Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
The guy dragged off the United Airlines flight now claims he was selected because of his race, which is discrimination. Is that why he was having hysterics on the plane?
The guy’s response seemed disproportional. You don’t want to be the guy forced off the plane, I get that. But seriously, what’s the downside? You call your work and tell them the story. Are they really going to fire you over it? If it’s that big of a deal that you be there to perform the brain surgery, see if they can’t get you another flight instead of a hotel room or rent a car and drive. Don’t act like a special snowflake, that’s for college kids.
On the other hand, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the airline kicked paying passengers off the flight so they could transport a flight crew who needed to be at the destination location to fly a later flight. This was not a disruptive passenger, it was not even an overbooking situation, the passengers were booted off the plane entirely for the airline’s convenience. The airline could have canceled that later flight for lack of a flight crew but it would have cost a boatload of money. More than $800? So offer more money. If they got up to a grand or two, somebody would have taken the bait. And if not, for that kind of money, they could have hired a private charter to haul the flight crew.
It’s Chicago to Louisville, for crying out loud. It’s a one-hour flight or a 5 hour drive. For the amount of bad publicity the airline is getting, they could have hired a limo to drive the crew.
And for the CEO to go public claiming the passenger was removed because he was disruptive is pure bull. He was removed because the airline was too cheap to transport its own flight crew at market prices, i.e., what the paying passengers would accept to give up their seats.
The airline acted brutally and stupidly. It deserves all the bad publicity it can get. I’d start with Congress considering legislation that paying passengers cannot be bumped by non-paying passengers (flight crew, family, airline mile redeemers, etc). Nobody else gets this kind of preferential business model. Why should airlines?
Joe Doakes
Post-script – or, actually, two post-scripts.
First – whenever the “Free market” does somethingi stupid, or especially something brutal, always look to see if government is the real reason. The answer, almost invariably, is “yes”.
Government regulations forbid paying premiums of greater than four times the original ticket price – to a maximum of $1350, to passengers who get bumped.
Why?
And the post-9/11 environment of security theater means that episodes that used to be simple customer service disagreements and even misunderstandings are now law enforcement episodes, and even federal crimes. Thus, the Chicago Airport Police were involved with what should have been a negotiation between passengers and a gate agent – before boarding. Of course, being Chicago cops, someone just had to “fall”…
You have the government regs wrong Mitch.
Regarding involuntary bumping:
“If the substitute transportation is scheduled to get you to your destination more than two hours later (four hours internationally)… the compensation [is] 400% of your one-way fare, $1350 maximum”
So it doesn’t forbid anything; it mandates payment to a cap.
So, let me point out that this passenger, David Dao, has been a bit of a trouble maker before his 15 minutes of fame.
He was convicted of multiple felonies for writing fraudulent prescriptions for controlled substances and was sexually involved with a patient.
Did he deserve the rough treatment? Maybe not (from the videos that I saw, it does look like he fell against the armrest as he struggled with the officers), but when both an airport security officer and a police officer both ask you to leave the plane, just get your ass up and get off the freaking plane! It’s way easier to cooperate and sort it out later.
I read that federal law but are we certain it applies? It talks about people denied boarding because the flight is overbooked which, to me, means “we sold too many tickets.”
Does that law apply when the airline sold the correct amount of tickets, people already have boarded, and then the airline decides to let the CEO’s wife and kids fly for free?
Airlines must sell more tickets than seats because not all passengers show up and we don’t want to fly an empty plane. Right off, that’s questionable. If you got paid for every seat on the plane, fly it empty. You got paid.
Letting airlines overbook is not an economic necessity, it’s a way to improve profits by double-selling the same product. When that happens, one paying customer gets to fly and the other paying customer gets a voucher for a later flight. Sucks, but okay, that’s the law.
The issue I’m focused on is whether it applies to let late-arrival non-paying customers bump paying customers who already have been seated. Seems to me that situation is fundamentally different. Here, you’re not choosing between two paying customers and sweetening the pot for the loser; you’re choosing between a paying customer and some random person. In that situation, the price of my ticket should be whatever I can scalp it for.
