Gyroscopic Investing

If United flights are half empty and more....

Does public outrage take a back seat (coach class?) to inexpensive domestic and international flights?

This forum does have perspective. Is this a morality issue?

Pug,

You are correct. An airline has a right to remove a passenger. If you are traveling on frequent flyer miles, the airline may give you a skateboard and point you to the nearest interstate.

My thought concerns the appropriateness of "swooping in" on a Great United Flight Deal. Should United be subject to a period of reflection to mend their ways? Should a person get a conscience twinge if he/she does not stand with that doctor?

The doctor apparently will get a big check as a result of the removal.

Have I posed a conundrum?

"The right" doesn't make it right. I certainly wouldn't want to fly with an airline where that might happen to me!

Xan,

I think every airline would treat a passenger thusly. So what should we think/do?

Everyone is so gosh darn uncivil nowadays.

1) The cop should have realized, if I do this, 14 cell phones are going to be recording it and took another approach. I am actually surprised that no other passengers stood up and questioned him on the handling. Everyone was a sheep. I am NOT saying I would have had the balls to do anything under threat of getting arrested, but I would have liked to think someone might have.
2) United should have kept upping the ante until someone went for the deal
3) United could have hired a driver for the 4 people and got them to Louisville in 4.5 hours (from Chicago)
4) United could have chartered a jet
5) And now this doctor with a poor history, well, he also should have realized if I do this, quite likely my name gets out there and my past gets rediscovered.

All dumbass moves mainly.

I get how a flight can be oversold. But I don't understand how too many people are allowed boarding passes only to have them revoked after they've taken their seats. If employees need seats, reserve them just like everybody else using the same system before you let anyone on the plane. It sounds like the root cause is simply poor management with at least some chance of airline employees abusing their authority to get on a flight they prefer at the last second.

I've flown a lot over the years, and I'm largely over it. Flying sucks, and airlines keep finding new ways every year to make you feel less and less valued as a passenger. Then again, stuff like this seems reserved to certain old-school US airlines. I've had nothing but good experiences on smaller domestic airlines like Southwest and Virgin or foreign airlines like Cathay or EVA.

Last time I checked on Google, United was offering the lowest fare on the flight to Australia I have planned for September. Was planning on buying the tickets in June so hopefully by then they might be feeling the need to lower their prices.

I've never been bumped before but a friend of ours got free tickets for another flight and a night in a nice hotel with free meals for taking them up on the offer. Since I'm usually travelling on vacation and especially now that I'm retired I would probably go for a deal like that if it didn't mess up my other plans too bad.

As for Tyler's point, it does seem like like this should be handled before boarding takes place. Did they not know about those 4 employees needing a flight beforehand? Usually when overbooking occurs I've seen them ask for volunteers before boarding. Only once do I recall them asking after boarding and in that case they eventually had to announce they already had enough volunteers because they were getting more than they needed. I think the offer was that you would be on the next plane within an hour or so and get free tickets for another flight and some cash, so that was pretty attractive to a lot of people.

I have mixed feelings about it.

I mostly agree with Pug. Just because you have a ticket and a seat number does not mean you won't be bumped.
Still, whether it's technically allowed or not to remove someone like that, how stupid is United that a few weeks ago they're concerned about leggings on a family standby child because they want to "present a good image"? They don't think dragging an elderly man down the aisle might be bad for their image?

Cost benefit analysis says offer a little more cash until someone gives up their seat. No scandal, no plummeting stock.

By the way, on reddit someone is saying that according to Dept of Transportation laws, an airline has to cut you a check if you demand one, not those $50 vouchers that you can only use one at a time. Is that true?

Flying hasn't really been fun since the 80s. Like Tyler, though, I've had good experiences on Southwest. Too bad they dropped the main city I fly to.

The CEO doesn't seem too concerned. Well, whatever is "right", my wife is of Chinese extraction, so I don't think we'll be flying United anytime soon. (Personal/marital cost benefit analysis).

Oop, right after I typed that, there was breaking news at 3:07. CEO Oscar Munoz is finally apologizing. A little late, perhaps.
Doesn't feel genuine.

I was kinda neutral on this until the employee part came out. The cops did what they are supposed to do...United, unbelievably poor judgement and they deserve a major black eye for how it was handled. I'm pretty sure there was a price at which the required number of seat holders would have given up their seats. They chose not to do the right thing by their customers...and there is a price for that too.

I don't know why exactly, but this news story was just so much fun to read about, compared to all the dreck that's been in the news for the past few months!

United is one of the industry leaders in thinking up new and brilliant ways to mistreat passengers. The last cross-country flight I took was on a newly refitted plane. They've made the seats narrower, recline is maybe half an inch, and it was so uncomfortable that lots of people (including me) kept having to get up to relieve back and neck pain - which I'm not usually subject to. And there are STILL no usb chargers in coach, and all video entertainment is now pay per view. Oh and did you know about their plan to charge you extra to take a carry-on bag onto the plane? They are calling this "Economy Plus."

I mean really...$800 to overnight in Chicago, miss a day of work and pay the cat sitter for an extra day? No thank you. They should have offered $1350 (the FAA guideline for that situation) plus a free hotel room, if they had any sense whatsoever. Especially since it involved taking people off the plane, which should never, ever happen. Why were those four employees needing to get to Louisville such a surprise?

