Questions raised by the United incident
The world seems to be abuzz about the passenger-ejection incident on United.
Why did this tap into so much reaction? One reason is that a lot of people are fed up with crowded airplanes, long lines, the TSA (which probably was not a prime mover in this particular event), and what seems like arbitrary behavior by airlines. Whether these incidents are common or not in your experience depends on how often you fly, on what routes, and on what airlines.
My personal opinion is that United handled it stupidly and should have offered more money for the switch, and probably would have gotten some volunteers. But I also think that airlines must reserve the right to remove unruly or uncooperative passengers.
Note that last bit: uncooperative. When you get on an airplane, unfortunately you temporarily surrender some rights. I say “temporarily” because you don’t actually surrender your liberty or your rights: you can always sue the airline later if they’ve mistreated you or treated you unfairly. But in the moment, the need to preserve some sort of order on the plane takes precedent. It’s a question of common sense, too, as in dealing with a police stop.
In other words, if they tell you you have to get off a plane, you better get off the plane and iron it out later. Oh, you can object, and you can say why you need to get to your destination. You can certainly plead your case. But if the answer is “No, you must deplane,” don’t make them drag you off.
Because what else would you recommend they do with a passenger who won’t get off when the airline says he/she must? The airline’s request may have been arbitrary, or even wrong and unjustified, but once the passenger has stood his or her ground in the face of it, that passenger has demonstrated the potential to be a problem once the plane is in the air.
You may not like it. I certainly don’t like it. But I consider that when I’m flying I have temporarily surrendered at least some of my autonomy, and the airline, its employees, and the TSA become the bosses for a while. If they say remove my shoes in line, I do. If they say I have to get off a plane (and fortunately they’ve never said it), I do. If they say I must change seats (also fortunately something I’ve never been asked to do) I’ll do it. I might and probably would protest and explain why it’s a bad idea, but if they insist, I’m going to do it. I’ll try to get them to pay the consequences later.
There’s a limit. I wouldn’t hurt another passenger if they asked. I wouldn’t commit a crime. But any request that’s in their bailiwick is something with which I’ll probably be complying, although not without protest and not without a later attempt to get legal or financial redress.
The bottom line is that airlines must be able to determine who stays on that plane and who leaves. If an airline’s actions in doing so are unfair or unreasonable, iron it out later, if necessary by a lawsuit. The airline should never need to physically hurt someone unless that person is physically resisting to the point of combat. But sometimes people will need to be carried out forcibly, and that is the airline’s decision. Uncooperative passengers are potentially a problem later on, and if the airline doesn’t want to risk that possibility it doesn’t have to. But the airline will bear the consequences for how it treats that person if the decision was a bad one or if it was handled badly—the PR consequences, the economic consequences, and the legal consequences.
A little background—about 30 years ago, my husband was on a plane on which a passenger (who apparently had either been drinking or doing some drugs) became unruly and somewhat aggressive while in flight. My husband was one of two or three passengers who rushed up to subdue the other passenger, holding him down in the aisle for the rest of the flight until after the plane landed. It was pretty harrowing, although we got a few free tickets from the airline afterward. Airlines are trying to prevent that sort of thing from happening, and they are trying to predict who might become unruly. Unless they’re throwing off people quite often (which does not appear to be the case with United), it’s a judgement call that’s sometimes not easy to make. Should they err on the side of caution or not? In the case of the recent United incident, once the man refused, and kept refusing—whether his refusal was reasonable or not, and whether the airline’s request had been reasonable or not—he became a potentially unruly and uncooperative passenger, and the airline had to make a decision about what to do.
My guess is that, once he dug in with his refusal, it seems to have become an issue not just of bumping the guy off the flight, but also of how to deal with a noncompliant passenger. The airline may not have wanted to risk a further incident with him if they let him stay on the plane.
I don’t know the whole story of what actually happened here. But I do know that videos rarely tell the whole story.
And is this history of the passenger relevant? Perhaps not, and certainly not in the legal sense. What’s legally relevant is how each party behaved and why, and what are the rules about airline and passenger behavior in such circumstances. That remains to be determined here. And of course, intentionally roughing up a passenger who was passively resisting and not actively and physically belligerent would almost certainly be grounds for a successful lawsuit. The use of excessive force would not be justified, and that may have occurred in this incident.