I think the airline intentionally shunted the conversation onto this “overbook” track because it favors the airline. It’s like Susan Rice talking about an internet video. Everybody is talking about the wrong thing.
Of course, I’m no expert. I could be completely wrong. Maybe the overbooking law does apply to this situation. Maybe if the CEO shows up with his three mistresses, the airline can boot off four first-class passengers and give them limited-use, black-out day, coach only, restricted zone vouchers. If that’s the situation, Congress ought to reconsider the law.
Article today says UA actually violated the contract of passage by allowing “involuntary denial of boarding” only BEFORE the plane is boarded. Not after. I’ll bet that somewhere lawyers are scrambling to get a piece of this plum lawsuit that will cost UA WAY more than they could have ever offered, and probably already has cost them in negative publicity. Somebody assumed too much authority for themselves. Selecting passengers “at random” is bound to get you the same good result as picking lottery numbers at random. You’re likely to lose.
Boss, what does Dao’s prior history from over ten years ago has to do with this particular incident? It is a rhetorical question of course, because the answer is zero, zilch, nada, nothing. Any other answer would be absurd. I threw tantrums as a child, so by golly I should be branded for life as a trouble maker and dragged off the plane!
Apparantly, United did violate a statute, or a policy. If a paying passenger is evicted, he/she/it is supposed to be given in WRITING the rules and regulations which describe the actions, as well as a reason for being evicted. It is quite obvious this did not happen.
Apparently a recording exists (I heard it on the drive home yesterday, so it must be true) which caught United personnel talking during the random selection process. It went something like this:
_____________________________
Lakeesha Brown – no, cannot randomize her, the BLM folks will shut the airline down quicker than you can say “Hands Up Don’t Shoot”.
Mohammed Akbar – nope, cannot randomize him either. CAIR will be all up in arms with shouts of islamophobia, and who knows what ISIS will do in retaliation.
David Dao – Hey, that sounds like an Asian name. They never put up a fight. We can count on him to go quietly.
And last but not least – I am stuck. Since moving to TX, I don’t have a realistic choice. I have to fly the friendly skies. Sigh…
jpa: I flew last week in and out of TX last week on SouthWest. Nothing wrong with them.
The guy should have given up the seat, but how disruptive was it to his practice? How many patients have to make specific transportation arrangements to make it to the appointment? How many need to see the Dr. NOW in order to get the lifelong prescription renewed, since the government doesn’t recognize that some people will need this drug forever, not requiring an annual review?
whenever the “Free market” does something stupid,
It is an extreme stretch to call the airline industry a “free market”. It is a cartel. Thanks to government regulators standing by as 2 or three companies consumed the competition and divided up the countries airports between them.
Loren, Southwest does not fly where I usually travel – off the continent. Sometimes around the world in one trip. But yes, we use them when we can.
Dao regained his license in 2016. I am sure he was more than a little sensitive to his ability to see his patients. Having a Dr. in the family, I am very cognizant what it takes to run a practice and the importance of scheduling patents and seeing them on time. Rescheduling patients is never, ever easy.
Although now, arguably, Dao may never have to see another patient as long as he lives. His payout this year will likely be more than that of Munoz.
Speaking of Munoz – irony of ironies! He will be honored in May as a best PR news communicator of the year. You cannot make this stuff up.
Someone said yesterday:
You get all the service you’d expect from a cartel, and the occasional beating you’d expect from a police state.
Now someone will give us a big long lecture about how the airline industry could not possibly be organized any differently than it is.
My view on this is really simple; get them a limo or tickets on another airline. A quick search found a TON of flights between ORD and Louisville. United has got tone-deafness down here, no matter what we find about what really happened or the character (or lack thereof) of Dr. Dao.
According to the rules, regulations and even the law, Dao was in the wrong (funny how those rules and laws were written to benefit the airline). You ARE required to give up you seat at the airline’s behest. That said, in this era of people routinely being jerked around by airlines and TSA and all the other indignities we accept in order to cross the country in less than one day, there’s some automatic sympathy for someone who says, “I am Spartacus” (“When just one man says, ‘No, I won’t,’ Rome began to fall.”)
