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  1. #1
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    United Air Lines


    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  2. #2

  3. #3
    Five-O Diehard Ute's Avatar
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    United Air Lines

    Quote Originally Posted by LA Ute View Post
    Oh I figured Southwest would say "We only treat you like cattle before you board"


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  4. #4
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    United Air Lines

    Quote Originally Posted by Diehard Ute View Post
    Oh I figured Southwest would say "We only treat you like cattle before you board"


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Southwest is what it is, basically a flying bus service. I use Southwest all the time to get around California and the West for short flights up to 90 minutes or so. They're not perfect. But it is unimaginable that any Southwest employee would do what the United airlines folks did in yesterday's incident.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  5. #5
    I must not be a very good person because I have zero sympathy for this guy. Could United have handled it better? Absolutely, but they didn't really have that many options and I don't think that the way they chose to handle it was all that bad anyway.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Scratch View Post
    I must not be a very good person because I have zero sympathy for this guy. Could United have handled it better? Absolutely, but they didn't really have that many options and I don't think that the way they chose to handle it was all that bad anyway.
    Amen Scratch. I'll take it further. So, because he doesn't want to be inconvenienced in any way, he inconveniences all of the people on the plane who now have to get back off the plane and wait around for 3 hours. He also inconveniences all of the flyers in Louisville who need a crew that needed to get on that flight. All because he refuses to take a later flight. Then, when asked to leave he acts like a goddamned two year old and screams and holds on to his chair.

    Imagine if every passenger acted like him. The airports would come to a stand still.

    Every one of us has had to eat a shit sandwich on occasion while flying. I did it last week in Atlanta when my flight got cancelled. This guy is complete fucking turd.

    United should have never let him on the plane in the first place and should have run its lottery before anybody got on. But it makes me sick to watch America feel sorry for this clown. When he was asked to get off, he should have gotten off. Every person on this site would have grumbled and then left the plane (just like the other passengers who were asked to leave, did). Because we are human beings.

    The reality is, too many people are flying. Airlines overbook to make money which in turns keeps flight costs down. If we regulated this stuff, prices would go up. I'd still fly but many of the John Does who feel sorry for this guy would be priced out of flying.

    Of course, today, we now learn that the docs is a convicted felon. How can you be surprised by this given his conduct?
    Last edited by Two Utes; 04-11-2017 at 10:22 AM.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Two Utes View Post
    Amen Scratch. I'll take it further. So, because he doesn't want to be inconvenienced in any way, he inconveniences all of the people on the plane who now have to get back off the plane and wait around for 3 hours. He also inconveniences all of the flyers in Louisville who need a crew that needed to get on that flight. All because he refuses to take a later flight. Then, when asked to leave he acts like a goddamned two year old and screams and holds on to his chair.

    Imagine if every passenger acted like him. The airports would come to a stand still.

    Every one of us has had to eat a shit sandwich on occasion while flying. I did it last week in Atlanta when my flight got cancelled. This guy is complete fucking turd.

    United should have never let him on the plane in the first place and should have run its lottery before anybody got on. But it makes me sick to watch America feel sorry for this clown. When he was asked to get off, he should have gotten off. Every person on this site would have grumbled and then left the plane (just like the other passengers who were asked to leave, did). Because we are human beings.

    The reality is, too many people are flying. Airlines overbook to make money which in turns keeps flight costs down. If we regulated this stuff, prices would go up. I'd still fly but many of the John Does who feel sorry for this guy would be priced out of flying.

    Of course, today, we now learn that the docs is a convicted felon. How can you be surprised by this given his conduct?
    I couldn't agree with two utes any more. Passenger got everything he deserved.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Scratch View Post
    I must not be a very good person because I have zero sympathy for this guy. Could United have handled it better? Absolutely, but they didn't really have that many options and I don't think that the way they chose to handle it was all that bad anyway.
    To each their own, I guess. To me, if you pay for a seat on an airplane, you should get to keep it (I know thats pretty radical!)

    And could United have handled it better? A better question is what could they have realistically done worse? IMO, they should have upped their offer until they got enough bites. If they reached their maximum, and still no takers then you pay for your employees to ride there on Greyhound or buy a ticket on another airlines. The police here look like absolute goons and united looks even sillier.

    In an oligopoly, I cant say ill never use united again, but i will do my best not to.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by UtahsMrSports View Post
    To each their own, I guess. To me, if you pay for a seat on an airplane, you should get to keep it (I know thats pretty radical!)

    And could United have handled it better? A better question is what could they have realistically done worse? IMO, they should have upped their offer until they got enough bites. If they reached their maximum, and still no takers then you pay for your employees to ride there on Greyhound or buy a ticket on another airlines. The police here look like absolute goons and united looks even sillier.

    In an oligopoly, I cant say ill never use united again, but i will do my best not to.
    That's not the point. Of course, if you buy a ticket you should get to keep it. But if they say you have to leave, you need to leave. You can't act like a two year old and scream and hold onto you chair. Instead, you get off the goddamn plane and figure out your next option. That's what you would do and that's what I would do. Because we are adults.