The case has become a lightning rod for all the frustration people feel about other incidents they’ve witnessed or experienced in which they felt unjustly or disrespectfully treated while traveling. As for me, I remember when women almost never boarded airplanes in slacks but wore dresses instead, when there were almost always plenty of empty seats, and when everybody was almost unfailingly polite. These days are gone, gone, gone.
It’s about a five and a half hour drive from Ohare to Louisville.Even if this thing hadn’t gone gonzo, the reaccomodation expenses would have been considerably more than renting a car and popping for a value menu at McD’s for lunch. And, even presuming the United employees had already passed security, it’s a couple of hours sunk anyway. So, even if things had gone smoothly, the reaccomodation costs bought maybe two and a half hours for the employees.
Nutty decision.
I think the core thing that gets people is there is a basic belief that if an individual buys a product/service and then follows all the correct procedures and is now about to receive said service and then the provider comes along and says sorry that is really wrong on some level. Yes, most travelers get the whole overbooked dance but that doesn’t make it a good system in my opinion.
Plus, I think for some people the fact that this all had to happen because of the need to seat airline employees adds to the sense that the customer is far to down the line of priorities. So, yes, the guy should have gone along with things I can see the high level of outrage.
I had a delayed making a connection at Dulles once, thanks to United. I raced to my United flight to Newark only to have the door to the plan shut as I was walking down the jetway. They would not let me board. The door was shut when I was no more than 20 feet away! United could do nothing for me, of course.
No flight was offered to me until the afternoon the next day. I rented a car and drove home. screw United.
and they wonder why this incident struck a nerve with the flying public?
To add United says their employees are ‘must ride passengers’ because of their own bottom line but their customers are at the whim of the airline.
“Because what else would you recommend they do with a passenger who won’t get off when the airline says he/she must?” This, of course, is why the airline’s primary mistake was waiting until after the plane had boarded before deciding to jettison four passengers to make way for some United staff members. It’s one thing to refuse to permit a passenger to board — the airline can enforce that without roughing anyone up. It’s another to force a reluctant passenger to get off a crowded plane. How, indeed, are you going to do it? Pretty much, only by using physical violence like that used here. You can’t demand that people get off and then fail to follow through if they refuse — any parent knows that you’ll quickly lose all authority if you make threats you don’t intend to follow through on. But what happened here was a public relations disaster, whether or not the airline was within its legal rights. The airline should never have put itself in the position of having to enforce its demand that a reluctant and otherwise innocent passenger get off the plane.
Once passengers are on the plane, the airline should limit itself to paying passengers their asking price to encourage them to get back off it. It’s too late to use force to compel them to do so. Otherwise, the airline ends up in the mess that this one’s in, with what looks like a slam-dunk lawsuit coming their way and who knows how much future lost business from other fed-up passengers.
My guess is that, once he dug in with his refusal, it seems to have become an issue not just of bumping the guy off the flight, but also of how to deal with a noncompliant passenger. The airline may not have wanted to risk a further incident with him if they let him stay on the plane.
Right, and now in hindsight knowing he doesn’t see patients?
I commented yesterday briefly, but thought to bring up one point now. In about 4-5 weeks, I will reach my Million Mile (actually flown) mark on United. I’ve been on the road for 20 years or so.
Do I like United? Not really, but they’re not much better or worse than any one else (except maybe Southwest – they are pretty good). But over the miles, I’ve found that passengers tend to be worse. The worst of the worst are frequent flyers. (Ok – I utterly DEPSISE the TSA, but manage to get through without stress most weeks.)
You don’t have to like the rules, but you do have to follow them. As Neo has written above, there are reasons for them.
How is this a different situation from a guy getting pulled over by a cop, giving them grief and then getting hurt? Yes, you may be inconvenienced, you may be treated unfairly, you may be right and the other guys wrong, but these are situations where you must obey lawful commands from a given authority figure. Then, complain later.
If I saw the guy throw a fit and be allowed to remain on, I would be concerned! Listen – the guy was the same as everyone else on the plane – tired and wanting to get home. But not everyone would have acted that way.
I’ve seen a lot, been inconvenienced, disgusted, upset, etc. But we’re all responsible for our own behavior, and this guy was wrong in his actions.
