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United Airlines, We put the "Hospital" in "Hospitality"!
On Thu, 13 Apr 2017 13:02:39 -0500, RD Sandman
wrote: First-Post wrote in : On Wed, 12 Apr 2017 11:33:24 -0500, RD Sandman wrote: Sylvia Else wrote in : On 12/04/2017 12:06 PM, de chucka wrote: On 12/04/2017 11:43 AM, Sylvia Else wrote: On 12/04/2017 7:51 AM, Air Gestapo wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STJQnu72Nec Find us on http://www.facebook.com/flightorg. On the 9th April, 2017, a man was forcibly removed from United Airlines Flight 3411 in Chicago, set for Louisville. While we'd normally say that until we have all the information, we have no information at all, the United response tends to confirm the incident as described by passengers. United Airlines said that ... "Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked. After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate. We apologize for the overbook situation." It's a difficult situation. If a person refusing to leave were allowed to stay, then passengers would never comply. If force has to be used to remove a non-compliant passenger, then that's what has to be done. Bumping passengers in favour of its own staff looks strange, but it may be that if those staff weren't carried, it would have knock on effects for other flights. To my mind, the proper solution to the overbooking problem is either to ban it outright (given that it's deliberate, not just a mistake), or to require that the airline just keep offering more and more money until they do get the needed volunteers. If that means they have to offer tens of thousands of dollars, then so be it - that's the price of overbooking. There is absolutely no excuse for overbooking flights and bouncing booked passengers with valid tickets. In this case they bounced him down the aisle If they didn't overbook, then there'd be many more flights with empty seats when people didn't show up. If you were an airline exec wouldn't you been looking at those seats, and wishing you could earn some money from them. The problem is not the overbooking, but how it's handled when, as occasionally happens, too many people actually turn up. Pretty much. The problme in this case is that the passengers were bounced to make room for United employees who are not fare paying passengers. They probably could have easily talked some economy class passengers to take a different flight if they simply offered them first class fair on another flight, even if it had to be on a competitive airline. The broader picture I get from this incident is that United and likely a few other airlines seem to have forgotten that they are in a customer service industry. They may legally be able to treat passengers like they are conscripts in the military but just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. I would assume you to be correct. Lastly, the four employees big emergency was that they had to be at a meeting the next day. Aaah, I thought that perhaps they were needed for another flight from the destination airport. I have been on many flights where airline personnel were being flown to their duty station for the day. A stewardess friend of mine lived in Waco but often flew out of Dallas or New Orleans. She would fly to the airport where her day started. I would think that they probably did have another flight out of Louisville as well. But the report I read stated that the meeting wasn't until the next morning which means that their flight would be after that. So they had plenty of time as well as, I believe, 28 other flights for Louisville from Chicago that same afternoon and evening. The whole situation could have been avoided had United simply rented the employees a nice car and let them make the 4½ hour drive which still would have had them in Louisville in plenty of time to have dinner, settle in and still get a full night's sleep before their meeting the next morning. And it wouldn't have cost the airline as much as those 4 non paying seats did. And still may. It appears that the doctor suffered broken teeth, broken nose and a concussion. It ain't over, mon ami. My bet is that UA will try to settle with him if he sues regardless of whether he has a good case or not. This incident is hurting them bad in the PR department and the stock holders are obviously getting nervous from the way their stock is looking. So they'll want this to go away ASAP. |
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