To Protect and to Serve II

#2,630
#2,630
Just saw an interview by the United Airlines CEO. He said one of the things he will need to re-address is the use of law enforcement. LOL, you think? Getting law enforcement involved (as can be seen by these two Protect and Serve threads) will only increase the risk of a situation escalating and getting our of control.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk7MU-4Nqvg[/youtube]
 
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#2,631
#2,631
Honestly, I don't really fault the LEO's at all in this case. I am pretty sure United was within their legal rights to remove the man from their property and that's a reasonable use of LEO's...

...that being said, United shouldn't have called the police. They should take care of their customers, not screw them over, even if their contract allows them to screw them over. I put it all on United.
 
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#2,632
#2,632
n_huffhines said:
Honestly, I don't really fault the LEO's at all in this case. I am pretty sure United was within their legal rights to remove the man from their property and that's a reasonable use of LEO's...

...that being said, United shouldn't have called the police. They should take care of their customers, not screw them over, even if their contract allows them to screw them over. I put it all on United.
Click to expand...

Let's back up for a minute, because this is where the divergence begins. You and the CEO would agree that United was "legally" allowed to remove this guy from the plane. But, this is the problem. Just because it was "legal", that doesn't necessarily mean that it was the "right" or "just" decision.

The CEO is seeing the distinction between the two right now.
 
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#2,633
#2,633
Rasputin_Vol said:
Let's back up for a minute, because this is where the divergence begins. You and the CEO would agree with now that United was "legally" allowed to remove this guy from the plane. But, this is the problem. Just because it was "legal", that doesn't necessarily mean that it was the "right" or "just" decision.

The CEO is seeing the distinction between the two right now.
Click to expand...

Correct
 
#2,634
#2,634
n_huffhines said:
Honestly, I don't really fault the LEO's at all in this case. I am pretty sure United was within their legal rights to remove the man from their property and that's a reasonable use of LEO's...

...that being said, United shouldn't have called the police. They should take care of their customers, not screw them over, even if their contract allows them to screw them over. I put it all on United.
Click to expand...

So the individual has no rights? These airline contracts may need to be rewritten.
 
#2,635
#2,635
n_huffhines said:
Honestly, I don't really fault the LEO's at all in this case. I am pretty sure United was within their legal rights to remove the man from their property and that's a reasonable use of LEO's...

...that being said, United shouldn't have called the police. They should take care of their customers, not screw them over, even if their contract allows them to screw them over. I put it all on United.
Click to expand...

So question. I am a property owner. I just can't call up the police and have someone removed from my property for failure to pay rent. Why can United do it. We both have contracts.
 
#2,636
#2,636
Rasputin_Vol said:
Let's back up for a minute, because this is where the divergence begins. You and the CEO would agree with now that United was "legally" allowed to remove this guy from the plane. But, this is the problem. Just because it was "legal", that doesn't necessarily mean that it was the "right" or "just" decision.

The CEO is seeing the distinction between the two right now.
Click to expand...

Yeah....this incident is getting more FUBAR'd by the day.

Flight was overbooked....needed volunteers and got none, so the "computer" randomly selected a few.

But wait, it wasn't overbooked...United needed to move staff to another airport, so took the liberty of ejecting paying customers. Probably should have done it in the terminal instead of on the plane.

Dude probably should have listened and gotten off....but now it appears he was traveling w/ someone, which should have exempted him from being "randomly picked".

CEO isn't really seeing the distinction...his emails were evidently hacked and show his praise to the guys who forcibly removed the guy...now he's backpeddling...but all in the name of PR.

Nevertheless, I'm a little conflicted on this one. Unless he was unruly, they shouldn't have manhandled him...but, at the same time...if you're told to leave the plane....maybe you should. As pissed as you are and deal with it in a different way. Discretion is the better part of valor in this case.

Too many folks think they have the right to physically resist authority and authority be damned. You're probably going to lose the initial battle, and may the ensuing ones depending on the entire story. Dude's probably in for a huge payday though...and if all the stories going around line up...he may just deserve it.
 
#2,637
#2,637
UT_Dutchman said:
So the individual has no rights? These airline contracts may need to be rewritten.
Click to expand...