Now, everyone hates the airlines. I get it. But I hear people bitch and whine about everything, blaming the airlines for weather, etc. People go way overboard in getting upset and blaming them. I don’t consider myself an airlines apologist, but rather a realist when viewing my fellow passengers and THEIR dreadful behaviors.
And I will be SHOCKED if my flights get any less crowded. I’ll let you all know in a couple of months (since i split between UAL and SW due to flight schedules).
“This, of course, is why the airline’s primary mistake was waiting until after the plane had boarded before deciding to jettison four passengers to make way for some United staff members.” – Mrs Whatsit
Oh, you make too much sense!
Once it became clear they reached an impasse, might have been better off to deplane everyone and start over, and allow things to settle.
Then if the guy still refuses to leave the plane, there’d be better grounds for using the force they did. And, it would be less risk to the surrounding passengers.
Too many bad decisions going all around, particularly by people who are supposed to be trained in handling these situations, and who seemed to let it escalate.
This is not a once in a lifetime event for the airline, after all.
‘pulled over by a cop’
Well the assumption is the driver has committed some sort of infraction whereas this guy had not until they removed him for no reason. I don’t excuse the guys behavior but to just say ‘oh well tough break’ is unacceptable to me. And for me his past is totally meaningless and the excuses he used are as well. He bought a service and followed all the rules and was about to receive that service and then they randomly said no. That’s not right.
@Julia – the common thread is that each are dealing with the public, and they should have the training, procedures and guidelines on how to handle these situations.
It is their everyday job.
We’d all love the public to be all reasonable, agreeable, and compliant, but it just isn’t so.
.
It doesn’t mean whatsoever that the passenger’s actions are righteous, to say that the airline seemingly mishandled this.
If he was clearly threatening (something we have not heard so far), then of course.
If they were “worried” of him potentially to be threatening or violent, then why the heck did they leave passengers in the surrounding seats? Makes no sense.
Again, just poor judgement on display.
The more the airlines [or government] tries to make us safe the more liberties they take away. This is just a fact of life now. It’s not one I like. I’d gladly do away with the TSA if I could but I am in the minority.
For me, what this tapped into isn’t my frustration about air travel, but my fear that violence is becoming increasingly acceptable in our society. I expect glitches and misunderstandings in my business dealings, but I don’t expect to have my nose bloodied. If that can happen in a U.S. airport, at the hands of airport officials, not because of a crisis but just because someone was disobedient, and then that violence is defended by the firm’s CEO, it seems we are all even more vulnerable than we realized.
This is an interesting analysis:
How Algorithms and Authoritarianism Created a Corporate Nightmare at United – Global Guerrillas
This incident is a pretty good example of how rigid algorithmic and authoritarian decision making can create corporate disasters in an age dominated by social networking.
Algorithms
Here’s how the algorithmic decision making created the incident on United.
United employees board a full flight from Chicago to Louisville. A United flight crew headed to Louisville arrives at the gate at the last moment. A corporate scheduling algorithm decides that the deadheading flight crew has priority over passenger fares and that it needs to remove four passengers to make room for them (the flight wasn’t overbooked).
United asks for volunteers. A corporate financial algorithm authorizes gate employees to offer passengers up to $800 to take a later flight (offering a bigger incentive wasn’t an option). No passenger takes them up on that offer.
United now shifts to removing passengers from the flight non-voluntarily. To determine who gets removed from the aircraft, United runs a customer value algorithm. This algorithm calculates the value of each passenger based on frequent flyer status, the price of the ticket, connecting flights, etc. The customers with the lowest value to United are flagged for removal from the flight (it wasn’t a random selection).
Authoritarianism
Here’s how authoritarian decision making (common on modern air travel) made things worse. Note how this type of decision making escalates the problem rapidly.
The United flight crew approaches the four passengers identified by the corporate algorithm and tells them to deplane. Three of the people designated get off the flight as ordered. One refuses. Since disobeyal of instructions from the flight crew is not tolerated in post 9/11 air travel, the incident is escalated to the next level.
Lots of people calling for a boycott. Wondering if UAL sees a decline in revenues in 2q.
The afflicted passenger is an ex-con… previous drug addict… pretty common for doctors, BTW.
So, I’d be willing to bet that he’d started having prison flash-backs.
