this guy but I wasn't going to be OK awake next to this guy for 5 hours in a metal tube. I grabbed my carry on, went to the galley and told the FAs working boarding that he was drunk, high, or both and one of the two of us was getting off of the plane. (I was actually expecting it to be me but wanted to make sure they were aware of him)

The first FA was like "Oh, he's not with you? Just wait here, we'll find someone to swap seats with you". I looked at him like he had grown a 2nd head and repeated my ultimatum loud enough for the other FA to hear. Second FA latched on to the "drunk" part wasted no time getting the captain, captain came out and evaluated and then got the gate agent to remove him from the aircraft and apologized that the GA "should have caught that"

Perhaps I was more of a (jerk) than I needed to be but the idea of the solution being to let him assault another passenger on a redeye flight just did not sit well at all with me -- open seat next to him or him off airplane avoided that outcome, swapping seats would not have. (That flight is the one that led me to commit 14 CFR 121.575, quoted above, to memory. Luckily I haven't needed it in the past 12 years.

and:


We can only go by how these situations are described here, but to me, your wife's experience and the OP's mother's experience don't sound like the "exact same thing" at all.


Added:
100% agree. You yourselves could have pursued this action once you realized that United wasn't going to.

Same exact thing as in: tell the victim they have to pack up their belongings and "move". It should be the other way around...