As a pilot, the author should know that Dao was not interfering with a crew member, because the flight attendants did not become crew members in law until the door was closed (according to 49USC§46501) and/or the aircraft was moving under its own power (according to 14CFR§91). Yes, it's silly, and counterintuitive, and even contradictory. Welcome to law. This is the law that United's defenders keep trying to invoke, but they clearly do not know what the law actually says or means. It's an appeal to an authority that doesn't actually support them. In other words, it's BS.
The point about the deadheading crew is more interesting IMO. It's their arrival that triggered the whole thing. Why were they so late arriving? Did United's logistics screw up by not putting that crew on another flight, or did the crew themselves screw up by not showing up for it? United still hasn't clarified. It is perhaps worthy of note that the deadheaders were the only ones here who were United's responsibility; the rest (and worst) of what happened was on either Republic or Chicago aviation security. United might be faced with a choice between admitting their own direct responsibility for causing this mess vs. having to explain to AFA why they threw union members under the bus. Silence might seem preferable to either of those.
I really hope that specific law comes into play. Especially since it seems to be used to justify not paying flight attendants until they are "officially" part of the crew.
"Passengers were first offered voluntary removal incentives until, I suspect, the agent's authorized limit was reached and involuntary removal became necessary."
Looks like United's fault to me. On a side note, I'll never understand wanting to side with a corporation on a matter like this.
The offending party (in the court of law) might be the security officers. But as a passenger, Dr. Dao bought the ticket from United and it was their responsibility to treat him with dignity and safely transport him to his final destination. The situation arose due to lapse in United's protocols -- which was probably enforced by Chicago Airport Security officials.
I could make another argument, for the security officers, that they were just following protocols. Maybe the gate agents let the security know that the passenger isn't leaving even after "politely" requesting him to. The security officers, hence rightfully, assumed he was a threat to other passengers and used force.
All of this comes down to the fact that United started this, and they could have easily avoided the whole thing.
While the violent part of the incident is the fault of security (why should a non-violent, non-threatening passenger have violence used against him???) the airline should never have been in this position. Stop overbooking flights. Pay to put your 'deadhead' crew on another airline. OR offer passengers an incentive above the one they are entitled to by law instead of trying to get them to accept less than that before giving up. It's just terrible business practice because they know they can usually get away with it and can save themselves a few $.
Passengers were first offered voluntary removal incentives until, I suspect, the agent's authorized limit was reached and involuntary removal became necessary.
The fact that there is an "authorized limit" is squarely on United. Start offering cash money to give up your seat, rather that near-worthless vouchers, as they are authorized and supposed to per FAA regs, and eventually, I guaran-freaking-tee you will find takers.
60% United, 40% hired security goons. United could have very easily avoided calling them in the first place
>United could have very easily avoided calling them in the first place.
Yep. And that actually yet further shifts the blame towards United even from your split. If you call in security goons, you can't get mad when they act like security goons. Just because United didn't bust the guy's lip doesn't mean they couldn't reasonably foresee that happening once they picked up their telephone to call in security.
Reads to me like the airline industry is trotting out it's PR team to try and prevent regulatory reform of their customer-hostile practices. If you watch the press session with Dr. Dao's lawyer, he framed the attack on Dao as only the most extreme example of the pattern of mistreatment and disregard airlines have for their customers.
This is not a good take, and poorly written besides. I think it's apparent that the good pilot hasn't been a paying passenger in quite some time.
Nothing in this distinguishes the facts as we know them so far, and doesn't even mention the changes in legality incurred once a paying passenger sits in their purchased seat. For me, the contract of carriage is an important aspect of this story. Heck, I don't even think I've read anything that implicates the pilots on the Dao flight at all.
It reads more as submarine PR to take the heat off the airline and square it on the police, who essentially have zero oversight in Chicago, and which would put the matter into a territory of blamelessness. Further extrapolating, in the inevitable civil case(s), I wonder if the pilot's reasoning could work to reduce punitive damages.
Some people seems to be really buying the shit united was selling with CNN. Using a contract seems to be the silver bullet to get the company of everything.
That's just pathetic, as a consumer, if you buy a ticket from United. The thing is between you and the United, no matter how United manage their business, it's completely irrelevant for the consumer.
If we buy a poisoned food, I have no interest in finding who's responsibility it is, I go directly to the person who sells it. It's falls on the United to file lawsuit etc to determine their messy relationships and responsibilities.
Consumers don't need to know that, the case for contract. Period
The crew should absolutely have exhibited some agency and basic human dignity and intervened to prevented airport security for de-boarding a passenger who had already been seated. It would have saved everyone tons of time and their company a ton of horrible PR.
1) That United could have him removed to begin with. Call this the social issue.
2) That he was removed violently. Call this the physical issue.
It's because these things are combined that we get the outrage we're feeling now.
Police interact violently with people all the time. Often it gets overlooked because they were doing something wrong to cause it.
People also get removed from flights all the time, but usually it gets ignored because we can't see their frustration as easily as we could see blood on Mr. Dao's face.