He is reportedly STILL shaken up about events.
Plainly, United punched his hot button.
I also would not put it past him to be using drugs at this time, as his wife has wide open access. She’s a licensed MD.
He lost his, and is only now nearing his ability to practice medicine, again.
Julia, you exemplary road warrior, thanks for sharing your insights. Outstanding comment.
One thing I do know from having been a pilot is that irregularities for crew members occur. Sometimes a crew misses their normal deadhead flight and arrives just in time to catch a later one. They arrive at the gate and the passenger service rep knows they are must rides. But the airplane is already loaded and full. 🙁 The account by John Robb of how the airline’s algorithms work sounds about right to me. The airlines have been using computer algorithms to manage their operations for a long time. It has taken the personal touch and common sense judgment out of the equation. For the passenger service rep this situation would have required great tact, self control, wisdom, and luck to have had it work out better.
The passenger service reps and other flight attendants are trained to be as warm and friendly as possible, but I just talked with one who is currently working, and believe me, she is burned out. She detests the way many passengers behave and would quit but has two more years before she qualifies for her retirement. So, she is holding on. Everyone, both employees and passengers, have their stories.
I have a few stories of belligerent passengers on board some of my flights. Fortunately, none of them required any physical force to resolve. But then people weren’t nearly as entitled acting then as today.
One of the most truthful comments about this that I’ve seen was that we will all boycott United – unless they have the lowest fare or most convenient flight times.
Julia:
Please let me know if UAL cuts prices.
With all due respect to the proprietress of this blog, I think neo-neocon had it right in her first post on this subject. The reality that 99% of the passengers on the plane have devices in their hands that can record image and sound should have informed United employees’ behavior here. $500,000,000 is a lot of money to lose in one day. Even if they were in the right, and the passenger was a goof, they could have gotten to the same result without a 3% decrease in stock price. The customer is always right. Even when the customer is wrong.
Well, as usual the initial reports did not tell the whole story. The implication was that this MD had a professional need to get to Louisville that superseded that of anyone else. We have learned that is highly unlikely.
I have no love for UAL and will not try to defend them. I will mention a couple of things. I will defend the flight crew. This was not their responsibility. The ground crew was in charge at this point. News reports said the flight was “over sold”. I don’t know that there is evidence of that–we do know it was full. We don’t know when UAL realized that they needed to get that crew (or maybe it was mechanics–I have not seen any report of why they needed to make that flight) to Louisville, and we do not know how many people would be inconvenienced if they did not get there.
We have no idea what occurred on the plane before the phones came out and started videoing the terrible scene. We do not know why the company personnel called in airport security; and we do not know why the security personnel reacted as strongly as they did.
While there is no forgiving the incident, we got a distorted story in the beginning; and there is no reason to believe that we have a complete and accurate account at this moment.
I assume that people who complain about the inconvenience of air travel are not old enough to actually remember the “good old days” before deregulation. Air travel was very pleasant. Both the airlines and the passengers treated it like a special occasion. On the other hand, flight options were quite limited; and competition was virtually non-existent. It was also so expensive that few could afford to travel by air very often, if at all; unless someone else paid. The only reason that I could afford to fly for personal reasons was that the airlines gave very generous military discounts for standby status–and planes were seldom full.
The old adage, “you get what you pay for” was never more applicable. It is true that the experience is now generally unpleasant in every aspect; it is also true the it is unbelievably cheap. A significant part of the deteriorating experience is the sheer numbers of people who want to fly; and who can now afford to. I have more hours in airplanes, front and back, than I can count. Now, I will not fly if I can avoid it; but, it is not necessarily the fault of the airlines. The whole air travel environment, from road traffic around major airports, to the end game at the final destination, has deteriorated.
I would also think twice about a flying career in today’s environment. If it is any solace, I have one friend who just retired as a Captain with a major airline. Over the last five years, he could tell you to the minute how much longer he had left. Another, younger friend, Captain with one of the more respected airlines, is in the latter stages of that same countdown. No one, not even they, are enjoying air travel today.
so the lesson is if you don’t get what you wanted, make a scene, throw a tantrum, if the video goes viral the world will love you for being a justice fighter and you can be rewarded millions in the court of law.