Dao could be charged with a felony (by the authorities, not United). It will be interesting if this actually ends in a trial. A jury of his peers (airline travelers) could wind up with a jury nullification result (and then Rome will really begin to fall).
A court will decide if Dao was in the wrong (if UAL stupidly lets it go that far).
Dao won’t be charged with a felony (because he didn’t commit one) The airport police department said the cop did not follow department procedures. I hope the cop gets fired.
The airlines need to revise their systems so that their crew scheduling systems communicates with their reservations system, or at very least their gate boarding positions about seats needed to deadhead crew members. The gate agent needs to be aware that seats are needed for deadheads before boarding passengers. The first the gate employee learns of the deadhead need should not be 4 crew showing up at the gate, after the plane has been loaded.
Night Writer – can you help me find an answer to my 8:10 question? Are we sure this is the right law for this situation?
Let me argue by analogy. A policeman shoots a kid dead while dozens film. He says “I’m allowed to shoot felons who are trying to kill me.” True, the law does say that and we could spend days discussing cops who shot felons. But this kid was selling Girl Scout cookies door-to-door when teh cop walked up and shot her. The law the cop cites is not applicable to this situation.
I’m asking if we know for sure that this situation fell within the law the airline cited, or if the airline is like the cop defending himself by citing a law that doesn’t apply. Can anyone answer that question?
No story I read addresses this but it seems like the employees must have shown up at the last minute. Why would they have boarded the full plane if they knew before hand they had to boot four people for the deadheaders?
I can’t help you Mr. Doakes – I don’t even have a law book in my possession.
I do have a book of Dickens, though, in which I find, “The law is an ass.”
Let me help you:
The airline seems to think so, but it may come down to whether the company complied with government rules on what airlines must do when passengers are involuntarily bumped. The Transportation Department says airlines must “give all passengers who are bumped involuntarily a written statement describing their rights and explaining how the carrier decides who gets on an oversold flight and who doesn’t.” There’s no evidence United did that.
I think the excuse that Dao needed to see his patients the next morning is bogus. What would have happened if the flight was canceled or he was otherwise unable to take the flight? Would people have died?
Probably the kicker with the law is that when law gets involved in a situation like this, something has gone very wrong, and a degree of humility ought to be indulged even if the airline is completely innocent.
Mammuthus: Certainly lots of people had reasons they needed to be in Louisville on Monday morning. Maybe even something so slight as reporting for their $10/hour job. What would have happened with the deadhead flight crew if the flight was cancelled? Very few people who travel, even if on vacation, have much flexibility for day late arrivals.
Loren wrote:
Very few people who travel, even if on vacation, have much flexibility for day late arrivals.
That’s crazy, even if you are driving your own car, or flying your own plane.
MP, some background is in order. Dao only got his license back last year. He’s no doubt trying to rebuild his practice after his earlier “misadventures” (as my legal friends might say). As such, he risked what little positive reputation he had by being forced to reschedule his patients. From that extent alone I can see why a man under the stress of (re)forming his business under very trying circumstances might be very upset at being thrown off a plane despite already having a seat.
United is in the wrong here, and in the wrong in a big way and deserve everything they have coming to them. That’s part of the problem when you’re a big business with the force of the law behind you: you tend to lose sight of common sense, and lose every bit of common sense they did indeed.
Money doesn’t solve everything, but I have no doubt that it would have solved this problem, and at a far lower cost to United than they’ll wind up paying now. JD, care to put a ballpark estimate on what this is going to cost in calls to the legal department even if no suit is filed? I’m willing to bet that the legal consultation bills will be mid-to-upper six figures at a minimum, and that’s a lot more than it would have cost to bribe someone to give up their seat rather than relying on some strange sense of “f-the-customer, I’m in charge!”
I think the excuse that Dao needed to see his patients the next morning is bogus.
It does not matter if it is bogus or not. He was a paying passenger, flight was NOT oversold, and United flaunted protocol to kick him off the plane. Again, it seems United did not comply with government rules on what airlines must do when passengers are involuntarily bumped. in this case. There will be a lawsuit. United WILL lose or settle to make Dao a VERY rich man. I just hope I do not end up paying for this folly through increased ticket prices.