United is absolutely responsible for the social issue, but I don't agree that they're responsible for the physical one. The police should have explored other options that didn't involve violence in order to get him off of the plane.
At the point Mr. Dao was at, he was essentially trespassing on United's plane (not something I agree should be the case, but the way that I understand the policies of the airlines' governing body, that is the way it is looked at once they decide he should leave).
Good article. But I have to ask for clarification for this statement:
"Empty seats cost the airlines money, and they need to recoup those losses somehow."
What does this mean? The issue here is overbooked seats. If a seat is physically empty during the flight because the passenger just doesn't show up, the airline doesn't lose any money - the ticket/seat is still (pre)paid for. Overbooking is simply a way for the airlines to make extra money on top of what they would normally make, gambling on some percentage of customers not showing up for the flight.
So, is the airline industry operating on such a slim margin that giving up the practice of overbooking would force airlines to take noticeably drastic cost-cutting measures?
> If a seat is physically empty because the passenger just doesn't show up, the airline doesn't lose any money - the ticket is still paid for. Overbooking is simply a way for the airlines to make extra money on top of what they would normally make
Your logic is perfectly reasonable and sound, and it took me many years of working for Big Corp (TM) to understand that is simply not how a big corporation thinks.
Once they have a revenue stream, anything that diminishes it is a "loss", even if that revenue stream was kind of fake or invented anyway.
The massive company I worked for was making millions per week from something that was accidental and they shouldn't have been. But it went on for so long, they got so attached to it (those millions looked great on year-end reports) that soon any talk of "fixing" the problem was referred to as a "revenue loss" and it was completely unacceptable to the business, unless your proposed change kept the revenue.
Not defending United, but the airline industry is known for having pretty slim margins.
Air travel is fantastically expensive and we all want it to be cheaper than it really is. This is one of the ways that is done (people who don't show up pay for other people and displaced passengers move to underfilled flights).
The practice is annoying, but I think with the exception of bungled reqccomodation is a net plus for the consumer.
I don't buy this argument. He tries to remove blame from the airline because they were just following procedure. But the issue is that the procedure was stupid and greedy.
Probably because he paid the lowest fare for that segment and had no frequent flyer status. When involuntarily denying boarding to a passenger, an airline in the US has to provide 4x the fare paid for that segment, up to a maximum of $1350. Some articles incorrectly reported this as "the computer randomly picked" vs "the computer picked".
The insidious part of it is that on more complex itineraries, the regional jet segments are priced rather low. I've flown from Montreal to Dallas-Fort Worth to Tokyo multiple times on American Airlines, and each time the ticket shows the cost of the business class YUL-DFW segment to be $232. If I was IDB'd from that segment (which also wouldn't happen to business class passengers without some major extenuating circumstances), all I would be legally required to be paid would be $232 * 4 = $928. I've seen economy fares on regional jet flights on complex itineraries of about $50, so the legal requirement to deny boarding to that passenger would be $200 cash.
[+] [-] notacoward|9 years ago|reply
The point about the deadheading crew is more interesting IMO. It's their arrival that triggered the whole thing. Why were they so late arriving? Did United's logistics screw up by not putting that crew on another flight, or did the crew themselves screw up by not showing up for it? United still hasn't clarified. It is perhaps worthy of note that the deadheaders were the only ones here who were United's responsibility; the rest (and worst) of what happened was on either Republic or Chicago aviation security. United might be faced with a choice between admitting their own direct responsibility for causing this mess vs. having to explain to AFA why they threw union members under the bus. Silence might seem preferable to either of those.
[+] [-] jjeaff|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sugarpile|9 years ago|reply
Looks like United's fault to me. On a side note, I'll never understand wanting to side with a corporation on a matter like this.
[+] [-] ReligiousFlames|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jeffjose|9 years ago|reply
The offending party (in the court of law) might be the security officers. But as a passenger, Dr. Dao bought the ticket from United and it was their responsibility to treat him with dignity and safely transport him to his final destination. The situation arose due to lapse in United's protocols -- which was probably enforced by Chicago Airport Security officials.
I could make another argument, for the security officers, that they were just following protocols. Maybe the gate agents let the security know that the passenger isn't leaving even after "politely" requesting him to. The security officers, hence rightfully, assumed he was a threat to other passengers and used force.
All of this comes down to the fact that United started this, and they could have easily avoided the whole thing.
[+] [-] jmount|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] userbinator|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] k-mcgrady|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhizome|9 years ago|reply
The flight was not oversold. There were 70 seats, 70 passengers, and 70 tickets. It was only the four deadheaders who put capacity over the limit.
[+] [-] Karunamon|9 years ago|reply
The fact that there is an "authorized limit" is squarely on United. Start offering cash money to give up your seat, rather that near-worthless vouchers, as they are authorized and supposed to per FAA regs, and eventually, I guaran-freaking-tee you will find takers.
60% United, 40% hired security goons. United could have very easily avoided calling them in the first place
[+] [-] toufka|9 years ago|reply
Yep. And that actually yet further shifts the blame towards United even from your split. If you call in security goons, you can't get mad when they act like security goons. Just because United didn't bust the guy's lip doesn't mean they couldn't reasonably foresee that happening once they picked up their telephone to call in security.