Dave, that’s an illogical conclusion based on the facts of this event, as we currently know them.
First, UAL boarded all the passengers. Then they started asking for folks to volunteer to take tomorrow’s flight with the offer or a voucher worth a certain dollar amount.
UAL set the rules of the game. If you had paid for a ticket and been boarder and were comfortably in your seat and a flight attendant got on the PA and said, “We just had a few employees show up, and they want to go to Louisville too. Who will give up his seat to accomodate them?” Would you pleasantaly get up, grab your belongings and spend an extra night in Chicago?
No. No one who paid money for their ticket would. So you wouldn’t do it voluntarily.
Would you do it for money? Maybe. If the price were right. We also know the price offered wasn’t right for any single passenger who find him or herself in that situation. Whatever the offer, it did not appeal to anyone. Likely over 100 individuals.
A lot may or may not have happened before and after the video we’ve seen, but we do know that all passengers who react on the video react negatively to how the passenger is being treated. As I wrote earlier, we have seen videos of passengers cheering when rude passengers are removed. No one is cheering. No one seems happy.
Well, I complain about air travel and I am also old enough to remember the “good ole days” before deregulation.
Let me tell you about one of my journeys way back in 1975.
I was in the Navy and was transferring from Guam to San Diego. I also had 3 weeks leave so my initial journey was from Guam to my home in Louisville. The flight from Guam to Honolulu was a military flight and was without incident – well, except for that whole crossing the international date line and about 10 hours of jet lag thing. I had a layover in Honolulu of about 12 hours and then caught a flight that was going to Chicago via Los Angeles. It was a Boeing 747, and it was full.
That flight left Honolulu and flew to LA. AT LA, the stop was about an hour. I didn’t even get off the plane. Here’s the thing. All but 12 fellow passengers *did* get off the plane. So I flew from LA to Chicago on a nearly empty 747. Let me tell you, that was an experience. (I think there were more crew members than passengers.)
We all got moved up to the very spacious 1st class section where I was seated next to this very cute girl who kept trying to chat me up. Unfortunately, I was so exhausted and so jet lagged from the trip so far that I couldn’t stay awake to save my life.
We actually arrived in Chicago earlier than scheduled and and that meant that I was able to get on an earlier flight to Louisville and home.
This was before deregulation and the hub-&-spoke system we have now. Apparently they had to get the plane and crew to Chicago even if it was empty of paying passengers.
Yeah, those were the days.
…Oh yeah, I forgot to add. The airline was United.
A major impediment to sorting this situation out peacefully was the $800 limit on a payoff. Keep raising the ante and at some point people would be lining up. A few thousand bucks per person would do it. United limited the payout to save money. Ill bet they will be rethinking their limit.
He wasn’t just holding up the plane he was on, but pretty much the whole airline since these flights are all interconnected, the 4 flight attendants who needed to catch their flights will all have all those flights and their passengers delayed, the affected could be up to thousands. There is a reason why airline staffs have seating priority over paying customers. This incident worries me because once again emotions will triumph over logic, because most liberal thinkers will blindly take the side of the doctor without thinking over the logic behinds the rules. Perhaps obstructing passengers like this doctor were responsible for the poor customer services experienced by the frequent commuters of united, not necessary the airline itself.
United’s contract of carriage is 37,286 words long.
In other words, no paying customer knows the rules.
Roy, how well I remember those days. On nearly empty flights they would put the arm rests up so you could lie down, bring a pillow and blanket, and if in uniform as many free drinks as you wanted.
united are idiots but a simpler way to look at it is the plane is their property and part of their business. Your on their property.
This is also why the left will have fun with it. Chipping away at the concept of private property rights. With lots of crossover support from those fed up with flying…
SLR:
However, if you question why facebook or twitter has the authority to censor Conservative views they would answer you that private companies can adopt whatever policies they choose to, blah blah blah. I am pretty much done with concerning myself of politics, it’s all about who has the bigger gun in the media. When you question the morality of an issue they defend their actions with legality, when you question the legality of an issue they defend their actions with morality.
Some further observations:
1. The best solution would have been to have never let this guy into the country in the first place (legal immigrant from Vietnam). All in all, he has proved himself to be a net drain on the country.