    And by the way, I hate United. I will never fly them if I can absolutely avoid it.
    Last edited by Two Utes; 04-11-2017 at 10:30 AM.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by UtahsMrSports View Post
    To each their own, I guess. To me, if you pay for a seat on an airplane, you should get to keep it (I know thats pretty radical!)

    And could United have handled it better? A better question is what could they have realistically done worse? IMO, they should have upped their offer until they got enough bites. If they reached their maximum, and still no takers then you pay for your employees to ride there on Greyhound or buy a ticket on another airlines. The police here look like absolute goons and united looks even sillier.

    In an oligopoly, I cant say ill never use united again, but i will do my best not to.
    The challenge with flights is I think a lot of these airlines are dealing with razor sharp margins on certain flight routes and so they need to have a full flight and so they overbook. The question is would you be willing to pay an extra $30 a flight so they didn't overbook?

  11. #11
    I guess for me -- even if I was flaming angry about getting bumped -- if a police officer came on the plane and told me I needed to get off, I would get off and then raise hell with United. We've all got our own methods I guess.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by LA Ute View Post
    Southwest is what it is, basically a flying bus service. I use Southwest all the time to get around California and the West for short flights up to 90 minutes or so. They're not perfect. But it is unimaginable that any Southwest employee would do what the United airlines folks did in yesterday's incident.
    I think some people (not you, LA) forget that it was not United employees that physically removed the passenger, it was police/airport security. United is to blame for overbooking flights, but in reality, all airlines do this. They could have (and should have) continued to increase their offers to get volunteers, and the one big mistake they made was cutting that off too soon and deciding to go to assigning involuntary removal.

    The thing that made this go viral is on the police/security. The extraneous facts, that this guy is a doctor, convicted felon, etc. is all fluff that doesn't matter in the least.
    “To me there is no dishonor in being wrong and learning. There is dishonor in willful ignorance and there is dishonor in disrespect.” James Hatch, former Navy Seal and current Yale student.

  13. #13
    Does anyone really need to get to Louisville that badly? I don't think so.
    “It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.”

    Well, because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

  14. #14
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Competitors jumping on the opportunity to exploit United's screw-up:

    Delta OKs offers of up to $9,950 to flyers who give up seats

    http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireS...seats-46808209

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Two Utes View Post
    This is dead on 100%

    https://danwetzelsports.tumblr.com/p...avel-a-lot-for


    Don't get me started on the dog craze at airports these days.
    Fun list. I've been guilty of bringing dinner on an airplane. And.....huge thumbs up on Adam Carolla -- the guy nails it 90 percent of the time.

    Quote Originally Posted by sancho View Post
    I'm with you on the dogs. The rest is whiny, though. Someone drinking coffee? Really? The drink cart is a major annoyance? Dan needs some Feng Shui in his life.

    How does the person who lowers his seat into your lap not on this list? Airline seats should not recline.
    I think I'm your Bizarro Jerry. If I want to recline 2 degrees, I'll do it and not apologize -- now THAT'S whining.

    Personally, I don't bring my dogs with me to stores or airports etc..... but, I'm betting I'd prefer bumping into your dogs over you two so bring em along. In fact, if every store I shopped at had 100 English Bulldogs running free, my shopping experience would improve a million-fold. Dogs are awesome. People.....not so much.
    “Children and dogs are as necessary to the welfare of the country as Wall Street and the railroads.” -- Harry S. Truman

    "You never soar so high as when you stoop down to help a child or an animal." -- Jewish Proverb

    "Three-time Pro Bowler Eric Weddle the most versatile, and maybe most intelligent, safety in the game." -- SI, 9/7/15, p. 107.

  16. #16
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Lots of smart posts from experienced fliers here. My take on this:

    1. It's a PR disaster that United made worse than it already was by the huffy, tin-eared way they responded.

    2. The passenger behaved like an idiot. I'm embarrassed for him. Unfortunately for United, people have sided with him because the airline industry is widely reviled, fairly or not (I fly a lot and personally I find it pretty easy to navigate the system, but doing so requires patience and the ability to be resigned to one's fate). On top of that, United has a bad reputation for rude employees. I won't fly UA unless I absolutely have to, for that very reason, even though I once had a zillion frequent flyer miles with them.

    3. UA and other airlines might think about a policy change. With more flexibility in extreme situations like this, they ought to be able to up their compensation offer until someone takes it. I'm not sure that would pencil out for them, though -- people would quickly take advantage and extort large sums out of them.

    This will be a business school case study some day just like the Tylenol poisoning case from years ago now is.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  17. #17
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    I am not an aviation law expert so I'll post this info from an attorney friend of mine for what it is worth:

    The myth that United complied with the regulations for overbooking through involuntary denial of boarding procedures is debunked by the lawyer who posted to Reddit. Obviously the attorney is familiar with aviation law.