Leave it to me to fixate on the tangential details, but in the initial video showing the doctor being accosted in his seat and then dragged down the aisle, the victim was a sort of pudgy, white guy. Now the videos are showing the doctor as a slight-built Vietnamese man. These are clearly two separate people. What am I missing here?

Maddy wrote:Leave it to me to fixate on the tangential details, but in the initial video showing the doctor being accosted in his seat and then dragged down the aisle, the victim was a sort of pudgy, white guy. Now the videos are showing the doctor as a slight-built Vietnamese man. These are clearly two separate people. What am I missing here?

White balance was off in one of the shots? Distortion lens similar to the carnival mirrors of old? Press making news instead of reporting facts?

My original thoughts: Is anyone on the forum avoiding United Airlines for the foreseeable future? Is anyone never flying United again?

BTW, Jimmy Kimmel's video on United Airlines was pretty funny.

Ah, that last video cleared it up. My mistake. The very first video I saw focused on the pudgy guy in the orange shirt, who I immediately had pegged as a surgeon, then moved directly to the "dragging" scene. I now see that Mr. Orange Shirt was not part of the scuffle. He was in the row in front of the Vietnamese doctor.

However, I am concerned about the passenger in Row 18A, who bears a remarkable likeness to Adam Lanza.

TennPaGa wrote:

Mountaineer wrote:Press making news instead of reporting facts?

What basis do you have for making this assertion? The was video shot by passengers. Who altered the video then? Who else was in on the ruse? Why have no passengers stepped forward to say that it was not the same man?

Do you have any understanding of what means? You know, the emoji you left out of your quote of my post. I think you do since you not too long ago told me perhaps everything was a joke to me. Hope you are not losing it, or burried in your preconceived notions, or trapped in vincible ignorance. How's this? Are we good? or not? I choose to be .

Maddy wrote:Leave it to me to fixate on the tangential details,

I think it's the same guy, but if you want tangential details:

Dao’s own medical license was suspended in 2003 following his arrest on charges including unlawful prescribing and trafficking in a controlled substance.

He was accused of providing prescriptions for Vicodin and other narcotics to a former patient he later hired as his office manger, who was identified in news reports at the time as Brian Case.

The men repeatedly hooked up in motels, with Dao paying Case around $200 each time and also sharing in the drugs, according to a 130-page file compiled by the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure.

http://nypost.com/2017/04/11/doctor-dra ... s-for-sex/

This morning there was a retraction. Seems that there are two doctors with the same name in the same vicinity. But that won't be of much consolation when half of this doctor's patients disappear.

So this guy's now got a defamation suit as well.

Maddy wrote:This morning there was a retraction. Seems that there are two doctors with the same name in the same vicinity. But that won't be of much consolation when half of this doctor's patients disappear regardless.

So this guy's now got a defamation suit as well.

Ah! My wife said the same thing on the way to the grocery store, but then said she wasn't sure.
This story gets curiouser and curiouser.

Maddy wrote:This morning there was a retraction. Seems that there are two doctors with the same name in the same vicinity. But that won't be of much consolation when half of this doctor's patients disappear.

So this guy's now got a defamation suit as well.

Wow.

So it's death by suicide for both the airline and the media that covered it. What a world we live in.

bedraggled wrote:My original thoughts: Is anyone on the forum avoiding United Airlines for the foreseeable future? Is anyone never flying United again?

As I said in an earlier post, we're going to Australia in September and if this fiasco results in a good deal on United Tickets I will probably go for it. They were already quoting the lowest price according to Google.

I don't see much point in boycotting them over this incident. Is there a major American carrier that treats customers any better? I had my own issues with American Airlines the last time I flew overseas and I've also heard bad things about Delta. On domestic flights I usually fly Southwest but they don't fly to Australia.

Now if I get a competitive price from New Zealand Air or Qantas, or some other non-U.S. airlines I might consider it.

Farjean2,

Thanks. I would love to fly first class to Europe for $800 round trip. If United can do that, life is OK. First class passengers seem to enjoy the ride more, too.

I feel like this article covered the issues very well:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/04/ ... -fail.html

tldr: United didn't have the right to eject the passenger.

bedraggled wrote:Farjean2,
First class passengers seem to enjoy the ride more, too.

No doubt about that. Every time I take a long international flight I look at the people up in first/business class with envy and I'm just talking about being able to lie down and go to sleep. Don't really care that much about the rest of it.

Checking on the Australia trip, the price was $32k for first class as opposed to about $3.2k for economy for the two of us. Sorry, it's not worth that much to avoid 18 hours of misery.

TennPaGa wrote:

Mountaineer wrote:

TennPaGa wrote: What basis do you have for making this assertion? The was video shot by passengers. Who altered the video then? Who else was in on the ruse? Why have no passengers stepped forward to say that it was not the same man?

Do you have any understanding of what means? You know, the emoji you left out of your quote of my post. I think you do since you not too long ago told me perhaps everything was a joke to me. Hope you are not losing it, or buried in your preconceived notions, or trapped in vincible ignorance. How's this? Are we good? or not? I choose to be .

Yeah, I saw the wink, but, to be honest, I wasn't exactly sure what the humor angle was in your post. Plus, my experience is that you will often include winks/emoji when trying to soften a serious point.

So, are we good? (no emoji)