2. The method by which the “doctor” was removed from the plane (the airport security guy holding his wrists and dragging him out on his ass) was improper. There are at least two other techniques that are more effective, and not so visually dramatic.
3. As a legal matter, United could argue that airport security and the Chicago PD have responsibility for this. As with any other business, you may call the police, but what the police end up doing is out of your control. It’s also unclear how the “doctor” got back onto the plane after he was removed, but that may be a failure of security.
4. Sometime in the future, someone else will have to be removed from an airplane. And an airline needs to have the ability to remove someone from a plane, for ANY reason whatsoever. Without that, a difficult business becomes even more chaotic.
5. Boycotts of United or the like won’t work. Because with air travel, it will always come down to the price of the ticket, and the time and availability of the flight.
6. In regard to how this is handled, it is important not to end up demoralizing the airline staff. Things will go wrong, and mistakes will happen. That is inevitable in dealing with many people in a complex system of transportation. The worst situation is for the staff to know that they are getting yelled at by the customers, for things out of their control, while at the same time, they have no support.
Interesting how this has taken on a racial component. Guy complained at the time. Apparently the Chinese are up in arms, but I understand that the guy is from Vietnam.
While it is true that when we fly, we surrender some of our autonomy, we do so with the inferred understanding that the airlines and flight crews are granted this authority to ensure the safety of the plane, flight crew and other passenger, and it won’t be used in an arbitrary or capricious fashion. While the removal of these four passengers was legitimate, at the most basic/visual level the removal appeared as an echo of Rosa Parks; these four people were removed so that four more important people could occupy those seats. To say that this was handled poorly is an understatement.
In the last thread, I made a comment about how the airline/security let Dr. Dao back on the plane. That comment was snarky but it wasn’t a joke. For one thing, had security not let the doctor back on the plane, this incident probably would not have received the kind of coverage it did; all we would have seen was a video of a man being forcefully removed from a plane, and perhaps learned some more details afterward. Instead, the remaining passengers get to see that man walk back on the plane with a bloody face and disoriented, like he took a(?) blow to the head. (My personal guess is that while security was wrestling with him on the jetway and he fell and smacked his head on one of the side grab bars.) The big problem, however, is that security lost control of the situation; and in the process could have, potentially, put the airliner’s crew and other passengers in danger. As it stands, this incident still forced the airline to shut the flight down, deplane all of the passengers and delay the flight so they could treat the doctor’s injuries and clean the plane up. I also wonder if this lack of professionalism contributed to the rapid escalation to physical violence.
The most troubling thing I find about this is the publishing of the doctor’s history. The doctor’s past has no bearing on the events that transpired and, as is usual in circumstances like this, the information was incomplete, conflicting and even inaccurate. The publishing served only one purpose and that was serve as fodder to dehumanize the doctor (who was already an unsympathetic actor in this incident.) Some of that dehumanization took place on this very thread.
KRB
‘think the core thing that gets people is there is a basic belief that if an individual buys a product/service and then follows all the correct procedures and is now about to receive said service and then the provider comes along and says sorry that is really wrong on some level.’
A service is promised and then withheld? That is called fraud. It is wrong on every level.
If you have preordered the latest iphone, but apple messed up the order and couldn’t give you another one on the date they promised, is it reason enough for you to make a scene at an apple store? They have refunded back the fare to him with an additional $800, what more should the airline compensate him? delaying a service he paid is a lot different than not giving him a service at all why are people not using logic?
is it okay for a passenger to throw a fit in the airport if his flight was delayed? because by condoning the behavior of this madman you are just saying acting irrationally when someone couldn’t get his service he had paid on time is perfectly fine and understandable.
The sordid past history of that “doctor” is relevant in that it helps to explain his behavior during that entire incident. And after reading the official report on him from the Kentucky medical licensing board, no sane person would ever want to have anything to do with him. It is very disturbing.
New video of that incident is also out there, covering that period of time when the police are trying to talk with him, if you care to look for it.
As for the future? No matter what policy changes are made, similar incidents will happen, as that is the nature of things. As to the final cost of this incident, it’s very likely that all of that will be made up later on by slightly higher ticket prices, just as Delta is going to find one way or another to make up its $125 million in losses for weather-related cancellations. An airline, like any other business, exists to make money (and airlines, unlike retail stores or hotels or restaurants, for instance, are what is called an oligopoly).