[+] [-] alphonsegaston|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhizome|9 years ago|reply
Nothing in this distinguishes the facts as we know them so far, and doesn't even mention the changes in legality incurred once a paying passenger sits in their purchased seat. For me, the contract of carriage is an important aspect of this story. Heck, I don't even think I've read anything that implicates the pilots on the Dao flight at all.
It reads more as submarine PR to take the heat off the airline and square it on the police, who essentially have zero oversight in Chicago, and which would put the matter into a territory of blamelessness. Further extrapolating, in the inevitable civil case(s), I wonder if the pilot's reasoning could work to reduce punitive damages.
[+] [-] powerfoolx|9 years ago|reply
That's just pathetic, as a consumer, if you buy a ticket from United. The thing is between you and the United, no matter how United manage their business, it's completely irrelevant for the consumer.
If we buy a poisoned food, I have no interest in finding who's responsibility it is, I go directly to the person who sells it. It's falls on the United to file lawsuit etc to determine their messy relationships and responsibilities.
Consumers don't need to know that, the case for contract. Period
[+] [-] andreyf|9 years ago|reply
The crew should absolutely have exhibited some agency and basic human dignity and intervened to prevented airport security for de-boarding a passenger who had already been seated. It would have saved everyone tons of time and their company a ton of horrible PR.
[+] [-] notacoward|9 years ago|reply
Actually no, it was Republic who did that. United definitely screwed up, but not in that particular way.
[+] [-] drivingmenuts|9 years ago|reply
As a passenger, I am not there to solve a problem for the airline. Their failure to have a crew somewhere else is not my problem to solve.
[+] [-] sergiocarnitas|9 years ago|reply
1) That United could have him removed to begin with. Call this the social issue.
2) That he was removed violently. Call this the physical issue.
It's because these things are combined that we get the outrage we're feeling now.
Police interact violently with people all the time. Often it gets overlooked because they were doing something wrong to cause it.
People also get removed from flights all the time, but usually it gets ignored because we can't see their frustration as easily as we could see blood on Mr. Dao's face.
United is absolutely responsible for the social issue, but I don't agree that they're responsible for the physical one. The police should have explored other options that didn't involve violence in order to get him off of the plane.
At the point Mr. Dao was at, he was essentially trespassing on United's plane (not something I agree should be the case, but the way that I understand the policies of the airlines' governing body, that is the way it is looked at once they decide he should leave).
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] y4mi|9 years ago|reply
probably an article by the united PR department.
[+] [-] msimpson|9 years ago|reply
> But this whole nightmare occurred because a "deadheading"...
> But let's put the blame squarely where it belongs: on the Chicago airport security officers.
Way to scapegoat airport security, Les. Next time just blame the victim outright.
I'm sure Dao deserved it because he was perpetrating a sit-in protest without a permit on private property. Right?
[+] [-] charles-salvia|9 years ago|reply
"Empty seats cost the airlines money, and they need to recoup those losses somehow."
What does this mean? The issue here is overbooked seats. If a seat is physically empty during the flight because the passenger just doesn't show up, the airline doesn't lose any money - the ticket/seat is still (pre)paid for. Overbooking is simply a way for the airlines to make extra money on top of what they would normally make, gambling on some percentage of customers not showing up for the flight.
So, is the airline industry operating on such a slim margin that giving up the practice of overbooking would force airlines to take noticeably drastic cost-cutting measures?
[+] [-] grecy|9 years ago|reply
Your logic is perfectly reasonable and sound, and it took me many years of working for Big Corp (TM) to understand that is simply not how a big corporation thinks.
Once they have a revenue stream, anything that diminishes it is a "loss", even if that revenue stream was kind of fake or invented anyway.
The massive company I worked for was making millions per week from something that was accidental and they shouldn't have been. But it went on for so long, they got so attached to it (those millions looked great on year-end reports) that soon any talk of "fixing" the problem was referred to as a "revenue loss" and it was completely unacceptable to the business, unless your proposed change kept the revenue.
[+] [-] nxc18|9 years ago|reply
Air travel is fantastically expensive and we all want it to be cheaper than it really is. This is one of the ways that is done (people who don't show up pay for other people and displaced passengers move to underfilled flights).
The practice is annoying, but I think with the exception of bungled reqccomodation is a net plus for the consumer.
[+] [-] cm2012|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] usaphp|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rchowe|9 years ago|reply
The insidious part of it is that on more complex itineraries, the regional jet segments are priced rather low. I've flown from Montreal to Dallas-Fort Worth to Tokyo multiple times on American Airlines, and each time the ticket shows the cost of the business class YUL-DFW segment to be $232. If I was IDB'd from that segment (which also wouldn't happen to business class passengers without some major extenuating circumstances), all I would be legally required to be paid would be $232 * 4 = $928. I've seen economy fares on regional jet flights on complex itineraries of about $50, so the legal requirement to deny boarding to that passenger would be $200 cash.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nerdponx|9 years ago|reply