A company with a written dress code for employee passengers is not likely to empower it’s flight crew staff to think beyond the regulations.
jpa,
Point taken. I meant to and should have clarified that Dao’s past has nothing to do with the incident.
Having spent 12 years in the travel business, albeit before 9/11, I can tell you that airlines can make your life miserable. Post 9/11, flight crews have the power and are happy to fuck with you if you mess with them. In some cases, like the libidiot woman that was berating the Trump supporter, it’s a good thing, but I have witnessed some female flight attendants that abused their power in a big way. In one case, another passenger protested on behalf of a female passenger being thrown off a flight, only to find himself looking for another flight.
My point was the dude should have calmly asked for an explanation and cooperated with the cop. Sort everything out later.
I fly all the time. I had thought the airlines and government had already deployed every indignity possible on paying customers…I was wrong. I can’t say how I would react to someone telling me I had to give up my seat, for which I have a valid boarding pass gripped in my sweaty hand, because the airline screwed up. But I don’t think I’d have meekly stood up and shuffled off (oh, okee dokee); I KNOW I wouldn’t have screamed like a girl whatever else happened.
Still, I hope this guy sues the crap out of United.
Regarding the cost of being bumped, it’s worth noting that those earning $10/hour have the most to fear. Here’s why; hourly companies are increasingly going to “point” systems where you are allowed 20 points (say) per year, and you get points every absence–say 1 for an excusable, 2 for unexcused. Yes, it’s like elementary school again, and yes, you still get points if you have to stay home with a sick child, or when school is cancelled because of snow. Get to 20 points, no matter what the reasons, and you are fired for cause–and you become hard to employ in a small town. Four times the ticket price doesn’t make up for that and the foreclosure/etc., that will follow.
I would guess that Dr. Dao, while not hourly per se, was on a similarly short leash. Yes, he probably earned that short leash, but I can see how he’d take this badly.
From what I gather on the news this AM Dao has secured the services of a high-end attorney. I’d be willing to bet that United will settle out of court for an undisclosed amount of money, and that it’ll happen very quickly.
The plane was overbooked – No it wasn’t
He is a convicted felon – So what?
I don’t believe his excuse – Who cares?
An airline can do anything it wants to you on their plane – let’s see what the court says.
It might be another Dao who is the convicted felon:
There is presently confusion about whether the man on the United flight was actually David Thanh Duc Dao, quite possibly another person entirely to David Anh Duy Dao, the man with the criminal records.
A lot of people might owe Dr Dao a HUGH apology an a bunch of media outlets owe him libel awards.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/united-airlines-doctor-david-dao-drugs-gay-sex-court-documents-oscar-munoz-a7680221.html
I fly from Hawaii to the Twin Cities and back every year. That’s a minimum of two changes of planes each way, once at Honolulu and once somewhere else (last year it was Seattle). I am not a doctor, but my job is critical for what we do. If I am late, people panic. I have never arranged a flight that was returning to Hawaii on the day I started a shift. That would be irresponsible, like flipping the bird to my boss and the person who would have to be called in on their day off to take my shift.
Guess it’s different for doctors.
Dao may have been treated poorly, maybe even illegally, but this “I have to see my patients!” is no excuse. If it was a life or death, enterprise-critical application, he should have paid for a better seat.
FYI, think of the stink eye whoever took his seat got from the other passengers.
MP, the alternative flight offered was 24 hours later. It is not that he needed to be at work on Sunday (the day of the incident) he needed to be at work on Monday, but the alternative offered meant he would not be able to work until Tuesday.
MP, my take is that most doctors, except for those doing research like at Mayo, don’t travel much, and hence they simply expect things to work out well. And for that matter, while I travel a bit with my company, I also know they don’t spring for anything but coach for me if they can avoid it, and I also generally don’t get a slack day to make sure I can get there in time.
You’ve got a nice situation, but it’s simply not what most people get. Which is why it matters how the airlines treat us–we can, indeed, lose our jobs if we really get hosed by an airline.