to Untied airlines- a serious question: where in the HELL did any of you clowns get the idea

[niyad]

that throwing off boarded, seated, paying passengers ever was a good pr decision? and doing it for non-paying untied employees? and that defending that insane policy was also good pr? did ANY of you clowns take a basic pr course? a basic course in humanity, even?

[ProfessorPlum]

1. don't forget enforcing that insane policy with public servant goons who will use physical force

to drag people off the plane ...

[niyad]

5. you are correct. that must be part of it.

[n2doc]

2. They believe their own autocratic BS

Since 9/11 the airlines have fostered an "us against the world' attitude among crew and other workers. People are treated as the enemy, and any accommodation is seen as a failure to control costs. With this as the governing philosophy, it was only a matter of time before a PR disaster happened.

My hope is that the other airlines see this and change their ways before it happens to them. Some seem to be.

[DefenseLawyer]

3. There are so few direct flights and essentially no competition

It's not "Make the costumer happy or she will fly with someone else" It's more like "What are you going to do, buddy? Take the bus? That's what I thought. Now sit down and shut up."

[niyad]

6. nyt article on the airline cartels

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10028945006

[randome]

4. Delta and American airlines had similar policies and they've made changes because of this, too.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Nevernose]

7. They weren't exactly "non paying"

United was trying to get out of paying them overtime for spending the night. If they just paid their employees, none of this would have happened. United gets what it deserves, I guess.

[WillowTree]

11. Not really.

That crew had a flight out of Louisville the next morning and that was the last flight they had that would get them there in time for them to clock out and have sufficient time to get in the mandated rest break time before that flight.

There were at least a couple of other viable ways to accomplish that rather than removing a paying passenger, but just paying that crew overtime isn't one of them.

[Hamlette]

8. I am not defending United, but airfare has gotten more competitive

When I was a kid (young adult) flying on commercial airlines was prohibitively expensive. We bought tickets to spend the summer with my parents in Scotland from a charter airline which went bankrupt a week before we were to leave. We could not have afforded it otherwise.

Since then, cheap tickets can be had.

What happened here was outrageous, but let's not lose sight of what it is all about. This is one of my favorite Louis CK clips, starting at about 3:55 into this clip on Conan:

[gordianot]

9. I chalk it up to the same rationale electing Donald Trump.

For those who participate these activities and you are acting out this disaster a hidden part of brain knows what is coming even when in full denial. No one wants to hear the excuses when it blows up.

[DK504]

10. The airlines are responsible for getting their

flight attendants to their beginning leg of their trips. It was up to the airline to get them to Kentucky.

This is obviously all in their laps, 'cause they're stupid. they are also completely irresponsible and cheap for not getting the flight attendants t Louisville the day before and pay their hotel costs.

[IronLionZion]

12. Call their institutional investors and tell them to dump UAL stock

Their stock price hasn't suffered. They are trading less than 10 points of their 52 week high. As some retail investors sold in protest, others bought the dip knowing the price would recover and it did.

And most normal people buy the cheapest ticket to whatever our destination is regardless of airline. With major hubs in Chicago and Houston, Newark, Denver, LA, San Francisco, they are often the cheapest direct flight. I flew them recently before this happened.

For them to suffer, they would have to lose business travelers and long time loyalty club members and for people to sell their stock. Mutual funds and large institutional investors would have to dump their stock from retirement plans. They are part of the S&P 500 so anyone who owns a 500 fund in their 401K or pension is invested in this.

UAL Biggest Institutional Investors:

Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett)
Vanguard
Primecap
JP Morgan Chase
State Street (defiant girl statue in front of wall street bull)
Black Rock
T. Rowe Price

One of those major investors above is supposedly on our side. He has a lot of influence.

Another one is supposedly feminist and feminists are supposedly against violence.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

13. They've watched too many cops literally get away with murder.

And corporations be granted power and preference over individuals time and time again.

I'm not surprised at all they didn't question getting away with it.

[cstanleytech]

14. I kind of doubt that they wanted to remove people niyad but it simply came down to the numbers and

the numbers probably told them that a handful of paying customers being pissed off was better than an entire plane full if the other plane could not leave due to a lack of flight crew.

[christx30]

15. That's what I was thinking too.

It was a crappy thing United did, but it was the best of the bad options, at least, to them. They tried being cheap by not taking the crew to the destination the day before and paying for the hotel night. But, yeah, they treated this guy like crap, and they deserve anything they get in response to it.

[Demsrule86]

18. Bull shit...they get paid for seats when people cancel...they can stop overbooking and use computers

to make sure employees are where they need to be...could have driven there in less than two hours.

[LiberalLovinLug]

16. The way the police handled it was brutal as well

The police, even airport police, have been emboldened and militarized and now feel justified in using military like tactics when dealing with the public. No more Mr. Nice Guy. When you combine that with what was a more stubborn personality like David Dao we have a problem. Most people, especially upon seeing the police come on board, would at that time most likely comply. It was the combination of these factors that caused the problem.

What I don't understand is why it was not announced that he is a doctor and needed to get to his clinic to see patients, and excluded him from the lottery for a re-do. Also, I heard they offered $400, then $800 for anyone who would leave and there was no takers. Really? wow, and it was a relatively short flight. I would have piped up, make it a grand and I'll leave.

[JHB]

17. It's possible they never actually got that idea, but set policies that led to it...

Nobody was willing to give up a seat on a Sunday evening flight for $800 in vouchers. What a surprise! People who don't fly often have no use for them, and frequent flyers know they usually come with restrictions that make them a pain to use. Going higher and switching to cash would likely have done it, but apparently no one on hand was authorized to do so in order to, in essence, buy back a ticket in a seller's market.

Someone (**cough** MBA beancounters **cough**) put a cap on what could be offered, and it wasn't enough.

Someone also set the policy that the next step was involuntary "re-accomadation", using the prospect of legal consequences to intimidate people into conceding. That apparently worked for 3 people.

When it didn't work for the last, the people on-site apparently had to follow yet another policy, to treat the refusing person as an "unruly passenger", and have them forcibly ejected from the plane. Never mind that the policy is supposed to be for drunken idiots, rage-aholics, and other people who could pose an actual danger to the other passengers.

And thus, we likely have yet another case of top-down inflexibility causing a disaster because policy setters only saw the bottom line, not any of the warning signs until they ran into one face-first.