The individual has rights. They surrendered their guarantee to stay on this flight by agreeing to the contract.

I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying this is the reality of the problem.

The good news is we don't need government to fix this. The market is fixing it as we speak. Social pressures are forcing United's hand. No doubt, they and other airlines are working to update these policies.
 
#2,638
#2,638
RollinVol said:
So question. I am a property owner. I just can't call up the police and have someone removed from my property for failure to pay rent. Why can United do it. We both have contracts.
Click to expand...

Because there is a law protecting the renter, right?

I'm pretty sure there is no law that protects the passenger.

It's a matter of the law failing, really.
 
#2,639
#2,639
JC61 said:
Too many folks think they have the right to physically resist authority and authority be damned. You're probably going to lose the initial battle, and may the ensuing ones depending on the entire story. Dude's probably in for a huge payday though...and if all the stories going around line up...he may just deserve it.
Click to expand...

God bless these folks...

Norman_Rockwell_Freedom_of_Speech_300.jpg
 
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#2,641
#2,641
JC61 said:
it's rarely justified; blatant disregard for authority, other people and society in general....yeah man...raslin', Jerry Springer...wooo-hooo!!
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Was this guy justified?

Lets not suggest that this guy was out stopping traffic or put a hog farm next to his neighbor. The guy bought a plane ticket and was sitting on the plane. Then the airlines called in the goons to muscle up on the pliant Asian guy.
 
#2,642
#2,642
n_huffhines said:
Honestly, I don't really fault the LEO's at all in this case. I am pretty sure United was within their legal rights to remove the man from their property and that's a reasonable use of LEO's...

...that being said, United shouldn't have called the police. They should take care of their customers, not screw them over, even if their contract allows them to screw them over. I put it all on United.
Click to expand...

I agree with this.

Maybe used candy instead of a stick. I'm not sure how gentle you can be in removing someone that doesn't want to be removed.
 
#2,643
#2,643
I think the most egregious error aside from the obvious manhandling was that he wasn't even being removed for another paying customer, it was to accommodate their own employees. That's horse ****. They screwed up, they should have to find another way to get their people where they need to be instead of ****ing over the customer already in his seat.
 
#2,644
#2,644
Overbooking is a strategy that an economist came up with like 20 years ago and it's worked very well in terms of making airlines operate more efficiently and passing savings onto consumers.

It's not really a mistake to overbook. They fully intend to do it. The mistake was how they chose to deal with the overbooking.

All they have to do is make the flight vouchers more enticing. I did it once for like a $400 voucher and I wish I hadn't. There is fine print bull**** that makes it not as good as it sounds.
 
#2,646
#2,646
n_huffhines said:
Overbooking is a strategy that an economist came up with like 20 years ago and it's worked very well in terms of making airlines operate more efficiently and passing savings onto consumers.

It's not really a mistake to overbook. They fully intend to do it. The mistake was how they chose to deal with the overbooking.

All they have to do is make the flight vouchers more enticing. I did it once for like a $400 voucher and I wish I hadn't. There is fine print bull**** that makes it not as good as it sounds.
Click to expand...

What was the issue, if you don't mind sharing
 
#2,647
#2,647
I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this United thing......but I do know the guy lost all of my respect when he started screaming like a little girl.....wtf?
 
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#2,649
#2,649
The folks at United's gate shat the bed twice:

1) They should never even start boarding until they have figured out who is and is not going to board.

2) They should have upped the offer to get bumped voluntarily until they had enough volunteers.

Then the CEO shat the bed twice, once with each of his first two responses.

Also, isn't that one of those small regional jets? Looks like it. I'm not sure how many seats there are on one of those, but "overbooking" and expecting to find four volunteers out of a such a small pool of passengers seems ambitious.
 
#2,650
#2,650
Rasputin_Vol said:
Was this guy justified?

Lets not suggest that this guy was out stopping traffic or put a hog farm next to his neighbor. The guy bought a plane ticket and was sitting on the plane. Then the airlines called in the goons to muscle up on the pliant Asian guy.
Click to expand...

may have been, but probably a better way to do it....if I was in his shoes I'd been very pissed off, but don't think I'd chose to make my stand in this instance. Stakes would have to be much higher to chose to resist, for me at least.
 
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