Sorry to have to put it this way, but anyone who takes a flight will end up paying for this (maybe not right off, but eventually).
Just for comparison’s sake
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2017/04/12/flying-blind/
It just get’s better
https://thelibertyzone.us/2017/04/12/united-can-eat-a-bag-of-dicks/
Sorry about that title…she swears a bit.
Sorry about that apostrophe too…sloppy typing.
you can call me a slave, I have no problem with a big corporation treating customers like s**t, if facebook can treat their customers like s**t and the left praise them for that why can’t United treat customers like s***, conservatives get censored and bumped by facebook all the time.
All I am begging for is some consistency, if you condemn Trump for doing something then at least have the moral consistency to condemn Obama for doing the exact same thing. I don’t actually mind censoring or special measures to keep a certain hate speeches out of the media all I am asking is treating both sides fairly, apply the same standards to right as to the left, favoring one side for being on the same team as you is why people distrust the MSM.
Yes. Airline employees are not slaves either; anymore than that young waitress who the aging biddy tries to feed her spite off of with petty demands.
And no one is preventing mentally disturbed, morally dysfunctional, entitled-attitude neurotic pieces of work from flying. If they have it within their powers to do so unassisted they should have at it.
I suggest they start flapping their arms as fast as possible, rather than their gums; as there’s probably an equal chance of their lifting off in either case.
One of the more remarkable features of this debate is how some ostensibly “libertarian types” have begun shouting about authoritarian attitudes without demonstrating the slightest interest in the actual contract they have consented to, and the reciprocal nature of the right of refusal and distancing.
Then, it’s all about their needs and wants, and you might as well be talking to some Marxist bureaucrat cynically deploying bleeding heart rhetoric.
Pretty amazing.
His checkered background is definitely relevant, because he had no problem playing the “Do you know who am I, I am a doctor, I am so mighty and important that you can’t request me to deplane” card If he can’t his medical credential to get special treatment, then why can’t people question his credibility and state of emotion during the incident based on his troubled past. This man is felon with serious anger issues why can he still practice medicine, was he pardoned by Obama or something?
Yes. The moment he began acting out as he did, his motives for his behavior, as revealed by his established moral character, became perfectly relevant.
He’s nothing but a bag of trouble stinking the place up wherever he goes.
I have not yet seen one commentator in the media commenting on this incident touched upon a point which to me is the root of this whole fiasco, why was it essential for an airline to have the authority to bump any paying passengers in favor of their own employees? because having the flexibility to rearranging its resources to accommodate any unpredictable challenges that might arise at any given moment is essential for an airline to function. just for example if a pilot of an international flight has fallen ill, the airline has to have the means to get his replacement there ASAP or a few hundred people will be affected. The angry mob only focus on this DOCTOR and his inconvenience but no one seems to care about the inconvenience he might have caused to thousands of people because his refusal to deplane.
“The most troubling thing I find about this is the publishing of the doctor’s history. The doctor’s past has no bearing on the events that transpired and, as is usual in circumstances like this, the information was incomplete, conflicting and even inaccurate. The publishing served only one purpose and that was serve as fodder to dehumanize the doctor (who was already an unsympathetic actor in this incident.) Some of that dehumanization took place on this very thread.” – KRB
That is an alinsky tactic – character assassination.
IF the airline KNEW that info ahead of time AND it was a factor in their selecting this guy, then it might be relevant.
There’s been no indication this was so.
The info is only used by those who think this is merely about the passenger’s misbehavior and want to justify their call on it, deflecting from the airline’s clear abuse of its right.
Who knows if there ever is a situation where these folks would push back against a perceived unfair treatment. Pretty sure they’d acquiesce and do what they were told, simply because someone else says its “the rules”, and they wouldn’t want to be a “troublemaker” or a “whiner”.
Fortunately, there are enough people in this world who see it for what it is.
Dao sues…
http://www.christianpost.com/news/dr-david-dao-to-sue-united-airlines-after-suffering-from-broken-nose-losing-two-front-teeth-180432/
Let’s hope the eventual judge also “discounts” any award to represent HIS contribution to the escalation, and it doesn’t become a “lottery win”.
Probably would be settled out of court anyway, as United would like to, smartly, put it behind them.