    This myth that passengers don't have rights needs to go away, ASAP. You are dead wrong when saying that United legally kicked him off the plane.

    1. First of all, it's airline spin to call this an overbooking. The statutory provision granting them the ability to deny boarding is about "OVERSALES", specifically defines as booking more reserved confirmed seats than there are available. This is not what happened. They did not overbook the flight; they had a fully booked flight, and not only did everyone already have a reserved confirmed seat, they were all sitting in them. The law allowing them to denying boarding in the event of an oversale does not apply.

    2. Even if it did apply, the law is unambiguously clear that airlines have to give preference to everyone with reserved confirmed seats when choosing to involuntarily deny boarding. They have to always choose the solution that will affect the least amount of reserved confirmed seats. This rule is straightforward, and United makes very clear in their own contract of carriage that employees of their own or of other carriers may be denied boarding without compensation because they do not have reserved confirmed seats. On its face, it's clear that what they did was illegal-- they gave preference to their employees over people who had reserved confirmed seats, in violation of 14 CFR 250.2a.

    3. Furthermore, even if you try and twist this into a legal application of 250.2a and say that United had the right to deny him boarding in the event of an overbooking; they did NOT have the right to kick him off the plane. Their contract of carriage highlights there is a complete difference in rights after you've boarded and sat on the plane, and Rule 21 goes over the specific scenarios where you could get kicked off. NONE of them apply here. He did absolutely nothing wrong and shouldn't have been targeted. He's going to leave with a hefty settlement after this fiasco.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  18. #18
    Administrator U-Ute's Avatar
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    United Air Lines

    My experience from a couple of years ago when I took 2 of my boys to Eugene for the 62-20 game.

    They overbooked the flight back to SLC and asked for people to be bumped, and then randomly bumped us.

    We had to take the next flight out which was the next morning.

    I found out the airlines have a deal with the FAA on overbooking.

    If your next flight lands one, two, or four hours after your original flight lands, they have to give you 2x, 3x, or 4x the cost of your original 1 way ticket price as a fine as well as a free flight.

    This is why they offer you $200-$500 in vouchers. It ends up being cheaper than the fine.

    Since the next flight for us didn't go out until the next morning, and the 1 way ticket price was roughly $300, we got 3 checks for $1200 (the 4x fine). It worked out well for us since we were staying with my aunt and uncle in Corvallis, so we just went and spent the day with them and flew out the next morning.

    The whole trip originally cost me about $2000 for flights for the 3 of us, so Delta basically paid me me a couple thousand dollars to pay for me and my boys to fly up and watch Utah kick Oregon's ass and spend the weekend with family.

    EDIT: That's also why they start with the cheap seats since the fine is based on your ticket price. These are the things you find out when you don't freak out at the counter people since they don't have any control over this.

    EDIT2: The reason they have this deal is because a certain percentage of people don't show up for their flights, allowing them to maximize their seat usage. We don't hear about how many people don't get bumped because someone didn't show up. It must work even with the 4x fine schedule since they do overbook on a regular basis. It blows my mind that people don't show up for their flights.

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Last edited by U-Ute; 04-12-2017 at 08:57 AM.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by U-Ute View Post
    It blows my mind that people don't show up for their flights.
    I may or may not have shown up for multiple flights. If you have ever done hidden city ticketing then it is common to not show up. (It is also a violation of the contract of carriage)

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Sullyute View Post
    I may or may not have shown up for multiple flights. If you have ever done hidden city ticketing then it is common to not show up. (It is also a violation of the contract of carriage)
    Along those lines I recently ran into a co-worker at the airport. He and his wife had bought tickets to Paris for $400. The deal, however, was only for a flight originating in Denver with a stopover in SLC. Since they live in Salt Lake he asked the airline if they could just catch the flight in SLC. He was informed that the deal was only for the flight from Denver. So, he bout a cheap ($39) one-way ticket to Denver on another carrier and then got on a plane back to SLC. On the return trip from Paris they just won't show up to get back on the plane after the layover.
    "Don't apologize; it's not your fault. It's my fault for overestimating your competence."

  21. #21
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  22. #22
    Administrator U-Ute's Avatar
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    United Air Lines

    Southwest has had some of the best pre-flight checks. I almost look forward to them. It is usually the best part of the whole experience.

    We had one on Delta on our flight to Hawaii where they used a video on the seat instead. It was hilarious.

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  23. #23
    It's not United, but certainly not unrelated:

    NAACP warns black passengers about traveling with American Airlines

    http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/25/news...nes/index.html

  24. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by tooblue View Post
    It's not United, but certainly not unrelated:

    NAACP warns black passengers about traveling with American Airlines

    http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/25/news...nes/index.html
    Toolblue! So nice of you to have joined us.

    Have you caught any games up in Canada this year? I'm sure the ASU games was on every station up there.

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